L’Algéroise French Pastries

ALGERIA 🇩🇿

COVID-19 UPDATE: The bakery is primarily takeout, with limited seating in a sheltered area on the front sidewalk.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written by Joseph Gessert, photographed by Liv Dillon.

Bath Avenue is home to a handful of good Pakistani restaurants, a string of Mexican bodega taquerias, Guatemalan loncherías, a long-standing Peruvian restaurant, two Uzbek places, a new Georgian spot, great Shanghai soup dumplings, and more. Since last year they have been joined by L’Algeroise, an Algerian bakery producing fantastic French pastries headlined by a Napoleon that is literally causing traffic jams at the corner of Bay Parkway.

 

To many of us a Napoleon ($3.50, above) is that stale thing from the Italian bakery that is too high to fit in your mouth properly. Here it is light, crunches under your fork, and is just simply delicious. L’Algeroise is selling over 300 of them on an average day. If you should happen in when they have run out (which is often), fear not—a tray comes out about every thirty minutes. Most customers are ordering it to go, but others match it with a cappuccino or cup of mint tea and pull up a chair at an outdoor table. Regardless of how you eat it, you will be back for more—it is really good.

Macarons ($1.50) are light and precisely baked, with lemon, pistachio, and cassis (black currant) especially popular. Cassis and pistachio are also on offer as eclairs ($3.50), and cassis makes another appearance in the cake case. The cake slices are abundant, most are $4, and you would be best served by just trying a couple and seeing what you like.

Savories are frowned on here, but occasionally there are plastic-wrapped mhadjeb ($4, below) available atop the bakery case. Mhadjeb are a semolina-based flatbread filled with tomato and onion, bringing to mind a scallion pancake, almost, with a similar feeling of universal comfort food.

L’Algeroise has the looks of a place that will be here for years to come. With all the horrific heritage of colonialism, there is something pleasing about Algerian immigrants to Brooklyn forging a new neighborhood institution from a pastry named after a French general, and making it their own.

📍 2169 Bath Avenue, Bath Beach, Brooklyn

 

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Pad Thai Kitchen

THAILAND 🇹🇭

COVID-19 UPDATE: Indoor dining at limited capacity in accordance with NYS law and a covered, heated outdoor dining patio on 18th Avenue. Contact tracing and temperature checks for indoor diners.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written and photographed by Monica Parks.

Bensonhurst’s 18th Avenue - alter-ego Cristoforo Colombo Boulevard - is a stronghold of Italian and, more recently, Chinese culture in Southern Brooklyn. Among the Hong Kong-style cafes and venerable pizza institutions lies a hidden gem: the innocuously-named Pad Thai Kitchen.

While there are solid takeout joints throughout the borough, Brooklyn simply does not have the same level of access to home-style Thai cooking as does Queens. Chef Nid - the owner of Pad Thai Kitchen - is the proprietor of a small empire in Brooklyn: she has hands not only in Pad Thai Kitchen, but also Corthaiyou, Jintana Thai Farmhouse, and Thai Farm Kitchen. You would do well to visit any of her institutions, but it is worth noting that Pad Thai Kitchen should be on any list of Bensonhurst essentials.

The restaurant’s name might lure you to old favorites, and those will not disappoint. Chef Nid has populated her menu with regional pad thai featuring various proteins from pork belly to head-on prawns to soft shell crab. A vegan paradise it is not - though the vegetables used are always crisp and fresh, and the dishes do not require animal protein to shine.

 

Should you ask, staff might steer you to gai yang ($17, above), a veritable multi-course meal served on a cutting board. The lemongrass-marinated grilled whole game hen is the centerpiece here, supported by a funky, tart green papaya salad and sticky rice. The prik nam pla - fish sauce, lime, and bird’s eye chili condiment - that accompanies this dish is not to be ignored.

Pad Thai Kitchen also excels in the appetizer department. Thai-American favorites like chicken satay abound, but do not ignore the peek gai yang ka min ($8, above) - crispy, fish sauce and turmeric-tossed chicken wings. The wings are small, but what they lack in size, they make up for in a satisfyingly crunchy, thin-skinned exterior and powerfully savory taste. While these are served with sweet chili sauce, they do not need dressing at all.

A treat not seen frequently among Thai standards is kao thod naem klook ($14, below) - crispy rice balls with tangy, sour Isaan fermented sausage, familiar to fans of Lao and northern Thai cuisine. Heavily aromatic thanks to the kaffir lime, coconut, and pork, this dish should be on any carb-lover’s radar.

Not pictured, but dishes sampled on prior visits and worth re-ordering include Chantaburi pad thai, “superpower” green curry, and moo yang BBQ pork. Pad Thai Kitchen also does a brisk beverage business, with many customers seeking beautifully layered Thai iced tea and Instagram-friendly, indigo-colored butterfly pea flower iced tea. On a next visit, the pandan leaf iced tea will be sought out before the rest.

📍 6218 18th Avenue, Bensonhurst, Brooklyn

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Super Taco Deli & Restaurant

MÉXICO 🇲🇽

COVID-19 UPDATE: The restaurant has built a covered patio for outside dining, and has a more spacious indoor dining area than most Mexican restaurants in south Brooklyn.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written by Joseph Gessert, photographed by Liv Dillon.

Like pizza, nachos are a dish found more often on menus stateside than in the country of their supposed origin. If legend (and Wikipedia) is correct, they were invented by a bordertown Mexican chef in 1940 and popularized in Texas and then the American Southwest.

But much like pizza and the Mission burrito, regardless of authenticity or lack thereof, nachos are really good, and have been part of the Mexican-American culinary lexicon for long enough they are also part of immigrant Mexican cooking in restaurants catering mostly to the Mexican community. While 7-11 has adapted nachos into a processed food horror of push-button EZ cheese, many taquerias have made their own improvements on the dish using Mexican meats and fresh ingredients.

Gravesend family business Super Taco makes a very nice nachos al pastor ($12, above). The cheese didn’t come out of a bag, and the composition is airy enough that the beans and pico de gallo do not leave the chips soggy. The pastor seasoning has, unusually, cloves, as well as chunks of fresh pineapple, and both are pleasantly surprising to find in a familiar dish. More than everything else, though, the freshly-fried chips make the dish, with the tortillas thick and holding up well amidst the onslaught of toppings. And yes, you can order a beer with your nachos here, and there is plenty of space to sit back and drink it.

A weekend pozole con puerco ($10, below) comes with two tostadas, with the tortillas again freshly-fried. The soup is mild, and the meat tender. The hominy has absorbed the soup’s flavor, and cooked into a very pleasing potato-like texture. The soup’s gentle flavor profiles are a good contrast to the fireworks of the nachos. This restraint of seasoning is true of many Mexican dishes with indigenous roots, and it is a beautiful thing to eat these two dishes together—one thousands of years old, the other barely eighty, both telling stories of immigration and adaptation and the many cultures that have influenced this continent.

📍 261 Kings Highway, Gravesend, Brooklyn

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Golden Palace

CHINA 🇨🇳

COVID-19 UPDATE: Golden Palace has a well-built outdoor dining area as well as indoor dining in accordance with NYS guidelines.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written by Joseph Gessert, photographed by Liv Dillon.

Brooklyn’s dim sum palaces have struggled to find working business models during the pandemic, with several remaining shuttered and others transitioning to takeout with mixed success. 86th Street’s Golden Palace has the advantage of a large parking lot, in which they have built sturdy tents with heat and plywood floors. Steaming carts have been replaced by paper menus, and while you might miss the clatter of those wheels, your food will be cooked to order, meaning everything is fresh, hot, and better than ever.

Steamed rice rolls are omnipresent in the neighborhood, and a dim sum favorite is chinese donut wrapped with rice noodle roll ($4, below top left corner). Both the donuts and the rice rolls benefit from the cooked-to-order development, with the crunchy/soft contrast coming through very nicely. Another rice roll variation is leek noodle roll ($5, below), in which the noodles are rolled around pork and shrimp and turned on their sides. Both are best with a side of chili to complement the usual soy sauce.

Spare ribs with black pepper ($5) are tender, peppery, and especially good at Golden Palace, as is the stuffed bean curd skin ($6.50). As always with this dish, it’s not much to look at, but the balance of pork-shrimp-bamboo shoot and chewy bean curd skin is great here. Baked pork buns ($4) and deep fried stuffed dumplings ($4) bridge the gap from savory to sweet, with the latter especially enjoyable—minced pork is buried in deep-fried glutinous rice.

Fully on the dessert side of things are two variations on the bun filled with egg yoke theme—baked egg yoke custard bun ($3.25 for two) and steamed egg yoke custard bun ($4 for three). Both are delicious, with the difference coming down mostly to texture—the baked has a crunchier pastry with the egg yolk filling mostly dried out, whereas the steamed has a soft bao filled with runny sweetened egg yoke.

Dim sum meals are heavy on starch and sugar, and if you can muster enough diners in the current climate to justify an entree, your meal will be more balanced for it. Sizzling spare ribs with black pepper rice noodle roll ($18, below) is substantial, and might not be translated exactly right—the ribs are in a black bean and rice wine gravy.

Regardless, the sizzling platter is a textural triumph. Tightly rolled rice noodles have been pan-fried on the platter until a crust forms. Crunchy on the outside, chewy in the middle, topped off with peppers, peanuts, bean sprouts, and rib nuggets. This is a great dish. Still heavy on the starch, but you will not regret it.

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BENSONHURST Brooklyn

1619 86th Street

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El Divino Rostro

MÉXICO 🇲🇽
(BAJA CALIFORNIA)

COVID-19 UPDATE: Food trucks are perfect pandemic eating, with minimal human contact and no indoor dining.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written by Joseph Gessert, photographed by Liv Dillon.

A handful of new taco trucks are springing up in south Brooklyn, and El Divino Rostro is the most exciting of them... so far. While their competitors share more or less the same menu, El Divino Rostro has taken note of the success of Jackson Heights/Williamsburg truck Birria-Landia and Bushwick’s Nene’s Deli Taqueria, and are specializing in stewed beef birria. This is a meat that has long been common in Los Angeles, popularized by the mini-empires Teddy’s Red Tacos and Birrieria Gonzalez, but is now (finally) becoming more readily available in New York City.

Tacos de birria de res ($2.50 each) are the classic preparation, with the stewed beef sitting atop tortillas that have been dunked in broth as well. Not only does this leave the tortilla red, but plates, hands, and napkins by the end of any meal. El Divino Rostro’s birria is fatty, rich, and nicely balanced, with none of the spices dominating any of the others. The "plain" taco is a good chance to try it on its own. The quesotaco ($3.50) takes this preparation a step further, melting cheese on the red tortilla before adding the meat. Both are best eaten with a side of cilantro-and-onion-specked consomé ($6) for dunking, leaving everything even more red and delicious. The consomé is ambitiously priced, but during a recent visit was offered for free in the context of a full dinner order. Drowned in the liquid was enough extra meat for two more tacos.

Also on the menu is the rarely-seen-in-NYC mulita, as well as more standard fare like tortas and tostadas. The burrito de birria de res ($9) is almost all meat, barely glazed with beans and rice, and cut with fresh onion and avocado. El Divino Rostro’s salsa roja packs a solid punch, and you definitely won’t go wrong giving the burrito a dip in the consome before adding the salsa. There are other meat options as well: chicken, steak, and chorizo. All are presumably worth a try during future visits.

As with so many NYC taquerias and Mexican food trucks, El Divino Rostro’s proprietors are from Puebla, but they have been quick studies in this traditionally Tijuanense dish. You will wonder, eating their birria, if the New York food scene could soon be home to more, for instance, Oaxaqueño restaurants. Or Yucateco. Regardless, this truck is a fantastic addition to local Mexican food offerings, and promises great things to come as the city opens up more vendor permits and reduces police involvement in ticketing street vendors.

After some issues with parking, El Divino Rostro has established a (hopefully) permanent location on 86th Street at the corner of 21st Avenue. They plan to be open every evening, with hours somewhat variable. You can call ahead before visiting (or to make an order for pickup or delivery) at (347) 866-7479.

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BENSONHURST Brooklyn

86th Street and 21st Avenue

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Nueva Puerta del Sol

EL SALVADOR 🇸🇻

COVID-19 UPDATE: Puerta del Sol’s Bay Ridge Avenue location has tented outdoor dining, while Nueva Puerta del Sol on 18th Avenue is open for takeout and delivery only. You can order online directly from their website.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written by Joseph Gessert, photographed by Liv Dillon.

The Salvadoran pupusa is one of those perfect foods like burritos or a Trinidadian roti wrap that combine a little bit of everything into one nutritious bundle. Some carbohydrates, a little protein, some vegetable, crafted to add up to more than the sum of their parts. These super foods are what hamburgers aspire to be, without the part afterwards where you go straight to bed in a cholesterol haze.

Nueva Puerta del Sol’s pupusa loca ($12, below) is an unusual dinner-plate-size version of the classic pupusa, and combines a little bit of all the normal fillings, and then some: refried beans, cheese, zucchini, spinach, carrot, chicharrón, and loroco, the Central American bud and flower that is common in Salvadoran cooking. The toppings are sandwiched in a thin masa pancake, and the pupusa is then grilled until brown. The cheese as usual melts nicely into a solid crust as it oozes out of the masa.

Though Puerta del Sol’s pupusa itself is novel primarily for its size and variety of its fillings, you might also find yourself with a higher-than-usual ratio of curtido-to-pupusa, with the crunch and tang of the pickled cabbage cutting nicely through the rich base. Top that with your dash of tomato salsa, and this is a pupusa to remember.
 

Besides pupusas, Puerta del Sol also offers a scattering of Mexican and Italian dishes, as well as a full menu of Salvadoran dishes. A tamal de elote con crema ($3, below) is a simple sweet corn tamal served with a side of rich crema. The sweet and savory contrast beautifully, and the straight-forwardness of the corn flavor stands out nicely next to the complex flavors of the pupusa.

Nueva Puerta del Sol is in a particularly vibrant section of diversifying 18th Avenue. On one corner handpulled noodles, on the other a great old Bensonhurst Italian bakery, Villabate Alba. Within blocks are hotpot restaurants, Malaysian, Thai, Guatemalan, Albanian, and much more. 

 

This is one of the most interesting sections of Brooklyn, and Salvadoran cuisine is a welcome addition to the mix.

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BENSONHURST Brooklyn

7116 18th Avenue

 

Puerta del Sol:

1550 Bay Ridge Avenue

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Chuan Yue 川粤

CHINA 🇨🇳
(SICHUAN)

COVID-19 UPDATE: Chuan Yue has space for outdoor dining but on a recent winter evening were takeout only. When indoor dining resumes in NYC they have roomy tables separated by plexiglass.

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written by Joseph Gessert, photographed by Liv Dillon.

The classic pathway to finding good cheap eats is to order whatever is popular at a modest restaurant with heavy foot traffic and some hand-written signs. Sichuan food in NYC does not work like that. Sichuan is one of the wealthiest provinces in China, and immigrants from the province have generally been better-off and later-arriving than their predecessors from Fujian and Canton. As such, Sichuan restaurants are often a little more expensive and modernized, geared towards wealthier immigrants and their children.

Sichuan food in the Brooklyn Chinatowns has been slow to catch up with the quality on offer in Flushing. Bay Ridge’s Grand Sichuan House has long offered excellent Sichuan. In the past two years they’ve been joined by several new restaurants specializing in whole fish, as well as 7th Avenue’s Chuan Tian Xia, and now Chuan Yue on a quiet industrial block of 64th Street. Chuan Yue is closest in intent to Chuan Tian Xia, with both offering modern dining spaces and modestly upscale menus with some variations on traditional Sichuan cooking as well as excellent versions of the old-time standards.

 

Century egg with green peppers ($7.95, above top left) comes mounded in birds eye peppers and less-spicy grilled green peppers. Diners unfamiliar with century, or thousand-year eggs will be challenged by their appearance, with the whites treated with ash and turned translucent black. The flavor, however, is mild and familiar, and the rich eggs are a beautiful balance to the tang and spice of the peppers and dressing.
 

Thai-style wood ear mushrooms ($7.95, above top middle) is a similarly lush version of a common dish, with the mushrooms again dressed in bird's eye peppers, as well as cilantro and (unusually) slices of lemon. Pickled peppers put in an appearance in this dish, in this case small fermented yellow peppers that could be distant cousins to pepperoncini. Pickled and preserved peppers are more universally found in dishes from neighboring Guizhou and nearby Hunan provinces, but are a welcome addition to Sichuan dishes.

Also pulling from Hunan culinary traditions is a beautiful dish of garlic sprouts with Chinese bacon ($13.95, above). The garlic sprouts are leeks, and and the Chinese bacon is perhaps closest in Western analogy to Iberian ham, strips of dried and preserved pork leg that in this case have been stir-fried with dried peppers and vegetables until the meat’s smokiness permeates everything else. Chuan Yue’s version is less tough than what you might find in Hunan or Sichuan, but that might well be an improvement.

Dry wok cauliflower ($11.95, below) is a perfect vegetable offset to the rich meat dishes, while hot and sour duck blood ($15.95, top photo, top right) was the most unusual dish during a recent dinner. The duck blood is cut into tofu-like cakes, as with pig blood in South East Asian cuisine, and again is much milder and more appealing than it might sound to diners new to Sichuan food. This preparation is strikingly different from most Sichuan chili oil dishes, with spice (and sour) here coming from two varieties of pickled pepper while the chili oil leans heavily on Sichuan peppercorn and its familiar numbing properties. While Sichuan food is famously spicy and numbing, Hunan cuisine is spicy and sour, and this dish provides an unusual and very successful mashup of the two.

 

Several online menus exist for Chuan Yue, creating some confusion with ordering and unavailability of some dishes. Best to work off their newly-revamped website, which includes updated availability and package deals for family dinners, and to confirm your online order by phone. One recent order arrived with a complimentary order of soup dumplings, which while notably un-Sichuan were actually quite good, and provided a nicely mild counterpoint to the fireworks of everything else.

South Brooklyn diners in search of Sichuan lunch or dinner will be hard-pressed to decide between Chuan Yue, Chuan Tian Xia, and Bay Ridge’s Grand Sichuan. All have standout dishes, and happily all have their own specialties that are quite different from one another. Here’s to hoping that all three make it through the next few months and are around for years to come.

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SUNSET PARK Brooklyn

842 64th Street

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Mill Basin Deli

USA 🇺🇸

COVID-19 UPDATE: Takeout only, no outdoor dining. Their website contains an online ordering portal.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written by Joseph Gessert, photographed by Liv Dillon.

Old school Jewish delicatessans are an endangered species in south Brooklyn, and throughout the five boroughs. Last spring Avenue U favorite Jay and Lloyd’s fell victim to 2020's winding road, but carrying on the torch on a quiet block near the Kings Plaza Mall is Mill Basin Deli, which opened its doors in 1973. Their delivery fleet proclaim “Brooklyn’s Best Pastrami,” and on that count they may well be right.
 

As any past visitor to Katz’s Delicatessan will know, house-made pastrami and corned beef do not come cheap. Despite its outer-borough location, Mill Basin Deli is no exception to that rule. The hot pastrami sandwich ($20.95, below) comes with a cut option of regular, lean, juicy, or extra lean.

 

As is the tradition, the piled-high rye bread comes accompanied by a pickle (sour or half sour), mustard or Russian dressing, and the usual desultory coleslaw. In defense of the pricing, the sandwich is good for two meals, and the pastrami lives up to its billing.
 

Even better, perhaps, is Mill Basin’s corned beef, served here on an open-faced kosher Reuben sandwich ($22.95, below). For the not-strictly-kosher among us Russian dressing, though it might not be a favorite to most diners, finds its niche here, a perfect complement to the tang of the sauerkraut. Again, you might not want to attempt this whole thing in one sitting. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Apparently it can be Kosher!]

Potato latkes, knish, and other Jewish deli mainstays round out an extensive menu. Stuffed derma ($9.25), also known as kishke, is served in two large slices of sausage casing stuffed with a dense and rich bread stuffing, slathered in brown gravy. Though often made with matzoh flour, Mill Basin’s version tastes more of rye.

Kasha varnishkes with gravy ($5.25, below) consists of buckwheat and bowtie pasta dressed in that same thick gravy. It’s hearty, heavy, and bridges the transition of Jewish delis from inexpensive immigrant food purveyors to their current status as somewhat fancified relics of neighborhood tradition. Despite the twenty dollar sandwiches, this simple peasant dish helps remind diners of the pathways that brought this food to Brooklyn, and the humble origins of many of our ancestors, whose diets were likely light on the corned beef and heavy on the buckwheaand kishke.

 

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MILL BASIN Brooklyn

5823 Avenue T

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Shan Xi Snack

CHINA 🇨🇳
(SHAANXI)

COVID-19 UPDATE: Both locations are currently takeout only. Online orders can be placed directly through the restaurant's website. Please note that many of the “special snack cold dish” items (cucumber, black fungus, etc) may not be available.

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written by Joseph Gessert, photographed by Liv Dillon.

Shanxi and Shaanxi are neighboring provinces in northeast China. Despite its name, Shan Xi Snack features menu items more commonly associated with Shaanxi, whose capital Xi’an has inspired the Chinese regional cooking chain Xi’An Famous Foods as well as dozens of other NYC stalls and restaurants offering variations on the cumin lamb burger.

 

A bit past the southernmost end of Sunset Park’s Chinatown, Shan Xi Snack’s cumin lamb crispy burger ($5.75, below) is genuinely different. Their version has a crispier, lighter bread, dollop of sweet mayonnaise, and a scattering of fresh vegetables dressing the chunks of cumin lamb. It marries the Xi’an burger with American fast food sensibilities, and is joined on the menu by a black pepper beef, a more traditional pork, and a handful of other burger variations including a vegetarian option.

 

 

A menu section is dedicated to various incarnations of tri-color cold skin noodles. Liang pi with spicy house special sauce ($6.75, below) is served room temperature, as is common with these noodles, mixed with cucumber, bean sprouts and chunks of gluten.

 

Stir-fried liang pi with beef ($7.75) is warm, with the vibrant colors lost a little in the stir-fry but the noodles’ texture holding up admirably. Judging by that texture, Shan Xi’s liang pi are likely wheat-based, rather than rice.

 

Hidden in the appetizer section of the menu, a very respectable hot and sour rice noodle soup (below) will set you back only $6.95. This is not the Chinese American soup of that name, but a tangier corn starch-free, altogether different dish that is commonly found in China.

 

It is often listed on English menus as spicy and sour. The noodles taste more like yam or potato starch than rice, and are delicious regardless of starchy origin. They are topped with baby bok choy, peanuts, strips of seaweed, and much more.

 

The surprise hit of two meals was crispy burger in lamb soup ($9.95, below), with chopped up flatbread, glass noodles, and chunks of lamb meat dunked in a rich and spicy lamb broth. The dish is a beautiful showing of Muslim influences in Chinese cooking. A mysterious plastic container of black garlic was added to the hearty soup and provided a perfect note of funk and acid.

Pumpkin pancakes ($2.95) are mild but very beautiful, with the pumpkin flavor subtle in a puck of glutinous rice. Plum juice is a bargain at $2, with the smoked preserved plums flavoring an increasingly-common favorite at modern NYC Chinese restaurants. And though Belgian biscuit milk tea ($5.75) comes out looking like black sugar milk tea, it’s actually full of crumbled cocoa cookies, in addition to boba, and the black sugar is chocolate syrup. The chocolate and crunchy cookie bits are yet another twist in a menu full of surprising textures and flavors.

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DYKER HEIGHTS Brooklyn

7002 Fort Hamilton Parkway

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Delicacy Passion Patisserie

CHINA 🇨🇳

COVID-19 UPDATE: The only visible pandemic impacts on this mostly-takeout spot have been masked staff and the banishment of the lone indoor table. On warm days, there may be two chairs set up on the sidewalk.

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Written by Joseph Gessert, photographed by Liv Dillon.

 

Brooklyn’s second Chinatown, extending from Bensonhurst to Gravesend, is home to over a dozen Chinese bakeries, most of which offer the familiar (and pleasant) mixture of bubble tea, baked goods, and limited dim sum items made to order or pulled from a steam case.

 

On the eastern end of 86th Street, past the growing cluster of Vietnamese restaurants, the curiously-monikered Delicacy Passion Patisserie has been doing something quite different for the past two years. While this strip was largely shuttered in April and May, Delicacy Passion stayed open straight through the spring, and business is finally picking up at this unique Chinatown bakery that offers no savories, limited teas, and a small but ambitious selection of French-influenced Asian American desserts.

 

On assessing their display case you would be tempted to sample from the middle row cakes that feature combinations of Asian ingredients: jackfruit and coconut, red bean and matcha, durian cheesecake to name a few. These are all completely serviceable, and surprisingly subdued, but you will actually be better off picking from the top row, where the chef’s more outlandish creations are on display, and the most love has been put into both aesthetics and flavor.

 

The Big Apple ($6, below, right) is a shiny pastry apple, wicked witch-worthy, that opens up into a re-imagined apple pie a la mode—a white chocolate shell with mousse and apple filling seated on a graham cracker cookie. On a modest block of an unpretentious neighborhood it is a surprising accomplishment, this piece of fine dining stagecraft that tastes every bit as good as it presents.

 

 

The chocoburger ($6, above, left), its frequent counterpart on the top row, features a chocolate-shelled chocolate mousse burger sandwiched between jumbo sesame macaron buns. Crack it open and raspberry filling gushes out, marking the burger rare. Other recurrent top row items include a mocha cream puff bear, flowered cupcakes, and a selection of macarons that includes lychee and sometimes sriracha. Presumably there is a Vietnamese influence at work here somewhere.

 

It should be noted that as adorable as these items are, they will fall apart as soon as you stick a fork in them—appreciate your apple or bear or burger, take a picture if you are so inclined, but then resign yourself to the whole thing going to pieces as you dig in and enjoy.

 

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GRAVESEND Brooklyn

2379 86th Street

Royal Garden Tbilisi

GEORGIA 🇬🇪

[COVID-19 UPDATE: Besides the couple tables in front, used mostly for coffee and lunch on the weekday of this visit, the restaurant has a covered outdoor space in the garden that can host quite a few people. Customers wishing for ample spacing and appropriate mask usage by staff and other customers might wish to avoid this place.]

On the few occasions that meals were taken at We Are Georgian, the previous tenant at this Kings Highway address, the small bakery and restaurant had always impressed. Last year, well before stay at home orders, a walk in the area had noticed that a new restaurant had unfortunately taken its place, but plans to give it a shot were made.

More than halfway through 2020, with outdoor dining in full bloom throughout the five boroughs, it seemed like the appropriate time to come back. Photos online showed a new backyard with plenty of seats and even a small stage for live music, which was all ready for action for a Friday evening that was fully booked a day in advance. No one was around for lunch though, the perfect time to sample the kitchen on short notice.

Even at lunch, and with a lack of customers, the music will be on in the garden as the soundtrack to everyone getting things set up for the busy night. Grab a table or a lounge-style seat and take a look through the menu. There are no descriptions for eaters less familiar with the names of Georgian foods, so either stick to what you know or start Googling.

One item that needs no introduction and is usually familiar to anyone that has eaten Georgian even just once is their dumpling. The khinkali (above) are listed as $2 per piece, but an order must contain at least six, so any dreams of ordering just one each as to be able to sample more dishes do not come to fruition. Regardless, performing such an abomination might get you thrown out of the place anyways.

Inside the thick wrapper, along with minced meats are just of hint of spiciness and a high level of herbs. It is delicious, although not juicy like most. The proper technique is to grab the thick top where the dough twists together and eat the rest, tossing the doughy stump to the side when finished. In Georgia, these piles of tops are almost like a record, as groups of men stack theirs and compete against each other while downing frosty mugs of beer.

When the khachapuri adjaruli ($14, above and below) arrived at the table, all eyes widened and there may have been just a bit of drool forming. The bread "boat" had puffed up and risen high above its cheesy interior, possibly setting a record in New York City for tallest khachapuri.

Take photos quickly and stir in the butter and egg before the cheese starts cooling. Once you have a good mix, start tearing off chunks of bread and dip them into the center to pull the cheese out. Served on a cutting board not even as long as the khachapuri, there is absolutely no way to keep this from getting messy, but it is worth it hands down.

Not appearing like much when it arrives at the table in a nondescript bowl, the megruli kharcho ($15, below) is actually a great order. Megruli is a descriptor for something from Samegrelo in western Georgia, which reaches both the coast of the Black Sea and up into the Caucasus Mountains. No matter what style of kharcho you are eating, there will be an abundance of walnuts pureed into the soup, and indeed the word "walnuts" is even added to the menu.

The soup is spicier than most things you will order at a Georgian restaurant, with a few flakes of roasted Turkish red pepper floating on the surface. Nuggets of dried beef are found beneath the surface, chewy like jerky and just right to suit the other tastes, which besides the tomato walnut puree include cherry plum paste for tartness, paprika, and fenugreek.

As always in Brooklyn, a 10% service charge will show up on your bill. No matter what the final price of the meal, there are leftovers and good value.

Kings Highway lost one good Georgian restaurant but gained another. Life moves on.

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GRAVESEND Brooklyn
230 Kings Highway

I COULD USE YOUR HELP

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Pakiza

PAKISTAN 🇵🇰

[COVID-19 UPDATE: The few tables inside have been removed for now, but the steam table operates daily as it always has, and takeout is as fresh as ever.]

For a good chunk of the city's restaurants, the pandemic has hit them with a vigor that appears unlikely to subside anytime soon. Most that want to forge the path forward have adapted as best they can, building outdoor seating areas and more robust delivery systems.

On a recent hot day, kulfi served as immediate relief.

But then there are also certain sectors that seem almost unaffected, besides the annoyances everyone faces to be outside their own home. The steam table joints up and down this section of Coney Island Avenue still have all of their spots full of freshly prepared meals that both the neighborhood and working taxi drivers pop in quickly for throughout the day and night.

If you arrive by car to a place like Lahori Chilli or Pakiza, yellow and green will occupy most spaces out front, and many onto each of the side streets closest. Certainly there are bottom lines that are not seen when something like this is said, but frankly it is a brief glimmer of hope to witness business still going ok for some.

At Pakiza, most of the steam table offerings are available in two sizes, a small for $6 and a large for $12. A recent visit was able to procure large portions of haleem and biriyani and a small lamb curry, annotated in the photo below. Most orders will also throw in a container of lettuce and onions as well as a good portion of raita, a yogurt-based condiment full of cucumber, mint, and coriander.

The lamb curry ($6, small portion) is definitely worthy of a large order, which has already been noted for next time. Grab some naan ($1.50 each) for use with their also excellent haleem ($12, large order), a spicier than usual version of the barley, lentil, and shredded chicken stew. The workaday biriyani ($12, large portion) satisfied just fine, but of the three it could have been the one ordered in a smaller quantity.

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KENSINGTON Brooklyn

1032 Coney Island Avenue

I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World NYC is and always has been free. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better and you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World NYC is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

You can Venmo me @JAREDCOHEE or click here to send PayPal donation, no account is necessary. Thank you!

Somtum Der Red Hook

THAILAND 🇹🇭

[COVID-19 UPDATE: See below for the nice backyard setup at Somtum Der's newer location, a comfortable deck where they can serve about six groups of people at a time. Tables are spaced very well and staff is acting very safely. Wear your mask.]

Somtum Der comes with a well-established reputation for delicious food from the Isaan region of Thailand, with a focus on brilliantly prepared fresh som tum. Their first location on Avenue A in the East Village was possibly the first place in the city that served excellent Thai food outside of Elmhurst, a trend that has continued throughout a few parts of the city since.

Their new location on Red Hook's main drag continues the theme of being located in a place you might now expect (although two short-lived restaurants briefly disproved that), and also the tradition of cooking excellent food. Conveniently for 2020, they also have a nice backyard.

Heat levels are up, all the right ingredients are on point, and so far everything seems just right. For more please read our 2013 review of the original location:
Somtum Der East Village

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RED HOOK Brooklyn
380 Van Brunt Street

I COULD USE YOUR HELP

Eat the World NYC is and always has been free. No advertisements block the content or pop over what you read. If this website has helped you explore your city and its wonderful cultures a little better and you have the means to contribute, please consider doing so. Eat the World NYC is a labor of love, but also takes a lot of money and time everyday to keep running.

You can Venmo me @JAREDCOHEE or click here to send PayPal donation, no account is necessary. Thank you!