2009 Vendy Awards

Celebrating the best in local street food outside the Queens Museum of Art

Word on the street: Mobile chowhounds celebrated the best in local street food Saturday at the the annual Vendy Awards, which took place outside the Queens Museum of Art in Corona Park. If you've eaten a crack sauce-slathered quesadilla at the new Calexico Carne Asada taqueria in Brooklyn or stood in a long lunchtime wurst line at Midtown's Halo Berlin cart, you have the Vendy Awards to thank (they're former winners).

This year's Vendys offered a chance for gastronomes to gorge on some of the city's premier food carts all in one place (no more trekking to Red Hook for those killer huaraches!). The diverse selection ranged from Jamaican to Asian dumplings to Belgian waffles. Surprise, surprise: The top prize went to Red Hook ballfield taco stand Country Boys, owned by hubby-and-wife duo Fernando and Yolanda Martinez, while the Grey Poupon People’s Taste Award (aka the audience award) went to Meru Sikder's Biryani Cart. As for the rest of the winners, Wafels & Dinges took home best dessert, while Schnitzel & Things won for Rookie Vendor of the Year.

Photos by Vanessa Bahmani