Not the typical festival food at Escape to New York

What would a music festival be without its food vendors? Pretty boring, said Sara Klepadlo, who was working at the Rickshaw Dumpling truck at the Escape to New York music festival.

“If this whole place was a band, we’d be the drummers,” she said. “We hold everything together.”

The three-day event, being held at the Shinnecock Reservation in Southampton through Sunday, was touted by organizers as an “experiential” festival and the food choices were no exception.

Take typical festival fare - pizza, hot dogs, burgers, ice cream - and then amp it up: Pizza Moto was rolling out fresh dough for personal margherita-style pies cooked in its mobile pizza oven; a Van Leeuwen gourmet ice cream truck was dishing out flavors like ginger, earl green tea, and palm sugar; Asiadog, a popular food vendor in New York City, was serving its signature hot dogs with fresh, Asian-inspired toppings like kimchi, Japanese curry and sesame slaw.

Rickshaw Dumplings, which has four food trucks and two storefronts in New York City, was selling four types of dumplings, including an Asian-inspired edamame dumpling, the company’s twist for the “hip, young, vegeterians,” Klepadlo said.

There’s also Luke’s, a Maine-based seafood vendor, serving lobster, crab and shrimp rolls; and plenty of Native-American fare - including frybread, a signature dish of fried dough topped with chili - sold at booths manned by the Shinnecock tribe and Sly Fox Den, a vendor selling food from the Cape-Cod based Wampanoag tribe.

Frankie Hutchinson, an Asiadog employee, said the music is just one part of a big festival like Escape to New York, and the food stands play an important role.

“It brings people together,” she said. “It helps them socialize.”

Lauren Roth, 29, of Astoria, said she came to the festival with a friend because she wanted to see headliner Patti Smith - but “so far, this is the most excited I’ve been,” she said as she perused the food stands.

She said took a few laps to see what her options were before settling on a lobster roll from Luke’s.

“It’s all amazing and unique,” she said, referring to Van Leeuwens as ice cream “haute couture.” “They rip on the typical stuff.”

Erin Oshan, 34, of Melville, is no stranger to music festivals. Most recently she attended the Dave Matthews Band Caravan in New Jersey, and she said the food options at Escape to New York were much better than at most festivals.

 

She compared it to food shopping in a gourmet market versus a grocery store.

 

"It's like shopping at Wild by Nature," she said, as she tried her first Asiadog. "It's upscale, it's organic, it's fresh. There are definitely good choices."