COLUMBIA WATERFRONT DISTRICT — Leave your grilled cheese at home.
Three Brooklyn chefs are competing in the third annual grilled sandwich contest at the Amazing Garden, a community garden located at Carroll and Columbia Streets.
With a $100 budget, the chefs, from Nightingale 9, Dassara and Iris Café, must cook-up a non-vegetarian and a vegetarian option for hungry diners who will be voting for the best snack at the garden on Sept. 7 at 3:00 p.m.
Morgan Jarrett, a sous chef at Nightingale 9, will be creating the “bun cha burger,” a Vietnamese pork burger with pickled papaya and carrots, bib lettuce and chili mayonnaise.
The burger is “a more playful” version of a similar dish served at the restaurant, said Jarrett, who also works at Seersucker and Smith Canteen, which are both owned by the same restaurateurs.
For $15, attendees can sample six sandwiches and choose their favorites with beverages from the Brooklyn Farmacy and live music from “The Dad Beats.”
Funds raised from the contest will benefit the garden and go towards “capital improvements,” said Ilya Marritz, one of the contest’s organizers.
In previous years, the money was used to build a brick wall surrounding the garden, said Marritz. This year, they hope to replace an old wooden compost system in the garden, he said.
Each chef will be creating their own specialty sandwich, including Iris Café’s blackened hake burger with oyster mayonnaise and pickled cabbage.
Smith Street’s ramen stop Dassara will have a red braised pork belly with mornay sauce, broccoli rabe and salted chili.
And this is hardly an all-meat fest – vegetarians can feast on a black-eyed pea sandwich with roasted tomato pesto and crispy Vidalia onions, beet and cheddar with pickled cabbage and a sandwich with mornay sauce, broccoli rabe and salted chili.
