It was a dream come chew!
Slopers chowed down on the finest eats from a bevy of Fifth Avenue restaurants at a Tuesday feast that packed more than 40 vendors beneath the gilded roof of the resplendent Grand Prospect Hall.
The annual Taste of Fifth event served up plenty of familiar flavors while also exposing foodies to some of the neighborhood’s latest arrivals, according to an attendee.
“I saw a lot of people’s eyes opened to new places that are out there,” said Mike Pruitt, who manages the local branch of office supplier Staples on Fourth Avenue.
Some 560 residents paid up to $65 to attend the all-you-can-eat — and drink — tasting event organized by Park Slope’s commerce-boosting Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District, which donated more than $11,000 from ticket sales to local organizations including The Old Stone House museum and the Brooklyn Community Pride Center.
Several first-timers joined the dozens of returning restaurants at the mouth-watering bash, including Caribbean eatery Negril BK, seafood-slinger Shaking Crab, and Korean kitchen The Haenyeo — which made its neighborhood debut at the food fest, ahead of the planned summer opening of its brick-and-mortar location, according to the business-improvement district’s director Mark Caserta.
Organizers also treated attendees to entertainment in the form of a flash mob’s performance to Elvis Presley’s hit “All Shook Up” — for which Caserta came dressed as The King — and acts by students from local dance studio Spoke the Hub.
And the performers’ movements weren’t just a spectacle — they also reminded ticket holders how to make room in their bellies for one last bite, according to Pruitt.
“You have to keep moving, or else the food starts to settle,” he said. “You don’t sit down!”
