Barbecue in Brooklyn

Oh hai, guys. I’m Emily, the other half of the author you’ve been reading for the past few months. We’ll be doing this here blog together from now on. You’ll get another perspective and hopefully a lot more reviews of our dining experiences in Brooklyn (and beyond). Let’s jump right in, shall we?

Name: The Smoke Joint

Location: 87 South Elliot Place, Brooklyn, NY

What I eated: A half order of spare ribs with sides of corn on the cob and cornbread. (I’ll admit, I considered getting popcorn at the movie following dinner, so I might set a personal record for most foods eaten with “corn” in them in one day.” I decided against it.)

What he eated: Shredded brisket and a side of collard greens. A drink called “The TIger Woods,” a play on an Arnold Palmer; this had limonade and sweet tea. Disclaimer: The menu said sliced brisket, KT’s preference, and that’s what he ordered, but what he got was shredded…

Price: $33 for all of the above.

Tasty: Fantastic! Maybe some of the best barbecue I’ve had. And I’d say I’ve had a fair amount of barbecue, especially after living in the South for two years.

Service: Probably better if you’re not eating at the bar, where the server mostly ignored us and never made eye contact.

Atmosphere: Like you’d expect from a place called The Smoke Joint. It was fairly loud, stuffed and stuffy, but had a nice, diverse clientele and a steady list of favorite jams from the ’90s (including Sublime) was playing.

Portions: More than enough. With a little help from KT, I finished the ribs and the only food left was a bit of cornbread.

For the money: I was pleasantly surprised to see the check for $33. Seemed reasonable. (Of course, we didn’t drink any alcohol…)

Comments: We will be back. The food was good enough — and there were enough delicious-looking sides on the menu that we didn’t get to try — that we’ll go back for more. And now we know it’s worth the wait for a table, rather than settling for seats at the bar. The poor service at the bar was almost enough to ruin the experience (KT would probably say it did ruin the experience), but the servers at the tables seemed friendlier and more aware.

2011: It’s Brunch Time

Being new to New York, (kinda new…is 6 months new?) I really didn’t get why Zoe, also a midwesterner, kept inviting me to go out for “brunch” on the weekends. Yes, I knew that brunch was a clever combination of “breakfast” and “lunch,” but I never knew it to be any more legitimate than the hypothetical “linners” or “dreakfasts” that my sister and I would plan as children. Even WordPress seems to think those are less real meals than brunch, hinting as much with those silly red underlines. I think I get it now though. People hate to wake up early on weekends. Eggs are delicious. So are bloody marys and mimosas.  Therefore, brunch. I now eat it once a week, even when I’m so poor that it’s a stupid idea.

So! Long absence, some customary dribble, aaaaaand, BOOM!

BRUNCH AT LE GAMIN

Acts, Facts:

The Restaurant: Le Gamin Cafe/Creperie

Location: 556 Vanderbilt

What I eated: “Continental” breakfast (Juice, coffee, fruit cup, baguette with butter & jam, pain au chocolate (!), a hard boiled egg). I also sampled some of my brunchmate’s french toast and ham and potatoes.

Price: ~$27 for my meal plus the french toast and another coffee. Tip for excellent service and not looking at me weird when I asked what everyone else was ordering was $5.

Ratings!

Tasty: Hell yes. I didn’t even get any shit they really had to cook.

Service: Le cool. (Woman working primarily with the espresso machine had “eyes open” tattooed on her knuckles. This is most certainly a hipster’s “thug life.”)

Atmosphere: Way better than other french-ey brunch places I’ve been to.

Portions: Certainly not big enough for the farm boy in me. Probably big enough to fulfill basic caloric requirements.

For the money: Everything tasted good. You can pay a lot more in Brooklyn for food that does not.

Comments: Really, hipster thug life was my favorite non-food aspect of the restaurant. Outside of that, it was well-lit, cozy, and the people clearly knew that they were serving quality fare and that escargot was on the menu and still managed not to be jerks about it.

The thing that I ordered, while definitely $8.25 for a continental breakfast, was perfect for me as a breakfast eater. When I eat at a breakfast restaurant, I suffer from the unconquerable problem of wanting to order at least five things. Generally, the central issue is that the battle between sweet and savory tends to give me fits. (I should also note that I fucking love toast and jam.) So, getting a chocolate croissant, an egg, toast and really delicious market jam, plus some ham from the lady, made everything pretty awesome for me.

From what I could tell, everything else on the menu also looked delicious. The french toast that I sampled was perfectly cooked (crunch, then squish) even if I’m not big on the addition of orange zest to that dish. Hearty looking root vegetables and dainty looking crepes were everywhere. This is easily in my top-3 brunches I’ve eaten in NYC, behind Cheryl’s and Cousin John’s, which I may or may not write up at some point.

I’m pretty compelled to sample dinner from Le Gamin at this point. If I do, you’ll be there first to know.

French!

-kt

Way Far Afield

(I went to Connecticut to eat a hamburger)

I’m going to call this another featurette and I promise no more featurettes after this or the blog will just become a bunch of single, non-recurrent featurettes and that wouldn’t make very much sense at all, would it?

So anyway…WELCOME TO THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF FAR AFIELD

Name: Louis’ Lunch (The birthplace of the hamburger sandwich)

Location: 263 Crown Street, New Haven, CT

Reason someone would bother to drive to CT to get a damn hamburger: They claim that they invented them.

Legitimacy of this assertion: Suspect at best. Travel Channel says it’s true?

What I eated: A hamburger, dummy. I also had a Pepsi and some potato salad.

Price: Like $8? My friend paid.

Worth the drive to (or being in) Connecticut?: Sure, why not.

Tasty: Good meat, white bread, onions, tomatoes and cheese sauce….no major complaints. The potato salad was admittedly a bizarre choice.

Service: Two very Italian northeastern dudes (think television stereotype). Nice enough.

Atmosphere: I have never seen so many people in Yale hoodies (literally 80% of the clientele). It was weird. Also strange but charming tiny booths.

Comments: Definitely an experience. Burgers are cooked in a “side broiler” which is like a little stove pipe full of fire. Interesting to look at, but an excuse for undercooked ground beef? (My burger was on the less than cooked through side). I dunno, man.

When I asked for a cheeseburger, the guy asked if I wanted onions and tomatoes. That’s all. Just those things. Because I felt like I was on hallowed ground if Louie’s claims were true, I just went with it. Made very little difference given that you couldn’t taste those things anyway. Couldn’t taste the cheese.

Ultimately, the first hamburger probably wasn’t the world’s best hamburger. You just have to accept that. If I lived in New Haven, I wouldn’t eat there everyday. But that day in particular? Hell yes I ate there. Because Zoe and I left and as we were leaving Connecticut I said to her, “I may have just eaten the first hamburger ever…” It was a proud moment.

Making history and rubbing elbows with lame Yale students all at the same time.

What a party.

-kevin

Tasty Secret #1

It’s been a while, which is pretty upsetting considering how much I’ve been eating out lately.

The short version is that I’ve started like 6 posts about different places, but haven’t finished any of them. They’ll be up really quick, I promise.

In their stead (and in the interest of brevity), here is the first post in a special (ooh la la!) series: Tasty Secrets.

Basically, these are featurettes that don’t detail the whole shebang of a restaurant experience. Rather, they are me shouting the praise of a single food item that comes from an unexpected place and makes their consumer (me!) unexpectedly happy. Today’s tasty secret:

The Aphrodyte Special from the College Market at 257 Dekalb Ave in Ft Greene.

What it is: An everything bagel with cheddar cheese, queso blanco, un montón of vegetables, and something magical.

What it do: Made me very full and very happy.

What it cost: $3!

If you’re in a hurry, without lots of cash on hand, eat this thing. As a bonus, the dudes who make it tend to be on the friendly side.

Yea-um!

Animo!: AnimA!, Clinton Hill Italian(ish?)

Second time out in two days. I feel like this tends to happen when you’re about to go out of town (Chicago for wedding-times), so it’s hard to justify groceries if it’s possible you’re gonna waste food. Instead, you just waste money.

I was bored with the day and we had nothing to do tonight so finding ‘dinner’ was more about finding ‘2 for 1’s’. Aaaaand…BOOM: AnimA (big a?!?) Italian Bistro

Just the facts, ma’am:

The Restaurant: AnimA Italian Bistro

Location: 458 Myrtle Avenue

What I eated: Toscana Pizza and some complementary bar potato chips

Price: $25.05 for a pizza, 2 Stellas, a Brooklyn lager, and a Sierra Nevada Pale,  general mood-based tip was $5.

Ratings!

Tasty: Blandisfying

Service: Friendly

Atmosphere: Yeah, I’d hang out here.

Portions: Pizza is the size of a pizza. Pasta is smaller than a pizza.

For the money: 4 beers! For the price of 2 beers!

Comments: Let’s be real; I went to AnimA because there’s a sign outside that says 2-1 every day, 4-8. I didn’t go for subtle hints of basil washing over rich cream sauce. I didn’t go for the exquisite texture of freshly-baked pizza crust. I went because I could get 4 good beers for 12 dollars.

The pizza came with mozzarella, peppers, onions, gruyere cheese, and grilled chicken (subbed cuz they were out of chicken sausage). What resulted was a pizza that lacked the tangy kick of tomatoes and the pleasant salty creaminess of a good white pizza. It was crunchy, it was filling, I asked for Tabasco. So alright, in the end, I wouldn’t go back for the pizza.

A brief aside: Emily and I discussed what could potentially be a problem for me as a food blogger during dinner. Mostly, it’s that I’m not all that critical. I can tell the difference between bad food and good food. I calls the bad food like I sees it. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of an apologist. If there’s something that redeems the restaurant for its so-so food (cheap drinks+nice lady at AnimA) or its horrid service (medium spicy curry+much food for cheap at Thai 101) I’ll probably go back and make the same mistakes over again.

In the case of AnimA, I ate some homemade potato chips that were not as good as Lays, I ate a pizza that was almost there, but needed some culinary love (or some chicen sausage) and didn’t come away needing to eat more of their food. On the other hand, I drank a bunch of beer at a price I didn’t have to feel guilty about and got some tips on how to make crispy chicken from a new friend (who had also come in for 2-for-1 beers).

So, a short moral of the story for restaurant owners: If you need to work out the kinks in your menu or your chef doesn’t give a shit, feed your patrons cheap booze, they’ll (read: I’ll) keep coming back.

Drink!

-kt

First (and only) stop (thus far): Clinton Hill Thai Food

Dear Reater,

To begin, my intent in writing this weblog is to record my habits as an away-from-home consumer (in the literal sense). I’m doing this because I want  to remember which restaurants that I enjoy eating at the most and also because I’ve always thought it would be fun to write about things I eat, given how much I already talk about things I eat. I have chosen not to simply post these reviews  on Yelp!  because A) people reading those reviews are unlikely to be interested in working through my personal quirks as a writer when they’re looking for a place to eat in 20 minutes and B) I wanted all of my opinions of restaurants in one place.

To be up front, I am not an established food critic. I do not have a fantastically refined palate. I am not the world’s best home cook.

Rather, I grew up eating a lot of fast food (which I still enjoy), I know the foods I like (they are varied and wide-ranging), and I know my way around a kitchen (the title of “world’s best home cook” having been laid claim to by my older sister).

About me: I am a law student at NYU who lives in the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. I’m also a pretty rad dude.

TO THE ISSUE AT HAND!

For starters, the facts.

The Restaurant: Thai 101

Location: 455 Myrtle Ave

What I eated: Green Curry w/ Chicken (also sampled Rasa w/ Chicken)

Price: $15.35 for two entrees and water, performance-based tip was $3

To follow up, an arbitrary and experimental rating system.

Tasty: Medium tasty

Service: Uninterested

Atmosphere: Zero

Portions: I’m full!

For the money: Fuck yes.

Comments: When a great deal of your dinner conversation consists of how bad you miss your old standby Thai restaurants (True Thai in Minneapolis or Siri Thai in Athens, GA) your food is probably not the bomb-est. I enjoyed my green curry and appreciated that there was no question as to how spicy it should be, it was just kinda spicy and delicious. I suppose the problem with that is if you’re not into spicy at all or think that medium spicy is for little Gerber-babies, you’ll probably wish they had asked you. My dinner partner (girlfriend) Emily felt that the peanut sauce on her Rasa (which we’d never heard of) was “too sweet and too mealy,” and was therefore disappointing.

Service-wise: In the beginning, our waiter took his sweet time in asking what we’d like to eat. In the end, it took 15 minutes to get the check after we were clearly done eating. In between, well…the man did everything he was supposed to, just 5 minutes after you might expect him to do it.

Based on this review, you might think that we won’t be going back to Thai 101. Quite the contrary actually. For$ 6.35 a meal, I’ma eat there all the time, especially when you factor in that their portions are big relative to most restaurants I’ve eaten at around here. At present, I don’t have the money to be eating expensive Thai food and soon won’t have the time to be cooking my own  (my strongest dishes are Mexican and down-home, so when I cook, I’ll stick to those).  In short, given bang relative to buck, this place likely to become a go-to, especially considering that free delivery makes my friend who was making a thorough examination of the pitcher instead of filling my water glass a non-factor.

Eat!

-kt