116th Street Festival and the Big Apple Barbeque Block Party June 7, 2014

I am in love with Puerto Rico, despite having only been to the San Juan area. Three times! And despite having been in New York for 11 years, I have never been to the Puerto Rican Day Parade. Yeh, I still haven't been. I went to Govenor's Ball on Friday and was dead tired on Saturday. I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything as strenuous as standing to watch a parade go by and fight to get between barricades and scream as floats go by and I found out that there would be no food. Fail. I needed some mofongo like a sunburn needs aloe vera.
So I did some light research and found out that the day before that is the 116th street festival which is really a street fair and food would be there. I opted for that experience. I took the 4 train to the 6 and got off at 116th Street. Then I needed a Capital One bank so I could buy a big ass piña colada. I had to walk 5 blocks down and across and back up only to find out they were selling the piña coladas in the pineapple for $20. WTH? No thank you said my money and I instead bought a watered down, no coconut milk included cousin to a piña colada piña colada. Disappointed I turned to food and was rewarded with a Canoas. Yum yum yum!

These dancers were great but more experimental and not traditional at all.

 

Street baricades

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 Later I moved on to the Big Apple Barbeque Block Party at Madison Square Park. From my research on Chow.com the best way to approach this is to get in line for the out of town BBQ spots, which makes sense. Why stand in line for something you can get any old day? I got there late but there was a band performing country tunes and people laying on the grass and people buying and drinking beer but there were only a few places that were still serving food -most were closed and you could see them cleaning up after themselves. Apparently they move on to another town the next day. Dinosaur BBQ was still serving but I am not a fan so I skipped the everlasting line.

                                                           
                                                            Man putting rub on pig

                                                             

A half pig being grilled. First time sight for me.

 

 Welcome sign

 

People lined up for finger lickin' BBQ

 

And that was the end of a Saturday well spent!Sunday I recovered and watched the Puerto Rican Day parade on TV.