Block 40 Food Hall just opened up in Downtown Hollywood. Their grand opening was on Friday, June 7th. Block 40 is also from the same owners of Sistrunk Marketplace in Fort Lauderdale. We found parking on the street and paid for parking with the ParkMobile app.
The new Food Hall is located in a historic building located across from ArtsPark and Hollywood Hot Glass. They only have a banner sign at each of the main entrances, but no official signage as of yet. You might miss it if you don't look hard enough, the banner is small.
The space is cool with high ceilings and an industrial vibe. They have a cool area with a few movie theater style seating with a huge screen upon one of thentrance . There's plenty of seating indoors and on the patio. Love the games and activities like giant Jenga, giant Connect 4, arcades games, darts. Great for kids.
There's probably about 10 food vendors ranging from Italian, Mexican, Asian, Indian, seafood, burgers, ice cream, donuts, hot chicken/wings and Philly cheesesteaks.
We had friends in town and our kids in our group. We wanted to try a variety of foods. This is what we ordered:
* Dalmoro's Fresh Pasta to Go: fusilli with "Like Butter" sauce, side of meatballs, rigatoni with Cacio e Pepe and chopped bacon, tiramisu.
* Hangry Joe's Hot Chicken & Wings: medium spice level wings, Korean bbq chicken nuggets with soy garlic.
* Catch Seafood Market: build your own poké bowl.
* PhastBreak CheeseSteak: supreme cheesesteak.
Our top favorites were hands down the super fresh pasta from Dalmoro's. You can taste the freshness of the pasta in that first bite. They make the pasta fresh at the counter. Great selling point. We knew right away we wanted pasta the moment we walked in. The tiramisu was a good size for a sweet treat and so yummy. Creamy and delicious. Hit the spot and great way to end our food experience.
Hangry Joe's Hot Chicken & Wings was "Winner, winner, chicken dinner!" The wings were ridiculously juicy, even though the medium was still spicy and I'm a hardcore spicy food lover. We couldn't stop eating it though because it was that good. The Korean bbq nuggets were so tasty and still crispy with the sauce coating it. Yummm! Both vendors were clear winners.
Unfortunately, we weren't impressed with the poké bowl from Catch Seafood Market. We love a good poké bowl and this one missed the mark for us personally. For $22 after tips, we didn't get much tuna and salmon for the price point. Also felt like they skimped on the other ingredients too. The edamame didn't look or taste fresh, you can see it on the edamame skin. Mango needed to be a tad more ripe, it was not sweet at all and way too firm. Cilantro was chopped and we got a sprinkle of it. Cilantro makes the bowl too. Our group thought the fish didn't taste fresh. Although other ingredients were fresh, the poké was lacking.
Another miss was the supreme cheesesteak from PhastBreak CheeseSteak. They didn't seem to have it together. When we walked around looking at all the food options before ordering, I didn't even know what their booth was selling until I saw the menu with their tiny logo on the TV. No sign on their booth. We ordered our food at the table with QR code but no section for notes to modify so I had to walk over and let them know we wanted mushrooms on the side. They asked which order was mine so they could note accordingly, I said the one with cheesesteak supreme and fries. The guy didn't even know they had fries. He also asked if I wanted my mushrooms cooked which I thought was odd. When they delivered the food, it looked disappointing. My mushrooms on the side was canned mushrooms, yuck. Side of fries was a weak portion. Cheesesteak portion was aight. Barely any onions or peppers. Thought it could use more cheese too. I will say the flavors of the cheesesteak was actually tasty but too many other downfalls that we didn't thoroughly enjoy it to the fullest. At a whopping $24 after tips, not worth it.
I love the food hall concept and I realize everything is still new. I do hope Catch & PhastBreak take these as constructive criticism and it helps them improve. They could both be great. Von wasn't open when we went but wish they were as the oxtail bao bun sounded delish. The Indian spot wasn't open either but they looked like they didn't have anything set up as of yet. Would have loved Indian food too.
Wishing the best to all the vendors here. We hope to come back soon to try the other options. Congrats on the new food hall!!! read more