Rocking out in my favourite type of garden

When you think of green spaces in New York, Central Park is usually the first place that springs to mind.  And that's fair enough, really.  But New York is actually teeming with all manner of green spaces that soften up this concrete jungle.  From riverside promenades, to dog parks, to neighbourhood oases with public benches and basketball courts, New York can meet all your needs.

And it's not just the permanent green spaces that make our lives more pleasurable here.  From time to time, gardens will simply pop-up in New York to add some colour and comfort to your life.  Case in point, tonight's destination: the Brooklyn Brewery Pop-Up Beer Garden, held on the space usually occupied by the ice rink at Rockefeller Plaza.

Now "The Rock" is one of those congested tourist attractions that locals will usually do their best to avoid.  There are a number of notable exceptions to this of course: it's Christmas and we want to see the tree lights; or we've got visitors in town who want to visit Top of the Rock; or when we have tickets to one of the great NBC shows that tape on-site.

And the fourth exception is what brought me here tonight - the 2014 Summer Garden & Bar Season, a genius annual event that definitely draws the locals back to this New York City icon. 

The premise behind tonight's event was really "to taste limited-edition, large format, and exclusive brews with beer-friendly dishes" prepared by Antonio Prontelli, who has been the Executive Chef at The Rock Center Cafe since 2002.  You can read a great interview with the Chef here.

Tonight's event also provided the perfect platform for New Yorkers to continue celebrating Brewmaster Garrett Oliver who, in his 20th year with Brooklyn Brewery won the 2014 James Beard Foundation Award for Excellence in the category of "Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional".   The guys who were pouring beers tonight were very proud of Oliver and his achievements, which was really nice to hear.

For the sheer volume and diversity of food and beverages on offer, tonight's event gave me flashbacks to the Rioja tasting that I did in Brooklyn a few weekends ago.  But where that event was pretty much a full afternoon gorge-fest, this was a smaller-scale, walk-around tasting that didn't make me feel too stuffed at the end.  Hard to believe though, when you consider the menu:

• Cuban chicken sandwich - with shaved chicken, parma cotta, swiss cheese, home-made pickles and sundried tomato mustard, served with Local 1 beer.
• Housemade lamb sausage & summer squash "kebabs" with yoghurt sauce, served with Brooklyn BLAST! beer.
• BBQ-spiced salmon sliders, served with Brooklyn Greenmarket Wheat beer.
• Tomato-watermelon salad with feta cheese and pickled onions, served with the seasonal Brooklyn Summer Ale.
• Steak Salad with green papaya slaw, serrano chili vinaigrette, and avocado cream, served with a Brooklyn Sorachi Ace beer.
• For dessert (if we'd had room), milk chocolate and peanut butter bar with strawberry rhubarb jam, washed down with a dark, rich and velvety Cuvee Noire.

Let's be fair, I didn't get to try all the food and beer on offer tonight - the lines were just too long.  But I have to say, it was really nice to sit up at the Rink Bar afterwards and enjoy our bonus full-sized pint of Brooklyn Beer as a celebration at the end of the event.  I enjoyed just kicking back at the bar afterwards and have a cold drink with no crowds or queues or anything.

Whether or not you get to have food & drinks like this, I think it's definitely worth visiting Rockefeller Center during Summer Garden & Bar Season this year.  Celebrations kicked off on Mother's Day (May 11) and will continue through the season.  It's definitely something for visitors and locals to enjoy!