Recent Eats IV

Baba's Pierogies
I'm basically a sucker for any kind of filling in any kind of dough. Dumplings, ravioli, bao, pelmeni, burek, whatever. And these were solid pierogies, and I'd like to go back and try the blueberry. But seriously: You want to charge almost a dollar extra for a few caramelized onions? Get over it; and bring me some applesauce while you're at it.

Sweetleaf
Once a month or so, I work a day in Long Island City (instead of Harlem). By far the best part of this experience is the morning bike ride, which takes me up through Brooklyn, over the Pulaski Bridge, and -- almost -- straight to Sweetleaf. Rocket Fuel and Voodoo Child are both [kisses fingers]. Perfect start to the day. Why they have a giant painting of Kristen Bell on the wall, I don't know.

Jacques Torres
City Bakery is of course my hot chocolate gold standard, but I certainly won't kick the stuff from JT out of bed. Nor their chocolate-covered cornflakes either.

Pizza
Living in NY means you are absolutely obligated to have strong opinions about pizza. Personally, I find it important also to distinguish between "slice joint" pizza, and "fancy" pizza. For the former, still and always, I count on Joe's. For the latter, I'm generally pretty good now with my new local, Parkside. There may technically be better fancy places out there, but there are certainly none closer. In any event, Roberta's has too long of a wait, Lucali doesn't cook their shallots, the Parkside chef used to work at Franny's anyway, etc. But life happens, and a few weeks ago I found myself at Baby Grand and in need of sustenance, so we ordered from Motorino. I gather they've built a nice little hipster business, so anticip.ation was high. But the thing is, if you're going to charge that much for a pie that doesn't really feed two not-very-hungry people, you need that pie to be great, and Motorino's wasn't even close. We had two, one with mushrooms and one with sprouts, and the toppings were sort of tasty enough, although not revelatory, but my real gripe is with the dough. It was so... doughy. Pillowy, in fact. So if that's your pizza style, vaya con dios, but it ain't mine.

Chikalicious Dessert Club
One of my many problems with living in Japan was that they weren't, as a culture, very good at dessert. I like red beans just fine, but that has to be balanced with chocolate cake from time to time, you know? In general, it always seemed to me that they were way more concerned with how desserts looked than how they tasted, and the Age of Instagram has not helped matters. So while I wouldn't say the churro ice cream cone situation is a bad one, it's definitely a Made for IG one, and if you just want good ice cream and a good churro, you're probably better off eating them separately.

The Bonnie
We recently spent a day biking around Queens, hitting up the Socrates Sculpture Park, the Noguchi Museum, and the Museum of the Moving Image. Sustenance was required throughout. And if all you need, as we did, is an airy backyard, a beer, and some fries, The Bonnie is not a bad option. ...If you can discount a certain amount of soullessness and a full-on Best of the 80s soundtrack.

Mimi Cheng's
I like dumplings. And these are good dumplings. But. I have a hard time feeling a need to bother with anything fancier than, say, $0.50 per dumpling. Just say no to gentrification, and go to Shu Jiao instead.

MAP

RECIPE: Lentil Minestrone, because ultimately, who doesn't like soup?

Backyards

Just because it's a city doesn't mean we don't have backyards. They're just, well, in the back, which means you generally have to go through the front of the bar/restaurant/apartment in question to see them. The days I don't spend in my hammock this Spring/Summer/Fall, I intend to spend in a backyard somewhere.

Luckily L, one of my best friends has one. (In what is really an embarrassment of riches, she also has a ping pong table in her basement.) Many is the afternoon we've spent out there, eating steak tacos and guacamole, or lobster rolls and hot dogs, or kielbasa and pierogies. That backyard is where I learned to enjoy ice cubes in my wine, both for the chilling effect and the way it enables me to drink for ten straight hours.

If you are not also so lucky as to have a friend like this, never fear. Your life is of course the poorer for it, but you can still day-drink all you want and not have to do it from a brown bag in the park. Even with L's yard, we still sometimes go to a bar two blocks from her apartment and sit in its backyard. What the hell.

A few of my favourite backyard spots:

Sea Witch:
Aforementioned bar two blocks from L's apartment. Inside can be a bit dark, even with the massive fish tank, but outside has a stream with skulls in, lots of blonde wood, and occasional cats roaming by. They also generally have both Left Hand Milk Stout (one of my favourites) and a fine cider or two on tap.

Crown Vic:
The one drawback of L's pool table is that it is, as I said, in the basement. And when it's 75 degrees and sunny, the last thing you want to do is sit in a chilly, mildewy (sorry, L) basement. Crown Vic -- assuming you're willing to play on a table that's been warped to hell in the rain -- solves that problem. Also, in a city where space is so often at a premium, it's nice to have a place where you know you'll always be able to find a seat.

Not coincidentally, three of my other favorite backyards are also three of my favorite bars, period: Ice House, Hot Bird, and Tooker Alley. I have enjoyed each of their indoor spaces, but it's the outdoors that really puts them on the forever list.

Ice House is where you go for $2/$3 Miller High Lifes (always with a slice of lemon), an order of sweet potato fries, and two pulled pork baps ($5). Perfect for après-swimming at the Red Hook pool.

Hot Bird is where you go for good beer, a fire in the Winter, and whatever food you can find that will deliver.

And Tooker Alley is the best cocktails. Done.


...If you're still in Red Hook and want a cocktail though, and don't want to be cooped up in Fort Defiance, hie thee to Botanica. They don't actually have a backyard, and therefore shouldn't be included here, but their front wall pretty much opens completely, so it's like sitting outside, but with good shade.

MAP

RECIPE: Brown Butter Skillet Cornbread, because there are certain things you absolutely need one, decisive, go-to recipe for.

Recent Eats III

Some of these eats are not really "recent" anymore. But that's the way it goes. If I posted them in a timely fashion, I'd never have room to post anything else. (Which could be a good thing? We'll take a poll later.)

Chez Oskar
Nice local bistro. Hard to give a real review, since we were there for a set menu -- didn't get the full experience. Still, had a very tasty lamb shank and the atmosphere was pleasantly romantic.

Gaonnuri
I'd say it's all about the view, but frankly the meat was pretty good too. I mean, why have Korean BBQ on ground level when you can do it on the 39th floor, all things being equal?

Lobster Joint
I sometimes say that if I won the lottery, the only thing that would really change would be that I would eat more lobster rolls. That may not be strictly true, but the point stands. In any event, since I'm unlikely to either win the lottery or move to Maine, I do the best I can with what I have. The $12 slider special at Lobster Joint helps.

Midwood Flats
This is a recent eat in the sense that it is always a recent eat, since this place is directly across the street from our apartment. We were suspicious of it at first, I don't know why, but the switch flipped as soon as we went in. A duck torta with a fried egg on top may not be the only path to my heart, but it'll certainly get you there. The great beer selection can certainly come along for the ride.

Parkside Pizza
Lamb sausage pizza, olive pizza. Promising-looking cocktails.

Oaxaca Taqueria
This place fills a very particular need: Close enough to swing into before BAM and pick up food that we can eat while we see a movie. There isn't a lot of competition in this category, but I'm satisfied with Oaxaca for now. Their flavors are good, but as is so often the case they suffer a bit with layout. People eat their burritos from one side or the other, so ingredients need to be layered, like in a proper paté. You can't have one end be sausage and the other end potato. Take pride in your burritos! This is especially an issue when you're sharing burritos back and forth, as R and I tend to do.

Grindhaus
This place was on my "to try" list for a while. Sadly, it did not make the jump to any kind of recommended list. It's not that the food was bad, but it wasn't mind-blowing, and I am extremely unwilling to pay, for example, $23 for a teacup-sized portion of non-mind-blowing gnocchi.

Brooklyn Bell's The Local
It's 60F; it's February; it's ice cream time. Prospect Heights has no shortage of ice cream, with Ample Hills on Vanderbilt, Blue Marble on Underhill, and now The Local on Classon. I'll make an argument for any of them, but this latest addition may currently have the largest portion of my heart. They make only very small batches -- a tub or two at a time, and then it's on to something else. When we showed up the options were: vanilla, black lava caramel, banana bread, bananas foster (an unplanned bananza, apparently), some kind of pecan brittle with pretzels and rice krispies (I don't remember the exact name, but I had it, and it was good)... and three other things. Sorry, not great reportage here. But the owner/ice cream creator served us -- I think it's basically just him and his wife running the place -- and we came away with an impression of a very short supply chain and deep attention to detail.

And a special shoutout to Trader Joe's peanut-butter-filled pretzels, the ones with salt: my constant office companion.

MAP

RECIPE: Mushroom Moussaka. A misleading name, because only some of the lamb is replaced with mushrooms, yielding a slightly lighter, cheaper, healthier dish.

If You Want to Sing Out

I have two friends, known for our purposes here as K and F, who do karaoke on the order of at least once a week. Every month or so, I join them.

Before I moved back to NY, ten years ago now, I'd only ever done karaoke in Tokyo, in private rooms. And it wasn't so much that we all wanted to sing, as we needed a place to crash until the trains started running again. For ¥2,000 you'd get a room big enough for all your friends, and unlimited, watered-down beer and chu hai until 6am. There was almost always more than one person singing at once, and we always kicked things off with Anarchy in the UK.

My NY karaoke experiences have been much more civilized. It helps that the trains never stop running here. Also that I'm not 23 anymore.

Baby Grand
If I had to choose just one, this would be it. Baby Grand was the first bar karaoke I ever did, and -- despite some questionable decisions by management (long story that's really K's, not mine) -- it remains my favorite. It's tiny -- about the same size as a private room, actually. So you get the feeling that everyone's sort of your friend, and if you go there as often as K and F, they end up that way.

Frank's
A recent discovery. Frank's is just down the block from BAM. Walking home after a movie one night, I noticed they had a sign out front advertising karaoke on Wednesdays at 8. K and F, always up for it, joined me to check it out soon thereafter. Unlike our other usual spots, Frank's has a stage. Early in the evening, the atmosphere is pretty relaxed, and I'll get up and do a song or two. Later on... it gets real. Like, people are crazy good and they get up on that stage like they mean it. It's fun, but not so conducive to performing if you are not also crazy good.

Hope & Anchor
My second-favorite. Hope & Anchor is a restaurant with a karaoke setup every Friday and Saturday at 9pm. Frankly, I'd skip dinner here, but the karaoke, hosted by a drag queen (they're currently hiring!) is pretty great. (Also, come back for brunch; it's solid.)

Soda Bar
Karaoke isn't bad here -- we approve of the KJ -- but the very sparse crowd tends toward oddness. Like The Mansplainer, his mail-order wife, and the Russian Barmaid Bitch (her word). Also odd is how you're basically standing in the middle of a living room in front of a giant screen. It's hard to know what to do with yourself. Helpfully, happy hour draught beers are $3.

Karaoke Killed the Cat at Union Hall
Look: If you want to start your night at midnight, up on stage in a low, packed basement... More power and all that. F and I tried it once, and it was alright because we arrived early and got our songs in and then left, but I wouldn't do it again. I like to be tucked in by 10.

Winnie's
In memoriam. I'm not sure the closure of Winnie's left the NY karaoke scene much poorer, but the place did fill a niche. It was down on Bayard St in Chinatown, just around the corner from the Tombs. It's lamps were held together with duck tape and the system hiccuped in the middle of songs more often than not, but there was a cat and it was convenient for takeaway noodle dinners. Not much point in mentioning it now, but RIP I suppose.

Montero
Thursdays and Fridays at 9. With Winnie's gone, this is easily the diviest place on the list. The kind of place I would drink in, but without ever shaking the feeling that I really don't belong. Anyway, aside from the time my friend H got yelled at by the KJ for swinging the mike like a rock star, Montero's has been good to us. The song books smell funky; sometimes there's free hot dogs; and I have fond memories of a "Feed Me" duet with K.

MAP

RECIPE: Dutch Baby. It's a shade too much food for two people, but so delicious you'll probably manage it. Try experimenting with a bit of orange or lemon zest, or different extracts.

Recent Eats II

Tooker Alley
I love Tooker Alley. Perfect cocktails, cozy atmosphere, breezy backyard, convenient location... This is the place that finally convinced my father that Brooklyn wasn't such a backwater after all.

Hot Bird
If Tooker is my cocktail bar, Hot Bird is my beer bar. Like Tooker, there's great seating both inside and out-, though Hot Bird ups the ante by offering a firepit in winter. I went with a few friends last week and, ignoring the taco stand in the yard, we ordered in from Nacho Macho Taco, then capped things off with a few fork-toasted s'mores.

White Tiger
Trying to get into Chuko? Long line and you're not sure it's worth it? Frankly, you're probably right. I am uninspired by Chuko's noodles. Luckily there's this new Korean place just up the block that serves similar soups, in addition to bibimbap and all that. I was quite satisfied with my ramyun.

Jin Ramen
Currently my favourite traditional ramen place (not to be confused with my favourite un-traditional ramen place, Bassanova -- get the green curry). I couldn't stop myself, several times during the meal, from commenting on how fucking good it was.

Bar Corvo
I used to rate Bar Corvo fairly high. This was maybe the fourth or fifth time I've been, and I'm not sure if we got an off night or if they're slipping. I had the lasagna, which I've had before, but it seemed underseasoned. Still a nice atmosphere and all that, and it certainly wasn't bad, but I'd gotten used to having this fantastic Italian bistro in my back pocket, and now maybe I don't anymore.

Butter & Scotch
Trekked up here with some friends after building up an appetite ice skating in the park. The more traditional cocktails weren't up to nearby Tooker Alley standards, though the existence of hot and milkshaked options makes up for it. The s'mores pie is definitely as good as it should be.

Luigi's Pizza
I don't know if I don't like grandma pie, despite continually thinking that I will, or if theirs isn't great. That said, their regular slices are great. I've eaten a lot of pizza in Park Slope, and this place is the hands-down the best for your standard New York Slice.

Russ & Daughters Cafe
This was our annual mother-daughter birthday (mine) lunch. I had the break-fast martini, and we shared plates of herring, sable, and latkes, all excellent. There's always a wait, I gather, but my mom put our names down and we wandered the neighborhood until they texted us. Painless, and certainly worth it.

Saiguette
Desperate lunch times on 135 St and Malcolm X Blvd lead to desperate measures. Yes, I am willing to walk this far if it gets me a decent sandwich. And I did. And it was.

Dizzy's
As much as I can, I try to give R the full American experience. Essential to that is: the diner. Growing up in suburbia, going to the diner is what we did. Driving anywhere, diners are where I'll head. No place does perfect rye toast with melting butter and sunny-side-up eggs like a diner. Find me a diner that serves real (not from a can) corned beef hash with that, and I will never leave. (My other go-to order is a tuna melt on rye with a chocolate egg cream.) In Brooklyn, our diner options are limited; it's pretty much Tom's or Dizzy's. I took R to Tom's on his first visit to NY, for the atmosphere. Unfortunately the pancakes & etc didn't live up to the hype, so thence forth I take all my diner needs to Dizzy's. It's still got the greasy spoon thing going on, but with quality food to back it up. Also our waiter was extremely informed about James Bond, and would have stood their talking to us about the finer points all afternoon, if we hadn't had to leave to actually get to our showtime.

MAP

RECIPE: Eggplant Dirty Rice, an easy, flavourful weeknight meal.

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

99 times out of 100, when I leave the house I head either north or west. If west, I cut straight across Prospect Park. If north, I face the embarrassment of riches of choosing to go up the east side of the park, or straight up through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

(Question: Why is it the New York Botanical and the Brooklyn Botanic? I never remember which is which, or why.)

I don't like going to cultural institutions once, for hours at a time. I prefer going to them briefly, multiple times. That way, they become mine. Both the park and garden I regard as my own back yard.

The garden is open year round, with free entry every Saturday from 10-12. And while there may be more flowers in the summer, I enjoy it just as much in the winter, when there's a good chance I'll have it entirely to myself.

That said... Every year at the end of April, they host the Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival). It's two days of food, arts, flowers, and huge crowds, a number of whom are done up in their anime cosplay best. I always swing by, but that's because I'm a member so I don't have to pay the extra entry fee or wait in line. If you just want to get a sense of the action, it might be enough to stroll by and see a few costumes on their way in. And the blossoms themselves are there other days, and more often than not aren't necessarily even peaking during the festival itself. The trees in different areas tend to go off at different times; the BBG site provides a map so you can see which ones are at which stage of openness.

And then there's the rose garden, which just seems to go on and on all summer. Fountains of roses. You have no idea how many close-up rose photos I've taken over the years. It's addictive. I can't go to the rose garden with anyone else because I will drive them nuts with stopping every two feet.

Usually, it's so nice strolling the grounds I don't even bother with the greenhouses. And anyway I am basically just trying to get from Point A to Point B. In the middle of winter though, a little detour into the desert (and tropical/warm temperate/aquatic conservatories) can be very pleasant.

MAP

RECIPE: Wild Rice with Fennel & Porcini, a tasty side I've busted out on more than one Thanksgiving.

Red Hooking

I love my neighborhood. I love all of Brooklyn, really, although I don't put it into practice much out in Canarsie or whatever. But there's only one neighborhood I go to for no other reason than to sit, and be, and soak it all in: Red Hook.

Red Hook is the Land Time Forgot. Even as distilleries and raw chocolate artisans and cocktail bars continue to pop up, and even with the presence of Ikea and Fairway, the extremely limited public transportation keeps it just a little slower, a little more relaxed. It's like a tiny corner of New Orleans in NY. (Insofar as that's possible, which isn't very, but still. As close as we get.)

Half the time, all I do is ride to the end of Valentino Pier, or the one behind Fairway, and stare at the water. For cheap, very local thrills, you could do a lot worse. The waves lap, boats go by, the Statue of Liberty stands.

...That said, there's plenty to actually do, so long as you have an interest in food, drink, entertainment, or art.

Food

Every weekend, Spring, Summer, and Fall, the vendors park around the southeast corner of the Bay St/Clinton St intersection. There are tamales, pupusas, cemitas, tacos, fresh juices... All of the trucks are good; none are expensive. My personal favorite -- and one of the few things I actively, specifically crave, is the barbacoa de chivo cemita from the white truck furthest south on Clinton St. They do taco versions too, and a few other things, but something about this cemita is just so perfectly balanced. I can't resist. Though I will often accompany it with a watermelon juice from the truck furthest west on Bay, and then pick up some tamales from the somewhat shabbier truck furthest east. (They freeze and steam up very well.)

Hometown BBQ also deserves a mention, but be warned: The line can be long, and by the time you get to the front there may be very little meat left. This is especially worrisome because the beef rib is so good, and you don't want to have to settle for the smoked turkey -- which I guess is fine and all, as smoked turkey goes, but I just don't get very excited about cold cuts. If you've planned poorly though, you can always comfort yourself with the bloody mary, which comes garnished with crispy, carmelized bacon. As for the rest: sides are as expected, which is to say: good to have on the side, but uninspiring. The usual bbq story. Only Fette Sau's beans are worth it all by themselves.

The Good Fork. Full disclosure: I haven't been here in several years, but last I checked it was a very fine, intimate restaurant, worthy of a special date night.

Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies: What is says. None of that meringue nonsense. Though I'd recommend skipping the regular ol' pie and going for a swingle. This is a chocolate-dipped, frozen pie, and it comes in three flavors, all of which balance each other well if you have enough people to share.

Thai. I've talked about the Thai places before. Either way, quality food that's not just pad thai with damp, tough chicken strips.

The Red Hook Lobster Pound. I'll admit, after eating lobster rolls in Connecticut and Maine, it's hard to get it up for rolls in NY; they're twice the price, with half the lobster. So usually what I do is buy the meat from RHLP, bring it over to my friend L's, and then we make our own damn lobster rolls. It's still not the cheapest meal in town, but it makes the experience cost-effective enough for our purposes. Which isn't to say that RHLP doesn't make good lobster rolls. I've also heard excellent things about their lobster mac n' cheese.

Baked! For all your coffeeshop, very-Brooklyny baked goods. (Think chocolate, salted caramel, pretzels, peanut butter.)

Drink

Fort Defiance serves the best Irish coffee I've ever had. Actually, until I had it here, I didn't really understand that Irish coffee could even be a thing. It's just coffee with some whiskey, right? If you, also, don't understand, then please go to Fort Defiance and drink until you do. They also have a Thursday tiki night.

If FD didn't cure your cocktail craving, or you're making a day of it, or you prefer airy to cosy, head to Botanica.

And then when you're tired of cocktails and it's hot and you just want to sit in someone's back yard and drink $2 Miller High Lifes (with lemon) and eat 2/$5 pulled pork sandwiches with sweet potato fries and chipotle mayo... Ice House was the first bar I ever went to in Red Hook, and I've been back innumerable times since. It's the definition of a lazy summer afternoon.

Brooklyn Crab. I'm putting this under drink, rather than food, because the food is crap. However. If you want a deck to watch the sun set over the water (and the Fairway parking lot), washed down with a few Narragansetts, it will serve. And the oysters are probably fine?

Whiskey & Chocolate

Widow Jane & Cacao Prieto: Whiskey, rye, bourbon, rum, liqueur, and chocolate. With some fancy chickens running around the courtyard.
Van Brunt Stillhouse: Whiskey, rum, grappa, and moonshine.
Raaka: Chocolate.

All offer tours and tastings. It is an extremely pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Art
There's nothing better than taking in a bit of art when you're more than one sheet to the wind. Pioneer Works screens movies, hangs art on its walls, and puts on performance pieces. As with any contemporary gallery, this is all very hit and miss, but even the biggest miss can be very entertaining after a few whiskey tastings.

The Robotic Church is only open every once in a while. Sign up with Atlas Obscura, and they should keep you in the loop (with plenty of other things too). It's an odd, slightly scary performance, which they cap off with a tour of the space. An ideal event for weeding out potentially questionable dates.

Red Hook also has a variety of galleries and other art spaces. Stroll the length of Van Brunt (or at least from the Lobster Pound all the way down the pier) and you'll hit a good number.

Et cetera
Hope & Anchor does karaoke every Friday and Saturday, starting at 9. It's my second-favorite karaoke in the city (after Baby Grand). Unless it's taken over by one of those all-girl birthday parties where they never sing in groups smaller than five, usually to Katy Perry or whatever, it's a great scene. (I'm not saying you can't eat here, but why would you? I mean I have, several times, but only the breakfast items are not disappointing.)

During the summer, there's a film series at Valentino Park. Bring a blanket and bug spray, stock up on snacks at Fairway, and settle in. It's the Land Time Forgot, remember, so it never gets nearly as crowded as the other outdoor movies.

Rocky Sullivan's has a quiz night every Thursday at 8.

The pool is open every summer. Free.

MAP

RECIPE: Coconut Layer Cake, even though I've only ever made the cake part, not the frosting. It's my standard white cake recipe, because it doesn't taste strongly coconutty, just nicely sweet and moist.

To the Beach!

Another thing I will miss when we leave New York is the ability to hop on my bike and be at the beach in an hour. Granted, it's not up to (what I imagine are) Hawaii standards, but for a place I can get to from my apartment, taken together with all the other places I can get to from my apartment... it's pretty good.

Technically, you can also get to the Rockaway peninsula by train, bus, or car. None of these options allow you to explore much once you're there though, and none are quick. If you're not up for the full bike adventure though, you can always bike down and around, then hop on the subway back.

Aside from speed and convenience, the other nice thing about biking is it allows you to really appreciate your arrival at the seashore. My route goes straight down Bedford Ave until it ends at the water; from then on it's a breezy ride along the sand, hands off the handlebars and waving at the cars backed up on the Belt Parkway.

Your first item of interest, coming this way, is Floyd Bennett Field, NY's first municipal airport and now a part of Gateway National Recreation Area. I wouldn't call it thrilling, but there's something to be said for the wide-open emptiness of abandoned tarmac, dotted with occasional dilapidated hangars. There's also a campground, though you have to make a reservation and hammocks are prohibited. I have a friend who regularly spends Memorial and Labor Day down there, and apparently the proximity to the beach makes up for the lack of any real wilderness.

Across from FBF, down through the trees, is Dead Horse Bay. If you're looking for the detritus of the ages, this is the spot. Broken bottles, whole bottles, crockery, shoe leather, etc. all come burbling up from the old landfill. Etsy raw materials heaven.

Next up is the Marine Parkway Bridge. (Alternatively, you could stay on the greenway and continue to follow the Belt Parkway around to Cross Bay Boulevard, thence down to Rockaway Beach.) No matter how sticky and awful the day, crossing that bridge is a breath of fresh, salty air.

The view back towards Manhattan.

On the other side, you have a choice: left to Rockaway, straight to Jacob Riis, right to Fort Tilden. We'll get to that in a second though, because in front of you (come down off the bridge, cross the street, look right) is the unmissable milkshake truck. Sure, it serves hot dogs and whatnot, but the milkshakes are why they -- and I -- am here. $6, and you've got lunch. My personal recommendation is vanilla malt snickers, but feel free to change vanilla to chocolate and snickers to Reese's or whatever just don't leave out the malt. R has yet to take my advice on this, and it drives me nuts. He thinks the shakes are great without malt, and I think he's like someone who thinks candy corn is great because they've literally never had any other kind of candy.

Now. If you just want to sit on the beach and drink your shake and watch the ocean, carry on straight ahead and you'll be at Jacob Riis. Nothing wrong with this. As of last year they've even got a little Brooklyn Flea sort of thing and a selection of food vendors. Easy.

Hankering for that hipster haven you've heard so much about? Turn left and keep going. (To give you an idea of how far: Jacob Riis is at around 160th St; Rockaway is around 96th-86th. There's a bus that runs inland, but it's an easy flat bike ride. Or a serious trek on the sand.) Here you'll find surfers, Ripper's, and a host of other options. If you want to try some surfing, watch some surfing, sit around and drink micheladas on the boardwalk, Rockaway is where it's at. And if you did happen to take the train, this is where it drops you.

I have, however, saved the best for last: Fort Tilden. The edge of this beach is just next to Jacob Riis; you can sit there and still have access to the bathrooms and tacos. However. The best bits lie within. The beach itself offers no boardwalk, no toilets, no food, no direct access to public transportation. You might regard this as an inconvenience, until you realize that the further west you go, the emptier it gets. So if you do want to have the sand to yourself and your thoughts, Fort Tilden is perfect. If you also want to explore abandoned military buildings covered in vines and graffiti, it's even more so.

MAP

RECIPE: Tamale Pie, for those weeknight, I-don't-want-to-think-but-I-want-this-to-be-good-and-more-interesting-than-pasta meals.

BAM

Sometimes, preemtively, I miss NY. I miss the view from our apartment, Prospect Park, Mexican food (shut up, California), pizza, bagels, Red Hook, the swimming pool... and BAM.

Movies, dance, theater, music, opera. Become a member and the movies are half off, as are day-of tickets for everything else. It's within reasonable walking distance for us, with plenty of excellent food/drink/ice cream options on the way. There's even a great bookstore a few blocks away, to kill that extra twenty minutes while I wait for R to get out of work and meet me, or vice versa.

The only thing I could begin to complain about is the quality of the popcorn, and then only because I've had Film Forum's. Anyway, since we usually meet in the evenings for a 7ish show, we skip the popcorn and bring in sandwiches. Is this technically allowed? I think it makes the experience a little more civilized, eating our ciabatta-roasted-veg-goat-cheese sandwiches and sipping a hard cider. No one's ever complained.

BAM generally doesn't show blockbusters, but they're making an exception for Star Wars. (We went on Christmas Eve. The Harvey screen was the exact perfect size for my field of vision.) Generally there's a mixture of first-run films and thematic series of older films, occasionally even with musical accompaniment. Theater runs the gamut from Shakespeare to French robots; dance from ballet to modern. Opera I have no idea, because I don't like opera; I assume it's of the same generally high quality and intriguing variety.

Living where we do, we find ourselves at BAM at least once every week or two. Along with Prospect Park and Fairway, it's one of the pillars of our Brooklyn existence, and I will be sad when it's time to say goodbye.

MAP
RECIPE: Naan. R makes some amazing curries, and I'll choose this as a side over rice any day.

Recent Eats

As a general rule, I refuse to take pictures of food while I'm eating. I'll make exceptions if it's outside and I'm alone, but don't expect any dim restaurant pics here. That doesn't mean we can't talk about the food though.

El Toro Taqueria, Fort Greene, Brooklyn:
Uninspired but decent enough tacos. R likes them more than I do. I'm definitely willing to go back and try the burritos though, as they're very reasonably priced around $7. Cheapness and the proximity to BAM will keep us coming back until something better comes along.
*Update* Still haven't gotten around to the burritos, but we did sneak some tortas into the movies last night. Again, uninspired. Not half as good as this one food truck that used to park on 9th Ave around 58th St. (Maybe it still does, but I don't work over there anymore.)

Chiang Mai vs. Kao Soy, Red Hook, Brooklyn:
Red Hook has recently seen a surge of Northern Thai restaurants. Pok Pok kicked things off a few years ago, and then suddenly there were two more a bit further south, right across the street from each other. There's a bad-blood backstory, but in the interest of fairness we visited both.
Chiang Mai came out ahead, mostly thanks to Kao Soy's whole-fish situation. It's good, this fish, but it's also the spiciest thing in the universe (and I'm backed up on this by a lot of other spicy-food people), so after a few bites it's basically inedible. To be fair, it says on the menu that it's spicy, and the waitress warned us, but... there's a line between wowza-spicy and inedible, and this crossed it. Chiang Mai also has a much more comprehensive beverage menu than you'd expect at a Thai place and, ironically, the "khao soi" I ordered was delicious.

Battersby, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn:
This was our blowout (seriously; not cheap) third-anniversary dinner. Seven-course tasting menu plus wine pairings. Overall, they were a bit too heavy-handed with the butter, but we definitely enjoyed every course. By the time we left my stomach was aching.
Here's the rundown (obviously seasonal, so your mileage will likely vary): corn soup, dashi (both amuse-bouche), scallops, tuna crudo, fluke, honeynut squash, chestnut pasta, rabbit roulade, ginger cream (palate cleanser), almond joy sundae, nutella mousse (one of each, served together). (I had to explain to R what "almond joy" meant. Candy is one of those very country-specific things.)

Misclenanea

Miscelanea, East Village, Manhattan:
I went for the Cafe Helado con Horchata, which sounded good in theory but ultimately didn't taste quite right to me. The torta I impulse-bought for lunch, on the other hand, was great. Queso Oaxaca. There's a small bench outside the shop (it's a sort of Mexican general store in addition to a counter-service cafe), but it was full, so I biked my sandwich back over the Manhattan Bridge and ate down by the water instead. They even throw in some fresh chips and a tiny container of pickled carrots.

Brooklyn Bridge Park

Patacon Pisao, Lower East Side, Manhattan:
The patacon -- a sandwich with plantains for bread -- sounds like it's going to be the shit, and it's pretty good, but it's the chachapa that really stood out. Either way, you get enough food for two meals.

Burger Mexicano, Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn:
Once upon a time, my neighborhood had a wonderful Mexican restaurant. It was my bar, my local, my everything. Now it's gone. It was replaced by a brighter, crappier Mexican restaurant -- and by this place, around the corner. So I really wanted to like Burger Mexicano. And it was fine, I suppose, as these things go. Bit cramped and noisy though, and not nearly enough guacamole in an order thereof. Does not replace the hole Cafe Enduro left in my heart.

MAP
RECIPE: Sock-It-To-Me Cake, which I'd never heard of before I started at the Schomburg, but which I've made more than once now, by request.

Green-Wood Cemetery

Some cities have an aura of death about them. Paris, New Orleans -- it doesn't take much to imagine a consumptive Moulin Rouge dancer, Baron Samedi following a second line, dissipation, voodoo, vampires, decay. Every guidebook ever written will tell you to visit St. Louis Cemetery Nos. 1-3, Lafayette Cemetery Nos. 1-2, Père Lachaise, Montmartre...

New York is a different story. I mean that literally: the narrative of this city does not lend itself to gothic glamour the way Paris' and New Orleans' do. This doesn't change the fact that we have some damn fine cemeteries of our own. The best, IMHO, is Green-Wood.

A few years ago I was working for an art copyright/licensing company. It was a decent stopgap -- they had health insurance and an unbeatable SoHo location, and I actually find copyright law pretty interesting -- but I wanted something a little more. One of my favorite classes in library school had been Conservation Lab, where we built archival boxes and bound books with fancy marbled Italian endpapers. It was tangibly satisfying, and I was good enough at it that the professor remembered me fondly and put me in touch with a colleague of his, who was also the archivist at Green-Wood Cemetery. For the next year, two mornings a week, I cleaned and bound books and encased blueprints in mylar. I enjoyed the work, but the best part was just being in Green-Wood that often.

Green-Wood Cemetery opened in 1838 as a solution to the problem of people dying in Manhattan. They needed somewhere out of town -- convenient enough for a day trip, but far enough that cholera wouldn't be a concern. So Green-Wood was built as a cemetery, but also, fundamentally, as a park. It was a bucolic escape from the city, the first large municipal green space here, years before Central or Prospect Park were a glimmer in Olmsted's eye. Visitors promenaded and picnicked and, from the tallest point in Brooklyn, looked out over the Harbor where one day the Statue of Liberty would stand.

With green areas multiplying across the city, Green-Wood doesn't see nearly the same level of visitors nowadays, but the ones who do make the trek are amply rewarded. There are all manner and design of mausoleums, a chapel that's a miniature of Christopher Wren's Tom Tower at Christchurch, weeping angels galore, and, of course, the parrots.

The story goes that some time in the 70s, a shipment of parrots escaped their crate at JFK. (Questions like: who was shipping them; how did they escape; and who ships crate-fulls of parrots anyway? remain unanswered.) They found their way west to Green-Wood, where the Gothic gates (designed by Richard Upjohn, the Trinity Church architect) proved an irresistible home. They've been there ever since. If you stand under the arches you can hear them squawking, and if you look up you can see how their nest is slowly consuming the top spire. They're monk parrots, and apparently their style of living -- communal, monastery style -- is responsible for their survival. Parrots that lived separately in individual nests would never last a winter here. Keep an eye on the ground too; you may find a bright green feather.

Green-Wood is also, thanks to Baked in Brooklyn, the best-smelling cemetery in the world. Unfortunately picnics are no longer allowed, but if you pick up a muffin and walk around eating it, no one's going to complain. Green-Wood also holds regular special events, often in the evening. There are daylight tours too, both official ones with the cemetery historian and others.

Everyone comes to NY and sees a Broadway show; hardly anyone comes to NY and sees a candlelit circus in a cemetery. Check it out.

MAP
RECIPE: Turkey Chili. Pretty much the only time I'll allow ground turkey in the house. This one's a crowd-pleaser.