Czech Independence Day Street Festival

Yipes, tripes!

You'll look long before you spot any greens at the Upper East Side's annual Czech street festival; the only vegetables you're likely to come across are potatoes (as in pancakes), cabbage (snuggled up with a kielbasa), or carrots (and, just maybe, traces of celery) in this very good tripe soup ($5) from Linden, New Jersey's Bratek Deli. The featured items themselves were admirably al dente.

Langoše (as in "land o' Goshen"; $7) also takes the labels "garlic fry bread" and even "Slovak pizza." One table at the festival prepared nothing but these slabs of deep-fried dough that are drizzled with garlic oil, then slathered with ketchup and tartar sauce and covered in grated cheese. (Does ketchup still count as a vegetable?) Best when freshly fried.

Kielbasa and their kin simply taste better when grilled outdoors, as at this stand (from an earlier edition of the festival) run by the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden. Though the suds are restricted to their restaurant, that T-shirt's advice applies to street-fair sausage, too: "Czech yourself before you wreck yo'self."

I've never managed to dine in Zlata Praha's small backyard garden in Astoria, but each October they manage to export a surprisingly large portion of their menu (and the appropriate kitchen facilities) to East 83rd St. These knedlicky (with a silent "k"; three for $5), plum-filled dumplings sitting in butter, sided with sour cream, and topped with cinnamon sugar, are also the subject of a speed-eating contest toward the end of the festival, though I don't see why anyone would hurry them down, or how they could.

Also shown below: fixings for a kielbasa sandwich; bramboráky, or potato pancakes; open-faced egg sandwiches; and a koláče (co-Lah-cheh) topped with cheese, poppyseeds, and prune.

Czech Independence Day Street Festival
83rd St. between Madison and Park Aves.
First Saturday in October