I tend to drink beer on its own, but wine with food, which is why wine bars appeal to me so much—that particular blend of restaurant and bar that encourages sampling from small plates. I stopped by Park Slope's Brookvin to sample their vegetarian wares.
Polish plate [Photos: Garrett Ziegler]
There are a lot of Polish restaurants in Greenpoint, but, to the best of our knowledge, only one has knights on the outside and doilies on the inside: Królewskie Jadło. The silver sculptures guard thick doors, which open into a narrow dining room filled with glowering portraits, tarnished swords, and solid tables decorated with the aforementioned lace accouterments. Decor-wise, it's medieval meets crafty grandma. Food-wise, it's Polish staples done deliciously.
[Photographs: Nancy Huang, unless otherwise noted]
Whatever your initial impressions, The Saint Austere wants you to know that you're probably wrong. Rejecting the traditional labels of restaurant, wine bar, lounge, or (gasp!) gastropub, this Williamsburg spot prefers to call itself an "enabler," a conduit for a memorable evening filled with great food, wine and beer at a reasonable cost.
Okay, that moniker might be a little ridiculous. but The Saint Austere, run by brother-and-sister team Fabrizio and Jackie Pirolo, lives up to its self-imposed challenge with a menu created by brother Michael Pirolo (currently chef de cuisine at Scarpetta in Miami) and executed by chef Sol Han.
The cuisine draws from worldly influences (Spanish, Cuban, Mediterranean), but its soul is Italian—rich, homey and beautiful in its simplicity. No dish epitomizes this more than the Creamy Polenta ($10), hand-churned and slow-cooked for five hours until it transforms into liquid velvet, then topped with a mixture of spicy sausage and cipollini onion.
In this great city of ours, one could eat a different sandwich every day of the year—so that's what we'll do. Here's A Sandwich a Day, our daily look at sandwiches around New York. Got a sandwich we should check out? Let us know. —The Mgmt.
Who would have guessed that "Sal's Favorite" sub ($8.50) at a place called M&S Prime Meats would be a vegetarian sandwich? That's precisely the case, though—this huge sandwich is loaded with slices of fried eggplant, sauteed broccoli rabe, and fresh mozzarella (made in house). You have a few options: hot or cold, extra oil & vinegar? On my server's recommendation I got it warmed up, so that the mozzarella melted all over the place, and I got oil but no vinegar. The eggplant is sliced so thinly it almost dissolves in your mouth; the broccoli rabe is cooked until soft and only slightly bitter; the mozzarella chewy and creamy. The sandwich is so big that it could serve as two meals, if you can restrain yourself from eating the whole thing in one sitting.
312 5th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215 (map)
718-768-2728
msprimesubs.com
About the author: Howard Walfish is a Virginia native who has been living in New York since 2003. He is, in fact, a vegetarian, and is the co-founder of Eat to Blog and the creator of BrooklynVegetarian.
[Photo: Kathy YL Chan]
There's a season for everything, and the first few months of each year are the season for warm chocolate desserts. From the silky hot fudge that tops ice cream sundaes and soft-serve filled eclairs, to molten chocolate cakes (and one with a molten green tea-white chocolate interior!), we've got you covered. Check out nine warm chocolate desserts we love this winter.
About the author: Originally from Honolulu, Kathy YL Chan blogs at Kathy YL Chan, where she chronicles her eats and travel adventures between Hawai'i, New York and beyond. She firmly believes that there is always room for dessert.
Fast & Fresh Burrito Deli is a five-year-old Mexican restaurant in Boerum Hill run by a family from Tlaxcala, Mexico. Though most of the business here is take-out and delivery, there's a slim counter to perch at, and a large backyard for languorous taco-eating when the weather is nice. When your friends want Mile End but there's nowhere to sit, cross the street and show them real satisfaction. A craving for pastrami can be easily assuaged by salted beef cecina.
One of the reasons I love Beer Table in Park Slope is that there was obviously a lot of thought and care put into selecting their beer menu. Although they are not currently serving dinner, they recently launched a new lunch service, and thankfully they have put the same amount of thought into the food as they have into the beer selection. The savory part of the lunch menu is separated into three sections: snacks, small plates, and large plates. Though none of the large plates are vegetarian, enough of the snacks and small plates are that you can put together a delicious meal for very little money.
Editor's note: January is Vegetable Month on Serious Eats: New York! Every day this month we'll introduce you to a different vegetable dish we love. Do you have a veg dish to nominate? Let us know!
Come to Franny's for the pizza but don't leave without trying their non-pizza items, like this plate of sunchokes. The brown, knobbly tubers are cooked until their skins get all shriveled. Just a gentle side-of-the-fork cut gives way to soft, mashy innards. It's easy for your eyes to move onto the bright tangerine segments, and when you put them into your mouth, you realize they're not just tangerines.
They're tangerines that have been dressed in a Franny's concoction of Calabrian chile oil (the same oil that goes into their spicy salami), blended tangerine zest, lemon juice, olive oil, and honey. It's bitter up front in an herbal way, fading into a gently spicy-sweet background; then you actually get to burst into the juicy tangerine itself. Green olive curls are mixed throughout, offering salty, briny bites in between.
Note: Franny's menu is seasonal and changes daily, so we can't guarantee the sunchokes will be there on your visit.
295 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11217 (map)
718-230-0221
frannysbrooklyn.com
Barbecue joints in Park Slope, name one. (Scratching head.) I'm coming up short, though have heard recent rumors of a Dinosaur Bar-B-Q in the works. Chef Jacques Gautier of Palo Santo in the Slope also realized this barbecue deficiency when his business partner's pregnant wife was craving brisket. "A few beers later," he explained—and sometimes these stories actually end with a good idea.
Fort Reno—a nod to the park in D.C. where Gautier and his high school cronies used to hang out—is a cozy 25-seat space, softly lit with upside-down colander chandeliers and mason jar lamps. It officially opened Tuesday night on the same block of Union Street as Palo Santo (which you could easily walk past and never notice; it's tucked into the first floor of a brownstone).
"I wanted to fill my menu with things I love to eat," says Dale Talde of the restaurant with his name on the door, which opened in Park Slope last Sunday. In his case, that means a menu with broad-reaching Asian influences—from Thai to Vietnamese to Japanese and Filipino—but with often American sensibilities: brisket nods to Texas, "pretzel dumplings" to New York; an iceberg wedge salad isn't likely to be found anywhere in Asia.
After Talde (best known for two stints on Top Chef and Top Chef All Stars) left Buddakan, he knew he wanted to open his own place but wasn't expecting to leave Manhattan. But he was approached by the two owners of Thistle Hill Tavern in Park Slope, David Massoni and John Bush, and their Brooklyn boosting won him over.
It's a roomy corner restaurant handsomely outfitted in engraved wood, a dominant bar up front (with taps from Hitachino red rice ale and Kirin Ichiban to $3 Miller High Life) with booths in back; several tables at the far end have a view into the open kitchen. It's a great look at the workings of Talde and his crew, who've been running full-tilt in the restaurant's first week. "I've been through three restaurant openings," Dale laughs, exhausted but happy, "but man, is it different when your name's on the door."
Editor's note: January is Vegetable Month on Serious Eats: New York! Every day this month we'll introduce you to a different vegetable dish we love. Do you have a veg dish to nominate? Let us know!
As you might expect, Radish in Williamsburg does a great radish salad, "coupling fresh mango with red onions, green peppers, and of course, radishes, sliced paper-thin and tossed with black sesame seeds in the lightest of vinaigrettes," as Kathy YL Chan wrote in 2010. But their other seasonally rotating salads are worth a try, too. I enjoyed the Kale and Clementine ($6) on a recent visit. Beyond those two ingredients—kale torn into bite-sized pieces (it's amazing how many kale salads are in unwieldy chunks) and neatly segmented citrus—it's laced with Parmesan and hazelnuts, in crumbles and shards that cling to every piece. It makes for a salad that's not just tasty things thrown together, but composed in a way that it collides as it should in one bite.
158 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11211 (map)
718-782-2744
radishnyc.com
Editor's note: January is Vegetable Month on Serious Eats: New York! Every day this month we'll introduce you to a different vegetable dish we love. Do you have a veg dish to nominate? Let us know!
Sometimes the simplest vegetable dishes are the tastiest. And Williamsburg Japanese spot Zenkichi does simple incredibly well. Lotus roots and carrots are gently simmered in soy sauce and sesame oil for the Kinpira. Each maintain a tender crunch and take on delicate flavors of soy and sesame, with sesame seeds sprinkled on top for textural interest and a little nutty bite. And Zenkichi just about always gets major points for presentation; this careful tower of roots is no exception.
It's available on the dinner menu at Zenkichi, but also at adjacent sake bar Akariba, where it's easier to stop in for just a quick bite.
77 North 6th Street, Brooklyn NY 11211 (b/n Wythe and Berry; map)
718-388-8985
zenkichi.com
If you happen to end up in Red Hook—whether by bus, bike, or long sketchy walk across the BQE from Carroll Gardens—Fort Defiance welcomes you with open arms, your journey rewarded with delicious cocktails and hearty food. Café by day, bar by night, Fort Defiance serves smart but simple fare befitting its artisanal-minded neighbors.
It's the sort of place where locals can graze on pickled herring, chicken liver pate, or grilled pheasant on a nightly basis, accompanied by an Old Fashioned or Sazerac. Currently the menu features the soul-warming Oxtail Soup with Liver Dumplings ($11), which resemble the texture of matzo balls but have a delicate meaty flavor.
Editor's note: January is Vegetable Month on Serious Eats: New York! Every day this month we'll introduce you to a different vegetable dish we love. Do you have a veg dish to nominate? Let us know!
[Photograph: Andrew Strenio]
When's the last time you were really, really wowed by a plate of broccoli? Much of the wow factor here has to do with the housemade stracciatella nestled on top, but to be fair to the broccoli, it's roasted until shriveled, sweet, and a deep forest green. The florets form a bed for the soft tangle of stracciatella, which starts as Brucie's fresh mozzarella—you might see someone pulling strands of it during lunch service—and soaks in cream overnight. It wakes up the next day as luscious, delicately stringy stracciatella.
Poke the soft-boiled egg to release all the golden yolk ready to spill out over the plate. Of course the broccoli will have to wipe up these pools of rich yolk, which mingles with the creamy stracciatella milk. The broccoli side is available at dinnertime.
About the author: Erin is the national editor of Serious Eats. You can follow her on Twitter: @erin_zimmer
234 Court Street, Brooklyn NY 11201 (map); 347-987-4961
In this great city of ours, one could eat a different sandwich every day of the year—so that's what we'll do. Here's A Sandwich a Day, our daily look at sandwiches around New York. Got a sandwich we should check out? Let us know. —The Mgmt.
Smith Street smoked fish emporium Shelsky's has plenty of appetizing sandwich options, but, for me, it's hard to imagine ordering anything other than the Spicy Blue ($11). The rich, savory bluefish salad is nicely balanced by the addition of orange and fennel, while coarsely chopped toasted hazelnuts add crunch. The cucumber salad listed on the menu appears in the form of paper-thin, lightly pickled slices and toasted seeded rye from Orwasher's holds it all together. And they get a gold star for service: while they were out of Sriracha when I stopped in, the affable proprietor ran out to borrow hot sauce from the taco place next door so I wouldn't have to go without a little heat.
251 Smith Street, Brooklyn NY 11231 (map)
718-855-8817
shelskys.com
About the author: Stephanie Klose has more mustard than you. You can follow her on twitter at @sklose.
