Friday Food-NYC Food Events for the Weekend

From Serious Eats NY by Tam Ngo, October 30, 2008

Photograph by Tam

Brewtopia: the Great World Beer Festival
Friday, October 31, 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Saturday, November 1, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Taste 2-ounce samples from over 100 breweries at New York’s longest running beer festival. Rabblerouse to live bands like Captain Ahab and the Sea Crackens. Tickets are $59/person, restricted to 21+ adults. (Note, the festival runs in three separate sessions.) Pier 92 (52nd Street at 12th Avenue), event website

32nd Annual Village Halloween Costume Ball
Friday, October 31, 3:30 p.m. to 12 a.m.
Shake your moneymaker at the 32nd Annual Village Halloween Costume Ball, featuring jazz bands, fire eaters, stilt dancers. Enjoy a buffet catered by East Village chefs, couscous out of a coffin, and cabaret shows. Over 450 sculptors, painters, scenic designers, and volunteers have transformed 30,000 square feet of multi-level space into a series of Halloween environments. Attendees in costume will be judged in such categories as “Most Mortgage-Defaulted,” “Most Severance-Paid Banker,” “Nastiest Soccer Mom,” “Most Botoxed,” “Most Deregulated,” and “Most Born-Again, and Again, and Again.” Costume or formal-wear required. Tickets are $20/person. Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue; East Village (bn. 9th and 10th Streets); 212.254.1109 event website

Swalloweenie
Friday, October 31, 8 p.m. onward
Bob for hot dogs and wash it down with blood-red beer. Barbeque and pumpkin ale are also provided. Compete in a costume party featuring such categories as “Most Gory” and “Best Look-Alike.” Free. Stain Bar, 766 Grand Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (nr. Humboldt Street); 718.387.7840 event website

El Día de los Muertos/Day of the Dead Celebration
Sunday, November 2, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Enjoy El Día de los Muertos as part of QMA’s First Sundays for Families. Explore Mesoamerican traditions and taste guagua de pan (a sweet bread shaped like babies) and cola morada (a drink made from berries, spices, and oatmeal). See dance performances by Ballet Folklorico Nueva Juventud and Ballet Folklorico Infantil Telpochtli. For the Day of the Dead, memories of deceased loved ones are honored by altars bearing their favorite foods, personal effects, and mementos. Participating artists will help you make your own artistic altars for communal display. Queens Museum of Art, Flushing Meadows Corona Park; Queens; 718.592.9700; event website

Street Fairs
Saturday, November 1
West 4th Street between Washington Square East to Lafayette; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Madison Avenue between 42nd and 57th Streets; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday, November 2
6th Avenue between 34th and 42nd Streets; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Broadway between 17th and 23rd Streets; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.