2009 Vendy Award Finalists Announced!
The finalists for the 2009 Vendy Awards have been announced, and Midtown Lunchers should recognize at least 3 out of 5 of the nominees! (I can’t get too excited because I’m a judge this year, and have to be completely impartial. But that doesn’t mean you can’t jump up and down, and do a dance…) It looks like the Biryani Cart (on 46th & 6th) will get another chance to take home the top prize (last year they won People’s Choice), King of Falafel “Freddie Zeidaies” will represent Queens, Rickshaw Dumpling Truck has got the hipster trucks covered this year, Jamaican Dutchy (on 51st and 7th) makes their first appearance, and the Country Boys/Martinez Taco Truck will be doing the Red Hook Ball Field vendors proud (last year Rafael Soler got to show off his fantastic pupusas.)
For those who are unfamiliar with the Vendy Awards, it’s pretty much the Oscars of the street food world. It’s put on by the Street Vendor Project, a non profit organization that advocates for vendors, and each year features 5 nominated vendors in a street food cookoff! There also is the newly added dessert category (in its second year), which lets vendors like the Dessert Truck and Treats Truck (last year’s People’s Choice Award) show off their wares. Ticket price includes plates of food from all the vendors, and all the proceeds from the event go to benefit the SVP. Judges pick the winners, but attendees get to vote for their favorites- with the winners receiving the coveted “People’s Choice Award”.
Each of this year’s nominated vendors has their own special video. Check out the Midtown ones, and more about the event, after the jump…
You can view all the videos, read about all the nominees, plus buy tickets for the event on the official Vendy Awards Website. (But it will definitely sell out so don’t wait until the last minute.) Plus there are still more announcements to come… including the Dessert Nominees, new judges, and more. Follow their Twitter account to be the first to know.
Congrats to all this year’s nominees!
Posted by Zach Brooks at 8:44 am, August 16th, 2009 under Vendy Awards.
42 Comments | RSS comments feed for this post
42 Comments
-
Could be a scam, or it could be that the dude has a lot of friends and asked them all to go onto the intarwebs and vote for him. Or maybe the dude is handy with programming and wrote a web bot to constantly vote for him.
-
Odd, I thought Anita did well on TC:M. She did well enough to make the final 4…
-
“Russian software guy” who “analyzes the data”.
Sean threw a softball there. Can’t wait to see some of these replies (wayne, where are you, you’re quiet today).
-
Stevenp, ever seen American Idol? “unworthy” contestants get pretty far due to “popularity” all the time. Popularity doesn’t get them the prize though (though last season where the underdog won over the guy who had more talent may say the opposite). Talent usually does win out. ( though I would admit that the initial pool of “talent” is very likely influenced by the producers of the show, I just don’t see the SVP being orchestrated enough or would care enough in this case. )
In the end, the nominations were just a popularity contest. It’s not like the Vendy Knights scoured the kingdom for the most worthy of contestants, only to have the some evil stepmother’s favorite peddler hand picked to participate while the protagonists of your favorite carts are forced by the wayside (“clean the grill cinderelly”, “make the whitesauce cinderelly”).
I doubt there’s a conspiracy (“don’t attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity”), and I doubt the system is rigged (though I have written my fair share of voting bots).
“you might not believe it but there are lots of people in the city”
Did you guys ever notice that ‘snark’ seems to be the prevailing tone among PR people in this city? Thanks for bringing that unique dialect here, Dan. Just what ML was missing.
I love the ‘non-response to a question that also carries an insult.’ That shows up in more PR responses than not. Nicely done, Dan. ML readers the most enthusiastic cart consumers out there. Tell us again how stupid we are? Care to alienate some more of some of the biggest cart eaters out there?
I’ll be blunt: Hey, Dan, did you know there’s more places to discuss food than Midtown Lunch? And guess what? They all think Rickshaw Dumplings sucks, too.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/rickshaw-dumpling-truck-new-york
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/596338
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/583261
Vendy Award. Double Blah.
(BTW, I actually like them more than most seem to. But they still are just not very good.)