Famous Food Fest returns to Tanger Deer Park

Lace up your walking shoes for a gastrointestinal marathon that’ll take your taste buds from Mexico to Italy to Thailand right here on Long Island, with the return of the Famous Food Festival in Deer Park. This year’s incarnation of the popular fest features more than 100 food, art and beverage vendors and takes place July 12-14 at Tanger Outlets.

New vendors include NYC-based fast casual spot Vegan on the Fly, which offers a classic comfort food menu, only it's all vegan — empanadas, chopped cheese and hot “chicken” sandwiches, gyros, drumsticks, a plant-based take on wings. Dilly Dilly Donuts, which started in Florida, sells mini doughnuts smothered in sugary glazes with candy, cereal and cookie toppings that kids will love.

Mark Lee, founder of new festival vendor Rokstar Chicken — in which the ROK stands for Republic of Korea — said it's “truly humbling” how many customers have traveled from Long Island to try his chicken at his Douglaston location. Another first-timer also from Queens, Chris DeCaterina will sell a selection of acai bowls with his business, Good Mood Bowls.

Returning vendors include Dough Boyz Pizza, Island Spice Grill serving jerk chicken and oxtail shrimp, and market favorite Tashana’s Kitchen offering mac-and-cheese “cupcakes” with a choice of toppings like pulled pork, buffalo chicken and seafood. Ecuadorian La Braza will serve meat skewers and arepas; The Little Sicilian will offer assorted arancini, or rice balls, Hangrydog will serve Korean corn dogs, while Oyster Party is back with a selection of oysters and lobster rolls. Returning dessert options range from churros from The Churro Chick to zeppoles from Emily’s Apple Puffs to brownie sundaes, cake pops, milkshakes and cupcakes from Sweet Love Company.

Food festival strategies are always hard to master, so after careful scouring of the vendor menus — and there are plenty this year — here is a plan of attack, leaving room for many additions along the way:

EMPA[NAH]DAS: With varieties like jerk chicken, chopped cheese, Philly cheesesteak, BBQ pulled jackfruit, mac and yams, and apple pie, these South American handhelds have a trendy twist.

Grilled Polish Kielbasa: From a straight-up Polish sausage to a version including chopped kielbasa, taco kielbasa, this roving brand turns up at festivals, as well as many of Long Island’s farms, breweries and wineries.

Mao’s Bao: Found inside Chelsea Market’s Pearl River Mart, at Brooklyn’s Smorgasburg, and the Upper West Side’s Grand Bazaar, this vendor offers pan fried buns, or jianbao, in pork, beef, chicken, lamb and Impossibao varieties.

Cousins Maine Lobster: The truck, which has locations throughout the state of New York, serves all things lobster from rolls (hot and cold) to bisque to tacos to quesadillas to lobster grilled cheese to lobster tail and tots. Suggestion: Hit this one up early; lines will be long.

Dumplings N Dips: The Lower East Side spot serves dumplings filled with favorite Thai dishes — chicken pad thai dumplings, pork basil dumplings, shrimp tom yum dumplings, vegan massaman curry dumplings, mango sticky rice dumplings. Whatever you choose, there is no wrong answer.

The Pasta Truck: Taking a break from New Jersey for the weekend, this Italian-themed offering excels in fried ravioli, pastas like rigatoni and penne in marinara and Alfredo sauces, ravioli with lobster sauce, and of course, cannoli.

Sam’s Fried Ice Cream: Ever had fried ice cream? Try Sam’s, which will feature five varieties of a cereal or cookie-coated ice cream flavor of your choice, topped with syrups, powders, candies and sprinkles.

Four Treats: Though this vendor has more than four sweet Filipino recipes in their repertoire, the four they are serving at Famous Food Fest are ube cake flan, ube macapuno cake roll, cassava cake and pandan, strawberry and Oreo cake rolls.

Tntpineapple: All those people carrying a pineapple full of stuff? They got it here. Aloha.

Familiar food festival snacks like tacos, pizza, chicken fingers, sliders of all kinds, Bavarian pretzels and fries will also be available from other vendors.

Patrons over 21 years old can sample wines from Baiting Hollow Farm Vineyard, unique craft cocktails from Life On The Rocks, or alcohol-infused ice cream and sorbet from Swizzled Desserts. Tapville Social will showcase its interactive mobile taproom, featuring a self-pour experience of 16 taps of craft beer, wine and cider.

Set to the background din of live music, the fest isn’t only about food. There’s rock climbing, axe throwing, a mechanical bull, bumper cars, mini golf, psychic readings, as well as a kids area featuring face painting, henna tattoos and rides, and of course, a photo booth.

By Marie Elena Martinez

marieelena.martinez@newsday.com@mariesworlds

A global freelancer who has checked her suitcase to raise her young daughter on her native Long Island, Marie Elena will always make time for good mezcal, even better tacos and killer conversation. Preferably, in a corner bar seat. She can be found on Instagram at @mariesworldeats.