Street fairs and green foods generally keep a respectful distance. This pepino loco ($10) is a rare exception, though the namesake "crazy cucumber" is so well-doused by bright red chamoy, a Mexican salty-sour-spicy-sweet sauce, that little green can be seen.
More maddening than the messy sauce, which also stains slivers of mango and jicama and a small fistful of peanuts, is that the cucumber is still in one piece. The upright wedges, and the peels that drape over the rim of the cup, are still firmly connected deep down under the surface of the accumulated chamoy. Your only tools to free them are an oversized toothpick, a flimsy plastic fork — and your teeth. Go that route, and things really get crazy.
For a pepino loco on a non-festival day, visit Nieves Tia Mimi. For more photos, see the EIT page on Facebook.
Sunset Park Fifth Avenue Street Festival
Fifth Ave. between 44th and 59th Sts., Sunset Park, Brooklyn
www.Facebook.com/SunsetParkBID/photos/pcb.883171218403482/883170211736916
(The 2015 festival was held on September 20)
