Munchmobile Hot Dog Showdown & BeerFest

First off I would like to introduce myself. My name is Jason and I'm a foodie. I've been eating for about 25 years and I feel like I'm getting pretty good at it. I more recently started cooking food and that too I am pretty good at. I enjoy the food I make, so I guess I can say I am really good at it. I even started writing my own food blog, which I have to admit that I took a little break for a month or so but am back in action.

So I am here to talk about food. Whether it's a food festival, new restaurant or even recipes made with local ingredients, food is what I like, so that is what I will talk about.

This past weekend I attended the Monmouth Park Munchmobile Hot Dog Showdown and BeerFest. Just looking at the name of this festival makes me drool. Let's break this down a bit. First off it was at Monmouth Park, which is "The Shore's Greatest Stretch" and is close to me, so +1 for that. Then comes munchmobile. I'm not really sure what that is but it sounds like a car/truck/automobile of sorts that sells foods. Some of my favorite kind of food is street food like this. You get to walk around with it and eat with your hands, add another +1 for that. Third comes the Hotdog Showdown. Hotdog, automatic +1. Having a showdown means competition, and not even me competing, them competing to serve me the best they have, +1. Last is Beerfest. 'Nuff said. I think that brings me up to 300 points in the favor that this is going to be a good festival.

Now onto the actual festival. There were 5 hot dog vendors competing. I'm not sure if there were official judges but there was a people choice for hot dogs and hamburgers, which anyone could vote for. Each vendor sold hot dogs and some had hamburgers, Italian sausage, french fries, chicken fingers... If you wanted to try all of the food it would get pricey. I bought the smaller sizes of the hots dogs from Jersey Johnny's Grill, Wally's Hot Diggity Dogs and an Italian hot dog from Charlie's Hot Dogs. Yes it was a lot, but I had to do it in the name of fair judging. I decided not to get a Windmill hot dog because I know how awesome they already are. The Italian hot dog from Charlie's was one of my favorites that I had there, but it just couldn't beat out Windmill.

After that, actually before I got the hot dog from Charlie's, I went into the BeerFest section. It cost $10 to get in and you get a bracelet to prove you are over 21, a Monmouth Park shot glass and 10 tickets. Inside there were about 13 breweries. The site says 15 but I only counted 13, and each brewery had 2 - 3 styles of beer. Each ticket you have gets you a shot glass full of any beer you want. I tried to diversify my tastings and even hold off on the familiar beers, so I could try the ones I never had before. But I did finish off with Yeungling Lager, so I knew I wouldn't finish off the BeerFest on a bad note. Out of all of the ones I tried, my favorite was Leinenkugel's Berry Weiss. Weird, because I don't usually like wheat beers, but the fruitiness really made it tasty. I plan on picking a 6-pack up from the Evil Clown liquor store next time I am near there.

There wasn't much else to the festival besides hot dogs and beer. You could go to the track and bet on some ponies, but I was too stuffed for that.