The best and worst from MLB’s 30-team food taste test
Dinner at Eleven Madison, the best restaurant in the world, lasts a little over two hours, costs $315 per person, and encompasses somewhere between eight and 10 courses.
Major League Baseball’s inaugural FoodFest, which took place 20 blocks uptown from Eleven Madison over the weekend, lasted for exactly two hours, cost $25 per person ($40 if you also wanted beer), and featured a signature dish from every single MLB ballpark.
I ate all 30 offerings in 43 minutes and 56 seconds.
From a surprisingly solid NY Deli Pastrami Sandwich from the Mets to a shockingly bland Chicken Waffle Cone from the Astros and tangy Toasted Grasshoppers courtesy of the Mariners, the food festival had everything a fan could desire. And everyone who bought a ticket to the sold-out event got a two-hour window to travel from booth to booth eating everything on the menu.
As the second man through the door during a VIP pre-event tasting on Friday night, I didn’t need that much time. I also didn’t need my years of experience working as a line cook in high-end restaurants in Colorado and California to figure out what was good and what was truly awful.
That being said, I had an assignment to do, so I put my well-trained eye and palate to the test and judged every single dish on factors like presentation, ease of eating, and, most importantly, deliciousness.
I also gave extra credit to dishes that found the perfect balance between lip-smacking greasiness, a must for ballpark food, and my will to live. Because gut bombs that make you feel like death make it harder to devour more delicious treats.