The Mango Lassie

The culinary aspiration of the moment for the liberal elite of urban America seems to be finding ways to keep themselves (or should I say ourselves?) from feeling guilty about the ethical and environmental impact of eating hamburgers. My visit a few weeks ago to BareBurger, the new organic, grass-fed burger joint up the Slope from my house, lent weight to this theory. It was further confirmed just a few days ago in Portland when Flava Flav and her boyfriend Hot Dog took me to Little Big Burger, a minimalist spot boasting high-quality, local ingredients (including ketchup) and truffled-oiled fries. Are either of these new gourmet guilt-free burger joints worth the price or hype? These are the kinds of questions the Mango Lassie was born to answer.

Empanada Boy and I went to BareBurger with my good friend Red Pepper and her fiancé, McIntosh Apple to bid them goodbye before their move to Evanston, Illinois. The restaurant is a chain in the making with a location in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, two locations in Manhattan and another three opening in Astoria, Chelsea and the Upper East Side, respectively. The Park Slope location has only been open for about a month, and it has had lines out the door since day one. This company has obviously done its market research. We were told it would be a 45-minute wait to sit down, but it ended up only being about 25 minutes. The four of us sat at a high wooden table under a chandelier fashioned out of old spoons. We ordered a pitcher of the Belgian-style Hennepin Ale from Ommegang in Cooperstown, NY, one of the many local beers the restaurant offers on tap. We also got an order of the assorted pickles, which include spicy sriracha-habanero pickle chips, bread and butter pickle chips and garlic-dill pickle chips from Rick’s Picks, along with a zingy housemade coleslaw. In addition to being local, Rick’s Picks are tasty, though perhaps not as good as the ones I make myself. Still, I never say no to a pickle.

BareBurger offers 14 different six-ounce burgers ranging from the Classic with dill pickle relish and grilled onions ($8.45) to the Big Blue Bacon Burger ($11.95), topped with Danish blue cheese, sauteed mushrooms, grilled onions, applewood smoked bacon, lettuce and peppercorn steak sauce. The BareBurger Supreme ($10.95), pictured above, comes crowned with two onion rings. Each of these burgers can be ordered with patties made from beef, turkey, vegetables or portabella mushrooms. For an extra $1, the adventurous can order patties made from lamb, elk or bison. (EB, of course, had the bison.) Ostrich meat is available for market price. I have long held that the only good way to determine the quality of a burger joint is to try the basic burger without any fancy toppings—no cheese, meat or wild game. I ordered the Classic cooked medium-rare and served on a brioche bun. The grass-fed beef was tender and delicious (as it should be for that price), making this the best burger I’ve had in the neighborhood. The combo basket of French fries and onion rings we ordered to share were nicely crisped and came with a veritable refrigerator’s worth of condiments: curry ketchup, peppercorn steak sauce, spicy chipotle mayo and BareBurger special sauce. BareBurger was good, not because of the fancy toppings and menagerie of meat choices, but because the meat was of a high quality and properly cooked.

Little Big Burger is channeling a retro minimalist aesthetic popularized by California’s In-n-Out. The burgers are small (1/4 lb.) and simple. In fact, the menu consists of a mere six items: a hamburger, a cheeseburger, a veggie burger, fries, soda and floats. Now, it must be said that these burgers are not just any burgers. They are made with Cascade Natural Beef—pasture-raised, grain-finished beef, grown by local ranchers. And while the fries may look simple and basic, they are also not just any fries. They are laced with truffle oil!!! The question was whether any of these extra flourishes would result in notably better food.

Flava Flav and I got hamburgers, and Hot Dog got a cheeseburger with Swiss. The burgers are only $3.25, but they are closer in size to a slider than to BareBurger’s massive offerings. The bun was tasty, but I found the meat a little dry and overcooked. It crumbled in my mouth as I took a bite. Flav said she thought the patties had been better prepared on her previous visits. The fries were well made, although I only tasted the truffle oil during a few illusory bites. Truffle oil isn’t really made with truffles anyway, which makes it something of a gimmick to begin with.

One thing I definitely liked about Little Big Burger was the locally made condiments. There was a bright and tangy ketchup (“catsup” as the bottle calls it) and a “fry sauce,” a blend of mayonnaise and ketchup. Both are made by Camden’s, a line started by Portland chef Micah Camden, exclusively for the restaurant. I still pined for mustard, my favorite condiment, but these were distinctive and worthwhile. I originally thought Little Big Burger was a stand-alone spot. Upon further research, I learned that, like BareBurger, it is also a burgeoning chain. The restaurant has two locations in Portland, one opening in Eugene and another opening in Los Altos, California. Personally, I prefer the Vancouver, Washington-based regional chain Burgerville, which also uses Cascade Natural Beef and makes excellent milkshakes and sweet potato fries. But perhaps Little Big Burger will start to grow on me as it adopts the quality control necessary for a chain. Either way, I know I will again be shelling out the big bucks for BareBurger the next time I want to eat a lot of meat and maintain a relatively clear conscience.

BareBurger
170 7th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.768.BARE

Little Big Burger
122 NW 10th Ave.
Portland, OR 97209
503.274.9008

The General Greene was always one of those places I read about in the New York Times and somehow assumed was too popular, or too trendy, to even bother trying to get in. So when I finally went there a few weeks ago, I was surprised at the lack of a line for a table and the mellow vibe of the restaurant. Granted, this place has been open for a number of years now, but at its core, it’s really nothing more than a good, neighborhood restaurant. I went there with my friend Corned Beef Hashette to bid her farewell before her move to Gettysburg, PA where her fiancée is taking a tenure-track teaching position at Gettysburg College. I don’t know a lot about Gettysburg, but from what CBH told me, it seems safe to say there aren’t many consciously-sourced, locavore restaurants like The General Greene there. To me, this is a good thing and a bad thing, depending on how overloaded I feel with the Brooklynness of things at any particular point in time.

CBH and I took a table outside and were the only ones there as it was hot enough for most people to choose air conditioning. We scanned the menu and decided to order an assortment of dishes to share. CBH is allergic to seafood, so that ruled out options like the chicken-fried oysters and the Prince Edward Island mussels and toasts. (I took note to order these during a future visit.) First came the deviled eggs, which were silky and smoky, infused with Spanish paprika. Next we tried roasted cauliflower with raisins and pinenuts. The cauliflower was coated in a basic, but tasty, pesto, which added interesting color and melded nicely with the pinenuts, while setting off the sweetness of the raisins. The dish was one I could easily make at home but would probably never have thought up.

For our next dish, we knew we couldn’t not order the thick-cut candied bacon. I mean, who could resist? This shot of the profile of one of the three pieces delivered to our table should be enough to demonstrate that this was no ordinary bacon. Indeed, it was exceptional— smoky and sweet and perfectly cooked so that the edges were slightly crisp and the fat melted in our mouths. Eating these was like eating slices of heaven, especially for a couple of nice Jewish girls. After the bacon came a green salad with spritely, local-seeming greens, candied pecans and fried shallots. It was a perfectly tasty and refreshing dish, but I did feel a tad bit sorry for the salad for having to follow the bacon.

At this point in the meal, CBH and I realized we were being eaten alive by mosquitoes. (So this was why no one else had opted to eat outside!) We grabbed our plates and glasses and headed into the restaurant, apologizing to our youthful waiter on the way. He kindly found an empty table for us, just in time for our final course to arrive. For the pièce de résistance, we ordered the General Greene fried chicken with sweet potato-andouille hash and braised collard greens. We had asked our young server what he thought of the dish, and he seemed to hesitate a bit too long before saying it was good. While this didn’t give us a ton of confidence, we ordered it anyway, and boy were we glad we did. The chicken was well seasoned and perfectly crispy on the outside, while still remaining succulent and tender on the inside. The greens and hash were only OK, but they were entirely ancillary; plate-fillers playing courtiers to the kingly chicken.

CBH and I ate as much as we could, but we couldn’t even finish off every bite of the dishes we ordered. Dessert was simply not in the cards, but perhaps I should have found room: I learned when I got home that Nicholas Morgenstern, one of General Greene’s owners, was a pastry chef at a number of top New York restaurants, including Daniel and Gilt. At the time, though, it seemed impossible to consume anything more. As I look at it, not eating dessert leaves room for another set of tasty surprises to unfold the next time I visit.

The General Greene
229 DeKalb Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11205
718.222.1510

Ever since the New York Times began its love affair with Smorgasburg, I have been wanting to visit the new food extension of the Brooklyn Flea. It’s a farmer’s market that has more prepared-food vendors than growers and bakers, and it sets up every Saturday on the Williamsburg waterfront. I finally made it there with Empanda Boy in tow (one hour trip, thanks to the MTA) on Saturday afternoon. We wended our way from the Bedford Ave. L train stop towards the waterfront through throngs of hipsters embarked on their weekend plans. The waterfront area, officially known as East River State Park, was redone in 2007 and has the spare, geometrical feel of new parks like Brooklyn Bridge Park and Chicago’s Millennium Park. The grass is bright green and is trimmed tightly within its angular, concrete boundaries. The only trees are short and provide no shade, and there are clusters of pseudo-architectural benches atop lots and lots of concrete. The lack of shade was immediately evident as we passed through a crowd of people scrunched together in the 90-degree heat, eating in the shadow of one of the new high rises.

There is no shade whatsoever within the confines of the market itself, which is set up on one side of the park inside a chain-link pen in a gravel area that is used for concerts. My friend Crawdad was supposed to meet us later, but it was already 2 pm, so EB and I got down to the business of deciding what to eat, meandering our way among the booths as the sun beat down. We started with a sandwich from a stand called Bocata that was too beautiful to be ignored: spicy Spanish chorizo, infused with smokey pimentón de la Vera and topped with a flame-roasted red pepper. The flavors immediately transported me back to my beloved Spain! We ordered it with salted, blistered padron peppers, which were mostly sweet with just a hint of heat and were totally addictive. The sandwich with side came to $10, a bit steep for a relatively small plate, but undeniably unique and delicious. Avoiding the sun-baked picnic tables, we sat down to eat in the meager shade of a concrete ledge and planned our next move. Now stuck in Spanish nostalgia mode, I decided to try the boquerones en vinagre (vinegar-cured anchovies) from Bon Chovie (punny names abound at Smorgasburg). These are apparently new to the menu, which otherwise focuses on fried anchovies. The fried ones looked delicious, but I wanted something clean and refreshing on such a hot day. The tangy boquerones atop toast with bright red tomato cubes fit the bill. They tasted like they had just been pulled from the sea, helping to justify their $6 price tag.

Still hungry, EB went to wait in line for a BLT from Landhaus. We had seen people carrying these throughout the market, and with their incredibly thick-cut bacon slabs, they looked like a cartoon version of a BLT, something Fred Flintstone might snack on. Landhaus also sells the maple bacon by itself, served on a skewer, which I was tempted to try. But if you’re getting the bacon, then why not get the whole sandwich, right? As it turned out, the sandwich was a tad bit disappointing, and not because there was anything wrong with the flavor. The bread was fresh and crusty, the tomato ripe, the mayonnaise lightly seasoned and the lettuce properly fresh and undoubtedly local. The problem was in the texture: Usually the thin, crispy bacon gives the BLT the crunch it needs, but here the thick-cut bacon was too chewy and fatty to deliver that effect. Next time, I would order the bacon on a stick and be done with it. Still, at only $5, it’s not like this BLT was breaking the bank.

Crawdad arrived while we were waiting in the Landhaus line. Without pondering for too long she ordered just what I had hoped she might: a lobster roll from Red Hook Lobster Pound. I had been wanting to try one of these but feared that getting one for $16 would have maxed out my food budget in one fell swoop. Crawdad took the plunge, and came back from the stand with a toasted white bread roll overflowing with big chunks of glistening lobster. She must have seen the longing in my eyes because she kindly offered me a bite. The flavors were pretty straightforward, just sweet, tender pieces of lobster lightly slicked with mayonnaise and topped with a dusting of paprika and chopped scallions. Crawdad thought the sandwich a bit too simple to merit the price, and I can certainly see that point of view. But in this case, I suppose you are paying for the ingredients. And sometimes it takes the most practiced hand to know when to leave naturally occurring perfection alone.

Finally, it was time for dessert. After hours of scoping the scene, I knew I wanted a chocolate-dipped frozen banana from the Nana’s Bananas stand. (Fans of the show “Arrested Development” will immediately think of the Bluth family’s banana stand.) I opted to have mine rolled in candied nuts and sea salt. It was a magnificent dessert, offering all the satisfaction of an ice cream bar made with the best chocolate around. The sea salt enhanced the other ingredients, giving it a heightened flavor profile. EB got a tasty, but unremarkable “You’re Berry Nice” smoothie (told you there were lots of puns) from Salud, and Crawdad got a rhubarb shaved ice from People’s Pops (too much ice, too little rhubarb).

The food at Smorgasburg was very good, though slightly monotonous in its artisanal, organic, hyper-local, gentrified-ethnic way. It was also little pricier than I would have liked. But, hey, this is Williamsburg, not Queens. Most of all, though, I think everything would have tasted better if I had had a shady place to sit and eat it.

Smorgasburg
Between North 6th and 7th Streets on the East River (close to Kent Avenue)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

For a complete list of vendors go here.

On a recent voyage to Little Pepper to indulge a second time in some of the best Szechuan food ever to grace this continent, I met Imperial Stout, a fellow food-adventure seeker and a friend of Dan Dan Noodle. As we sat digging in to our dumplings, Imperial Stout told us of another restaurant we had to try. It served the best Turkish food in the five boroughs, he said, and a group would need to be assembled to properly sample its wealth of offerings. A few weeks later, Imperial Stout set to work assembling that group, sending us a link to the mouthwatering menu of Taci’s Beyti, located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn.

Dan Dan’s roommate, Steve Vanilla, and Imperial Stout were with Dan Dan in his car when Empanada Boy and I piled in. He followed Imperial Stout’s driving directions as Imperial Stout treated all of us to pre-dinner samples of nutmeg and mole-flavored salami that he had brought back from Armandino Batali’s Salumi on a recent trip to Seattle. When we pulled up and walked into the restaurant, we saw a long, thin, cafeteria-type space, too-brightly-lit with fluorescent lights. Mirrors covered the upper two-thirds of one wall and terrible dance music played loudly through speakers in the ceiling. Waiters dressed in black and white moved in and out of the kitchen in the back. Many of the tables around us were filled with people eating and talking. This was clearly the place to be for fine Turkish cuisine.

Imperial Stout took charge of the ordering with a little input from the rest of us and then revealed the beers from his collection that he had brought to share with us, including Pliny the Elder, an American double from California’s Russian River Brewing; a vintage bottle of The Abyss, an imperial stout by the Oregon brewery Deschutes; and for dessert, a bottle of Cherry Adam of the Wood by Portland’s own Hair of the Dog. (First salami, then fine beer— this is a good friend to have!) Soon the food began to arrive. The first dish was eggplant with spicy tomato sauce: cubes of eggplant sautéed with tomatoes, garlic and peppers to create a sweet-savory spread to top the thick Turkish bread delivered in baskets to our table. Next came the salad, a platter of brightly dressed tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, olives and green peppers topped with a mountain of fresh-grated feta and intermingled with tasty morsels of air-dried pastrami, seasoned with cumin, garlic and paprika. Cubes of calves liver were delicious in their crispy pan-fried shells. A squirt of lemon juice and a salad of seasoned onions kept their richness in check.

Then the server brought us the baked items we had ordered. The first, lahmacun, was thin circles of doughy bread topped with ground lamb, tomatoes, parsley and onions, seasoned with cumin, garlic and pepper. It tasted like a Middle Eastern pizza. We also sampled beyaz peynirli pide, a flaky pastry stuffed with that same fresh feta, an egg-milk custard, parsley and dill. The salty edge of the feta and the brightness of the herbs cut through the decadent pastry and custard to some degree, but this was not a dish to be taken lightly.

Just as I was started to get the first sensation of fullness, the meats arrived at the table. We ordered the Betyi kebab— savory skewer-grilled lamb, served in a slightly spicy sauce of tomatoes, garlic, green peppers. This was delicious, but the meat was almost too shrouded in sauce for my taste. I preferred the Iskender kebab (see second photo above)— thin shavings of gyro kebab (made of different meats ground together and reassembled) came topped with a lighter tomato sauce on top of a bed of yogurt-soaked pita. This meat was perfectly spiced and the thin slices meant we could keep adding more to our plates. The dish was like a fresher, more complex, disassembled gyro sandwich served on a platter. And what, I ask, could be wrong with that?

We were all quite full at this point, but we couldn’t leave without eating dessert. Imperial Stout had preordered kunefe, a unique pie of sorts, made with finely shredded dough baked until crispy and filled with stretchy and sweet kunefe cheese. It was soaked in a not-too-sweet honey syrup and topped with crunchy pistachios. It was a fantastic way to end a great meal. I only wish I had more space in my stomach to fill with it.

Taci’s Beyti
1955 Coney Island Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11223
718.627.5750

Perhaps Empanada Boy said it best when he observed: “The main difference between ramen and pho is that ramen costs at least twice as much.” While that’s certainly not a precise assessment, it captures the way I often feel when ordering ramen at a restaurant. I think to myself: “This had better be good because I’m paying $14 for this bowl of soup.” This thought crossed my mind the other day when EB and I met my friend Oyster at Zuzu Ramen, a restaurant on Park Slope’s industrial 4th Ave. Oyster lives nearby, and the pork belly in the signature dish had been tasty enough to beckon him back more than a few times. It turns out that Oyster’s instincts about this being more than the average ramen joint were right on. The chef at Zuzu, Akihiro Moroto, has worked at fine dining establishments such as the now-shuttered Lespinasse and at Jean Georges. But did that make a bowl of his Zuzu ramen worth $14? I was game to find out.

The small wood-panelled restaurant has high counters and tables, equipped with stools. It has large windows looking out into the street and windows at the bar, offering patrons views of the chef at work in the kitchen. As I sipped an interesting Japanese IPA, I watched the chef using a torch to crisp the long thin pieces of fatty pork that would soon grace our soups. Oyster and I ordered the namesake Zuzu ramen, with charshu (the blowtorched pork), bamboo shoots, bok choy, Thai basil, noodles and a slow-cooked egg, served in a slightly spicy, fragrant dashi broth. EB went for what turned out to be a somewhat spicier green curry-miso ramen, redolent with cilantro and featuring charshu and a slow-cooked egg. We sipped our beers and eagerly awaited the arrival of our soups.

In due course, three steaming bowls of soup were delivered to our table. I started with a bite of the charshu, which was floating, silken and buttery, at the top of my bowl. It was certainly tasty. The noodles had a nice chew to them and a springiness that shows they were fresher than average. Breaking the soft-cooked egg allowed some of the yolk to run satisfyingly into the broth. The broth itself was tasty, particularly bites that included Thai basil, but it was not remarkable. I preferred the green curry-miso broth in EB’s bowl. It was punchy and flavorful, but still nuanced, and set off the richness of the meat and the egg more clearly. It was also $11, compared to the $14 Zuzu ramen (the latter admittedly delivered in a slightly larger bowl).

There is no doubt that Zuzu makes the best ramen in Park Slope. It’s far better than the fairly generic bowls I’ve had at the recently-opened Naruto Ramen around the corner from my house. I don’t think it quite holds up to the addictive ramen at Ipuddo, the Japanese chain with a single New York location in the East Village. But then again, I’ve waited for a table at Ippudo for more than an hour and was once simply turned away at the door at 8:30 pm or so because the list of people waiting was so numerous. There would never be such a wait at the relatively serene Zuzu. And while I could always go to Chinatown and fill my soup craving with a $5.75 bowl of pho, there are times when the top-notch ingredients in a good bowl of ramen, and the subtleties of the flavors they create, really hit the spot. When that contemplative mood strikes me—or when I’m simply craving a nice slab of braised pork—Zuzu Ramen will be right there near the top of my list. Is that occasional feeling of pure satisfaction worth $14 a bowl? I suppose it is.

Zuzu Ramen
173 4th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718.398.ZUZU

Naruto Ramen
276 5th Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.832.1111

Ippudo NY
65 4th Ave.
New York, NY 10003
212.388.0088

I will admit it: I was wrong. More than once, I have ranted about the lack of authentic regional Mexican food in New York. In a city where Spanish is primarily spoken by Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, it’s no surprise. But having lived across the street from an awesome taqueria in Chicago and having done most of our shopping at a well-stocked Mexican grocery store there, I was spoiled. I was also annoyed by the assertions of fellow New Yorkers that the generic gringo-infused Mexican restaurants of Manhattan and Brooklyn were “really good.” But as it turns out, I had simply not been looking in the right place for my tacos, tortas and platillos de carne asada. It was all right under my nose in my latest food neighborhood of choice: Sunset Park.

To be fair, I had known about the Mexican restaurants in Sunset Park for quite some time, but I had never made the move to try them. The New York Times, and a number of people I spoke with talked up Tacos Matamoros, but Empanada Boy tried it and was disappointed. If that was the best Sunset Park had to offer, I feared my standards would never be met. But EB and I decided to try our luck again last weekend. I found a informative article from Serious Eats about a taco crawl on Sunset Park’s 5th Ave. Two spots stood out to me. One ended up being closed when we got there, so we headed to the other: Tulcingo Deli VI. The name itself held promise, and when we walked into the nearly full restaurant and saw we were the only gringos, thing started looking even better. After we were seated at one of the empty tables, the waitress came over to take our order. Every non-native Spanish speaker knows about that awkward moment where you wonder whether the server will be annoyed at you speaking Spanish. Our waitress jumped right over that hurdle by immediately launching into Spanish. Gringos though we might be, we were speaking Spanish that night.

While we waited for our food, we sipped our beers andchowed down on the excellent chips and slightly sweet chunky salsa. We were later brought two other kinds of thin spicier salsa– one made with smoky red peppers and other made with chiles verdes. Both were nuanced and delicious, boding well for the tacos to come. All of a sudden, a group of mariachi musicians clad in white suits studded with silver fastenings stood up and started to sing and play at the front of the restaurant. I am not always a huge fan of mariachi music, but something about the way the band enlivened and excited everyone else in the restaurant (singing and clapping) caused the music to have a similar effect on me.

Just as the female singer launched into a Spanish-accented rendition of “Happy Birthday” (‘appy berthday to jou), our tacos arrived. I had really wanted to try the goat meat barbacoa taco, but they were out, so I ordered chorizo, suadero (wasn’t sure what it was, but was up for adventure) and al pastor. EB ordered al pastor, oreja (ear!) and lengua (tongue). These were big tacos, more sizable than the ones I typically ate in Chicago, wrapped in two layers of fresh corn tortillas. They were brimming with meat and topped with chopped white onions, cilantro and creamy guacamole. The chorizo was chunky, but nicely crisped and infused with chile, garlic, paprika and cumin. After that, the suadero, which turns out to be the soft, smooth breast muscle of a cow, was a little bland, but it did have a slightly gamey, livery flavor, which made it more interesting. When I got to al pastor, I was already feeling pretty full, but this taco brought the flavor back swinging with soft strings of well-spiced pork. I doused mine alternately with the red and green salsa, unable to decide which I preferred. EB’s oreja was tasty, if a bit cartiladgy. I preferred the lengua, which was tender and juicy. The guacamole on top of each taco added a nice touch of cooling lubrication to the mounds of spiced meat. I was in taco heaven!

After we finished eating, the mariachi band, which had been working its way around the room asking for requests in exchange for cash, came to stop at our table. EB sheepishly requested “Guantanamera,” and the band obliged with a particularly rousing version. When they asked for another song, we realized that was about the extent of our Mexican song library. That didn’t stop them; they played the Stevie Wonder song “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” which worked surprisingly well with the mariachi instrumentation. Everyone sang along. We walked out of the restaurant feeling like we had made some friends and found the authentic Mexico flavors we had been missing for so long.

Tulcingo Deli VI
5520 5th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11220
718.439.2896

Last weekend was deceptively cold in New York City, and I had to spend part of it doing our taxes. The only thing that could penetrate these doldrums was a steaming hot bowl of pho. Empanada Boy and I have eaten numerous bowls of pho in Chinatown at Thài Són and places like it, but we wanted to try something new. Apart from banh mi and Italian food, Park Slope’s ethnic offerings tend toward the bland and Americanized. I’ve noticed only one restaurant serving pho, and it was made with chicken. Where are the tendons, tripe and fatty brisket of my fantasies? For the Park Slope resident seeking pho, the answer is found just a few subway stops south on 8th Avenue in Sunset Park— the Chinatown of Brooklyn. After a bit of research, we headed off to Nha Trang Palace, a Vietnamese restaurant whose pho came highly recommended by the crazy chatroom participants at Chowhound.

Based on what I saw in the couple blocks from the N train to the restaurant, Sunset Park’s 8th Avenue had nowhere near the bustle of the Chinatowns of Manhattan or Flushing. People were waiting outside one dingy looking bar for the bus to Atlantic City, and there was a Japanese place that look fairly decent. A number of other shops were closed for the night. The decor inside of Nha Trang looked pretty much like every other pho place I’ve ever been: one mirrored wall, a couple large, round tables and numerous smaller square ones, a sign made of florescent paper with the specials scrawled across it in English and Vietnamese and a few gold-embellished Vietnamese wall hangings. EB and I were seated right away and set about ordering. We started with the Goi Cuon (pardon my lack of Vietnamese orthography), a summer roll, which was supposed to have shrimp and pork wrapped into its rice paper wrapping. We only detected shrimp, but we liked them nonetheless, especially after they were plunged into chunky peanut sauce.

Then we selected from the list of pho combinations. There are 20 in all, including a couple pork, seafood and, yes, chicken options. EB went with no. 3, the Dac Biet, a “special big bowl,” which included “six difference” brisket, navel, frank (?), omosa (tripe), tendon and eye of round. The six difference brisket is brisket cut from different parts, variously emphasizing meat, cartilage, fat, etc. I ordered no. 4, Tai Nam, which on paper had most of the same things, minus the frank, and had plain brisket instead of six difference. As it turned out, both bowls of soup looked and tasted just about the same. That was fine by me (although, I never did figure out what frank is…) because the bowls of aromatic soup laden with cilantro and slices of still-pink brisket was just what the doctor ordered. The tendon, simultaneously chewy and melt-in-your-mouth, is still my favorite element, but I was a big fan of the omosa. I’m not typically a huge tripe person, but this kind is slightly chewy and almost noodle-like in its thinness (see photo). I slurped it up.

While Nha Trang Palace certainly does not offer the world’s best pho, it upholds the standards of the dish quite adequately. I would rate it on par with the aforementioned Thài Són. In fact, when I got home and did some research, I learned that there is a Nha Trang Centre in Chinatown, right near Thài Són. To complicate the comparison even further, a little deeper digging revealed that Nha Trang and Thài Són have the exact same pho menu— I mean copied down to the last word. Is there a company out there that sells pre-made pho menus? How will I ever know which is better? Does it even matter? Pho is such an emotional food that one bowl might taste better depending on the level of my need for it at that very moment. And knowing that respectable pho exists just a few stops down the N line from my house in Brooklyn is fine comfort indeed.

Nha Trang Palace
5906 8th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11220
718.492.8916

When Empanada Boy and I moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn from Washington Heights, the heavily Dominican and Puerto Rican neighborhood at the northern tip of Manhattan, I thought that even though we might be leaving tostones and arroz con pollo behind we would at least be getting some good bagels and challah. After all, Brooklyn has the largest concentration of Jews outside Israel and Park Slope is home to the largest reform Jewish temple in Brooklyn. When we got here, there were delicious bagels aplenty, but finding good challah was a struggle.

Back in the Heights, we typically bought Zomick’s challah (see above), which is made on Long Island and is sold at most New York grocery stores in a green-checkered plastic bag. It’s soft and fluffy, with a slight chew and a little sweetness. It makes a pretty good French toast (essential to preserving my family’s Saturday morning tradition). It also miraculously stays fresh-tasting for much longer than it probably should and only comes in plain or raisin varieties. Do poppy and sesame seeds just cut too far into the already slim challah profit margins? I’m not sure. All I know is that after doing our best to sample all the challah varieties that our Brooklyn surroundings have to offer, we are now back to where we started, buying Zomick’s at the grocery store, and no closer to the challah ideal than when we first arrived in New York. How did we get here, you might ask? Allow me to recount the steps.

The first place we tried after moving to the south end of the Slope was Lopez Bakery. It was an unlikely first choice because it’s a Mexican bakery, specializing in various kinds of pan dulce and some basic breads. We selected it for it’s proximity and for the fact that it’s actually a bakery, meaning breads are baked on the premises. This turns out to be a very rare thing in Brooklyn and in New York in general when it comes to savory breads. In Portland, I can count at least five bakeries that make their own breads, including fantastic challah— and it’s not exactly a Jewish hotbed. But I digress… the challah from Lopez actually tasted a lot like pan de muertos, the egg bread made for Day of the Dead, minus the anise flavoring. While this traditionally has many of the same ingredients as challah, it also tends to be dry and a little stale tasting, which this challah also was. Our next thought was to try the challah made by Hudson Valley bakery Bread Alone. This one is sold at our food coop, where we do almost all of our shopping. But like nearly every other Bread Alone product I’ve sampled (so overrated!), this one was dry, bland and disappointing.

Our third try was somewhat better. We have always liked Amy’s Bread one of a handful of great bread bakeries in New York City. When we saw that Grab Speciality Foods, a gourmet mini mart near our house at the time, sold challah by Amy’s, we thought we had finally found a surefire winner. Amy’s makes a long, flattish loaf with a matte surface, compared to the glossy, egg-coated Zomick’s (see above photo). The bread wasn’t bad, but it didn’t taste like challah. It took us a few bites to figure it out, but this challah tasted like bagels. It was ultra-chewy and somewhat dense, but its flavor really reminded me of biting into a bagel. The problem is, I’ve had much better bagels and much softer, eggier and more flavorful challah. This leaves Amy’s challah a middling choice, which we promptly checked off our list of worthy candidates.

Feeling frustrated, I complained to my colleague Salt Man who lives on the Upper West Side (a veritable challah heaven with Silver Moon Bakery leading the way). We happened to be stopping in at Mahattan Judaica near our office to buy Hannukkah candles during our lunch hour, and Salt Man had the bright idea to ask the shop’s owner where to get the best challah in Brooklyn. The owner thought for a moment and said, “Well it depends on whether you like sweeter or more savory challah.” I said I liked it more savory, but the truth is I just wanted to know what was THE BEST in his mind. My wish was granted when, without further hesitation, he said: Ostrovitsky Bakery.

Ostrovitsky is a kosher bakery in the heavily Jewish Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn. It’s not that far from our house, but it’s definitely not close enough to walk. And it’s a hike from the nearest subway station to the bakery itself. But EB and I decided we had to try it, so one Friday he put his bike on the subway and rode to the Avenue I stop on the F train. He then rode up to the bakery where patrons in various degrees of Orthodox garb were snatching up loaves of some beautiful looking challah. When we ate our shining poppyseed (!) loaf that night, we knew we had found the challah ideal. It was perfect in every dimension: fluffy with just a hint of chew, slight sweetness, delicious eggy exterior, I could go on and on. And the French toast the next day was amazing. That guy at Manhattan Judaica really knew what he was talking about!

So after hitting challah nirvana, why are we back to eating Zomick’s? Convenience—perhaps the single most important factor in any New Yorker’s life. We just don’t have the time to trek over to Midwood every Friday afternoon. My fundamental question is why can’t good, fresh-made challah make its way to Park Slope? There are plenty of hipster artisans looking to revive old crafts in the neighborhood and surroundings. Couldn’t they abandon their now-tired cupcake shops and pickling companies and open a bonafide neighborhood boulangerie instead? One that makes a good challah would be ideal. I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one to abandon supermarket challah and start shopping there.

Zomick’s Challah is sold at:
Union Market
754-756 Union St.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.230.5152
and many other locations.

Lopez Bakery
647 5th Ave.
New York, NY 11215
718.965.0289

Bread Alone challah is sold at:
Park Slope Food Coop
782 Union St.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.622.0560
and many other locations.

Amy’s challah is sold at:
Grab Specialty Foods
438 7th Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.369.7595
and many other locations.

Ostrovitsky Bakery
1124 Avenue J
New York, NY 11230
718.951.7924 ‎

When Mango Mama was visiting us in Brooklyn a couple weeks ago to help us set up our new apartment, Empanada Boy and I wanted to take her out for some of the borough’s best fare. We took her to one tasty dinner at Mango Lassie favorite DuMont in Williamsburg. A few days later, when we planned to meet my cousin Leftover Girl for dinner, we decided to try Dean Street, a new gastropub in Prospect Heights helmed by Nate Smith, former chef de cuisine at the highly touted Spotted Pig. I have never been to the Spotted Pig, but it is probably the most hyped restaurant in New York, which set the bar high for Dean Street.

The best thing we ate all night was the gentlemen’s relish bar snack. It consisted of little toasts, spread with oily anchovy paste and topped with a slice of boiled egg. I also enjoyed the housemade pickles, although I would eat a pickled carburetor. In truth, these were not actually as good as the pickles Mango Mama and I make ourselves. The highly anticipated burger, made with ultra-gourmet LaFrieda beef, was served on a brioche bun. It came with cheese or bacon, but nothing else— no signature sauce, no grilled onions, no pickles, no other vegetables of any kind. This would, of course, be fine if the meat spoke for itself. Instead, we found it rather bland and unremarkable. It did not stand up to the decadent, delicious burger I had ordered at DuMont. Despite the youthfulness of this restaurant, I would already pronounce this burger overrated.

We also ordered the cockles, cooked in a seasoned broth and mixed with mint, parsley and other herbs. The cockles were tasty, and the broth was nice, although not very distinctive. My only real complaint about the dish was the large size of the herbs. Evenly distributed minced herbs would have been preferable to the whole leaves of mint and branches of parsley that were clumped around the dish.

The third main course selection we sampled was the housemade tagliatelle with lamb ragu. Wide ribbons of fresh pasta topped with a hearty lamb can’t really be bad, but Mango Mama pronounced it only “fine.” She gets a better version of the dish at Bastas in Portland. It was another dish that wasn’t offensive, but could have been revelatory and wasn’t.

All in all, the food at Dean Street fell short of the admittedly lofty expectations we had for it. I can think of many other Brooklyn spots that would have done more to bolster the borough’s culinary cred. Hopefully, this is not the final word on a restaurant with considerable potential.

Dean Street
755 Dean St.
Brooklyn, NY 11238
718.783.3326

I recently started attending an irregularly scheduled yoga class held on Sundays in the home of a friend of my friend Curly Fries. The four other ladies who attend the class have a tradition of going out for brunch afterward. The class, which is held in Fort Greene, is offering me a simultaneous introduction to kundalini yoga and the brunch offerings of the neighborhood. So far, both have proved enlightening. After the first meeting I attended, Curly Fries and our hostess went to Smooch Organic Cafe and Wine Bar for our post-yoga brunch.

Smooch is a small, airy and funkily decorated cafe, serving espresso drinks and various sandwiches and salads. It is owned by Australians, which quickly becomes clear from the site of Vegemite jars. In addition to beautifully embellished cappuccinos, the coffee menu includes a flat white, a coffee drink from New Zealand that’s similar to a latte but is prepared using steamed milk from the bottom of the pitcher where bubbles are smaller. Coffee drinks came with the food we ordered— a nice extra that most New York brunch spots would never offer.

The menu items had funny names based on inside jokes and comic descriptions. At our table, each of us ordered one of two very similar dishes. The first, the “Tamarama,” was an open face ciabatta slab rubbed with avocado, salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice and topped with slices of tomato and hard-boiled egg. This came with a flat white. The second, the “Pascales ‘I Get Up to Way Too Much Mischief in Fort Greene and I’m Loving it Breakfast’” was exactly the same thing but without the tomato. (While tomato sounded fabulous with the combination, I personally opted against it because winter tomatoes are so often disappointing.) This one came with a cortado. The dishes were simple and divine. The rich and tangy topping on the crunchy, crusty bread reminded me of my favorite Spanish breakfast— an open-face baguette spread with fresh tomato and drizzled with flavorful olive oil. The avocado added another dimension to that acid-fat combination, and the hard-boiled egg made it a more substantial meal. I decided I could eat this dish every morning for the rest of my life without getting tired of it.

But I might want to vary that routine once in a while with a bowl of granola like the one offered a Smooch. The three of us shared one bowl of in addition to our sandwiches, and this was one impressive bowl of granola. The granola itself had nice crunch and just the right touch of sweetness, but the yogurt it came with was so rich and creamy that it took everything to the next level. The dish also came with beautiful fruit, including berries, bananas and apples, which made us feel virtuous and satisfied.

The meal at Smooch was a perfect post-yoga indulgence: fresh, healthy and invigorating. But maybe next time I’ll skip the yoga and try the restaurant’s wine bar. Namaste.

Smooch Organic Cafe and Wine Bar
264 Carlton Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11205
718.624.4075