Tag Archives: brooklyn

Carnem

Carnem overall score: 83

NOTE: THIS JOINT IS NOW CLOSED!

Every once in a while I score a Groupon deal for a steakhouse. This particular deal came out to be about $28 for $60 worth of food at this relatively new steak joint in Brooklyn. Check out the verdict:

Flavor: 7
While this had the trimmings of an 8/10, I took a point away for two reasons: (1) relatively little amount of spinalis (fat cap), and (2) some pretty thick grey banding.

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The meat itself was dry aged for 28-days, so it just started to develop that nice funky and earthy flavor.

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At 38oz on the bone, this was enough for two. It had a buttery flavor with a good crust on the outside.

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Despite the grey banding, it still retained a good amount of juiciness and my wife and I finished it all.

Choice of Cuts & Quality Available: 9
All cuts served here are prime, Certified Angus Beef quality, with most being dry aged for 28 days. They offer two types of hanger, three versions of a filet, a rib eye for two (pictured above), a porterhouse for two, and two sizes of strip loin. I was bummed that they didn’t have a single cut rib eye on the menu, for one, but they did have a wagyu rib eye on special this particular night.

Portion Size & Plating: 8
Portions here are good. Plating is rustic yet pretty, as you can tell by the skillet and wood serving platter for the steak.

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Price: 8
While the porterhouse is a bit pricey at nearly $70/pp, it is a big 42oz hunk of meat. The rib eye for two was a bit closer to normal at $104 for 38oz. However the pricing comes in very close to the midtown Manhattan range, so make sure you pick up that Groupon deal to offset this a bit. All in, this was about $168 after the $60 credit was applied, including tax and tip.

Bar: 8
This joint offers a nice variety of cocktails featuring fun and unique throwback spirits. They also have a nice wine selection both by the glass and by the bottle, and you can even get the finer wines served by the glass through a Coravin type method of pulling a glass of wine out of a still-corked bottle through a needle.

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The bar itself is oriented perpendicular to the street, but it is a nice area for sitting and hanging out.

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Specials and Other Meats: 9
In addition to the 12oz wagyu rib eye that was on special, they also offered lamb and veal dishes. The regular menu boasts pork chops and chicken as well. This is a fairly strong showing.

Apps, Sides & Desserts: 8
For starters, we tried two items. First, this grilled pork belly wrapped in cotton candy.

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This was pretty fun, and the hunk of pork inside was substantial for just $3. Next up was the Spanish charred octopus, as recommended by our waitress.

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I’d say this was about one large tentacle’s worth of meat, with some roasted, halved fingerings and bacon. It was tasty! Good call.

For our side, we went with the creamed spinach.

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This was sort of a flop. It wasn’t very creamy, and the texture of the spinach wasn’t leafy. It seemed like a high quality frozen spinach.

For dessert, we went with both the waitress’ and host’s recommendation: the fried oreos.

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This was absolutely fantastic. It came with three battered and deep fried oreos and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Then some chocolate sauce was drizzled on top. Despite being full from our meal, we devoured every bite of this shit.

Seafood Selection: 8
Sea bass, salmon, lobster risotto and seafood paella grace the menu here in terms of seafood. Not bad, but maybe one more item like a whole roasted fish would do the trick. Then again, you’re coming here for beef, right? You should be.

Service: 10
The service here is impeccable. Wait staff, bussers, host and bartenders are all working at top notch levels. And since I always do it here, let’s talk about the table bread:

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The bread itself was a bit hard and dry, but the garlic and herb whipped butter was super smooth and tasty.

Ambiance: 8
This place is really nicely decorated. It has a more modern touch, and it’s dim (they even have menus with built in lights so you can easily read them in the dark). The seats are spacious, and there’s even a backyard and downstairs area.

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Overall Summary: This is a great score for a small mom and pop joint out in Brooklyn. This is a welcome addition to the steakscape, and Brooklyn is definitely in need of more options the further you go out. I would definitely eat here again, and certainly recommend picking up a Groupon if they’re still available.

CARNEM
318 5th Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11215

Yaso Tangbao

Soup dumplings are some of the most amazing things to eat. That burst of thick, viscous deliciousness is like nothing else in the food world. So when two friends of mine hosted an Instagram event at Yaso Tangbao, a dumpling and noodle joint in Brooklyn, I was psyched. First, I captured this footage of the guys making the dumplings. Check it out:

Then, of course, I gorged my face off on this shit. There were three varieties of soup dumpling, the best of which was the spicy (with red powder on top).

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These are some of the best I’ve tried. The pouches never ripped or stuck to the paper beneath – and the flavors inside were always robust and packing great depth.

We also tried some other fun stuff:

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Along with a shitload of noodle dishes. The one with the meatballs was amazing. Those meatballs are really soft and tender, made with pork.

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As far as straight up meat goes, this place also slings some killer ribs.

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And while this whole fish dish isn’t on the menu (staff caught it the day before and served it to us special), one awesome thing at this place is a water cooler filled with soy sauce. Yup.

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YASO TANGBAO
148 Lawrence St
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Humboldt & Jackson’s Roast or Roasted Steak Battle

I was recently invited out to Humboldt & Jackson to judge round 11 of an ongoing, late night steak battle cooking competition, pitting Chef Courtney Harris of Chef RLI (defending champ) against Harry Rosenblum of The Brooklyn Kitchen (challenger). Both bovine brawlers were given two-bone rib eye steaks that had been dry aged for 60 days after being raised out on Niman Ranch.

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The chefs’ rules were simple: cook it and serve it however you want, to whatever temperature you want, to be judged blindly by 25 ravenous carnivores who lie in wait.

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We cast our votes and the decision was made: steak B was the better of the two preparations. It turned out to be the nice, simple salt, pepper, garlic, thyme and rosemary preparation by Chef Courtney Harris that won the crowd over.

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But that didn’t mean Harry Rosenblum’s steak was bad, by any means. In fact, I really liked the flavors he had going on. He took influence from Japanese preparations, where they use koji rice bacteria and fungus to mimic the dry aging process and flavors. It may sound nasty but it’s not. Check out my article here, where I mention koji toward the bottom. Anyway, he also used citrus like yuzu with miso and fermented bean pastes to make a dynamic sauce. I loved it, and, for me, the decision was tough between the two.

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H&J is doing this for one more week before switching over to lamb battles. Be on the lookout for more!

The Great Big Bacon Picnic

I’m going to keep this short and sweet so you guys can get right down to the food pictures. The Great Big Bacon Picnic is an awesome multi-day event that was held in Brooklyn at the old Pfizer factory to celebrate the awesomeness of bacon. There were tons of businesses and restaurants there, so we got to try a ton of shit. I will highlight the good stuff and give a few extra words here and there. Enjoy.

Best bite of the day was at Tres Carnes, a pork belly taco. Nice and simple, super delicious.

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Meatball with bacon and collared greens from Handcraft:

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Bacon bananas foster with peanut butter:

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Bacon bread pudding from The Brooklyn Tree:

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Some varied flavor selections from the bacon bar:

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Lots of fun to be had with fellow foodies:

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Bacon chocolate chip cookies and Rhoda of Rhoda Cookies:

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Various sliders and mini BLTs were all over the place, all delicious:

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Bacon dust beignets!

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And sriracha bacon jerky from Chef’s Cut. Awesome. I’ll be doing a separate jerky review for this product with more info.

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Avlee Greek Kitchen

Some may think of Greek food as clunky, pedestrian or low-end if they’re wrongly associating the entire cuisine with easily accessible diners or budget friendly gyro joints. If this is how you currently view Greek food, then your perception will be changed once you dine at Avlee Kitchen in Brooklyn.

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Everything here is not only beautifully presented, but also perfectly executed by the deft hands of an owner and chef that’s been in the food business for his entire life. Andrew Poulos’ parents owned and operated a restaurant in Brooklyn called Promenade when he was a kid, so he grew up with the skills to open his own joint as an adult. When he opened in 2012, Poulos aptly named his restaurant Avlee, which means garden in Greek, as a tribute to the Carroll Gardens neighborhood in which it’s located.

What you’ll find here is a humble, quaint and comfortable dining room with open and visible access to the kitchen and a garden out back. Servers and hostesses will make you feel at home, and the rustic tables and decor add to that experience. In fact, one or two dishes even reminded me of a few things my mom cooks (some Greek preparations are similar to Italian cuisine).

The flavors here are subtle but complex, and the quality of the food is on par with fine dining, only without the pretentious, prima donna attitude. Andrew is a master of his art, and he is using incredibly fresh ingredients from local fish markets and his own garden. Nothing he serves has ever been frozen, and some of the more important items are actually imported from Greece. This is the real deal. This is Greek food at its best. Even something as common in Greek cuisine as tzatziki is done with perfection here. I’ve never tasted tzatziki as good as the one you can find at Avlee.

So let me give you a quick run down of what we tried with some tasting notes to go with it.

Kria Orektika (Cold Spreads)

  • Fava Mani (right – chic peas with garlic, lemon, tahini and cumin)
  • Tirokafteri (center – feta with bell, jalapeno and cayenne pepper)
  • Tzatziki (left – yogurt with garlic, dill and cucumber)

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These kinds of “meze” items are staples in Greek, Mediterranean and even North African and Middle Eastern cuisines. They’re a great way to get the party started. At Avlee, they’re $7 each, or you can get three for $14, which is clearly the better deal.

Orektika (Appetizers)

  • Tiropita (feta and egg wrapped in phyllo): these were fun and tasty little bites.

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  • Keftethakia (pan fried beef and pork meatballs with tomato basil sauce): Sans the pork, these are the exact style in which my mother cooks meatballs. The pan-seared outside really adds great texture, and rather than stewing in sauce for hours and taking on a tomato flavor with mushy texture, these remain robust and hearty through and through. Wonderful.

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  • Haloumi Stin Psistaria (goat cheese grilled with lemon oil dressing, also found on the grill section of the menu as a composed entree): Really nice firm cheese with grilled flavors and a satiating, meaty texture.

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  • Fava Fritters (pan fried chic peas with scallions, feta, herbs and spices): These actually went nicely with the cold spreads above.

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Salates (Salad)

  • Kalamaraki (grilled squid in lemon oil, served over greens): Perfectly cooked squid with great texture and grill flavors. The kalamata olives in the salad really make this dish pop.

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Thalassina (From the Sea)

  • Lavraki (grilled whole branzino with lemon oil dressing): Great flavors here. Super tender and flaky fish, light and satisfying. Bones were easy to maneuver and skin had a good crisp in parts.

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Sinotheftika (Sides)

  • Gigandes (white beans baked in tomato, onion and dill sauce): This almost tasted like Italian Minestrone soup due to the tomato sauce. Very nice.
  • Lemon Potatoes (red potatoes roasted in lemon, oil and herbs): My favorite of the sides. The lemon on all the dishes was never overpowering. Here, it had a bit more kick but it was just what I wanted to cut the starch of the potatoes.
  • Grilled Veggies (eggplant, zucchini, peppers, onions and garlic)
  • Okra (braised in tomato basil sauce with crumbled feta)

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Glyka (Dessert)

  • Baklava (walnuts and almonds wrapped in phyllo with honey syrup): Usually baklava is overly saturated with honey and rose water, to the point where one or two bites has me puckering up due to the overbearing sweetness. This one was perfect, and I liked that the phyllo wasn’t extremely crispy.

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I’m not in Brooklyn very often, but this joint is located right near the F/G stop at Carroll Street, so it’s very convenient to access from most areas around the city. In fact, I think door to door it took me about 29 minutes to get there, so I’ll definitely be back when I need a good Greek fix, especially for some octopus. On this trip, I was invited in for a press review: a complimentary meal in exchange for an honest review. My honest review: excellent Greek fare, highly recommended. Go give it a try.

AVLEE GREEK KITCHEN
349 Smith St
Brooklyn, NY 11231

Yakitori by Neal

Yakitori By Neal is a Japanese style grilled chicken operation out of Brooklyn that pops up at various locations and events around the city, like Project Parlor and Sumo Stew (at The Brooklyn Kitchen).

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I had the pleasure of tasting some of Neal’s delicious grillings at a private backyard yakitori and shochu party. Guests sampled four different bottles of shochu while nibbling on tasty yakitori skewers.

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We had chicken gizzard, heart, and thigh, and shishito peppers, bacon wrapped tomatoes, bacon wrapped mushrooms, pork belly and hamachi (both belly and filet).

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Everything from the grill was really delicious; the meats were masterfully seasoned and had a great, smoky charcoal flavor.

The shochu bottles varied in intensity and character. Two had the distinct flavor of mezcal, but with a more mellow, rounded and mild finish. These were great for drinking on the rocks or with soda.

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The other two, which were aged three and five years, were remarkably smooth, clean and sip-able. One was so light in flavor that it was almost like water, yet it had 25% alcohol.

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YAKITORI BY NEAL
Various Pop-Up Locations
Brooklyn, NY

Totonno’s

This place slings one of the best traditional pizza pie’s in the world.

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The dough and crust bake up to be simultaneously puffy yet thin and crisp, the sauce is slightly sweet but still deeply savory, and the cheese is top quality, perfectly melted and gorgeously bubbled.

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Simplicity is the key when you have such high quality ingredients. Sure, you can get other toppings if you want. But don’t fucking bring that bullshit to my table.

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I just want the regular shit, completely un-fucked-with, please…

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God damn that’s good pizza. It is well worth the trip out to Coney for this. In fact, I recommend eating a pie there and then ordering one to go if you don’t live nearby, because this stuff holds up great as leftovers, even cold from the fridge.

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TOTONNO’S
1524 Neptune Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11224

Nathan’s Famous

Happy 100 Years to Nathan’s Famous on Coney Island!

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This joint has withstood the test of time, has weathered hurricanes and rampant crime, and still stands strong as a historic, symbolic, iconic and national fucking treasure.

It doesn’t matter what you eat here; whether it’s good or bad, or whether some skinny dude is shoving 70 hot dogs into his throat while you stand and watch, when you eat here you are becoming a part of history and a part of NYC. I love it here.

My wife and I celebrated Nathan’s 100 years in style, and actually did some frog legs, along with a standard dog.

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Not too bad! The legs were crispy and meaty. The dog, as usual, is legit from end to end.

NATHAN’S FAMOUS
1310 Surf Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11224

Coney Island

Coney Island has come a long way since the bad old days of The Warriors.

Even just nine or ten years ago it was a much seedier place than it is today. Coney is unique in the NY Cityscape. Historically it has been a place for both family fun in the sun, as well as a place where alternative, non-traditional people can express themselves freely.

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Some old classics remain as far as the food scene goes, like Grimaldi’s and Totonno’s for some of the best pizza that NYC has to offer, Nathan’s for good old fashioned hot dogs (Happy 100th Birthday), or Paul’s Daughter (the name has changed over the years) for fresh seafood and funnel cakes.

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But now some new joints have arrived, like Wahlburgers and the Coney Island Brewery, as the area has become more polished and clean.

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Coney’s Cones is a good cold dessert spot, right on the boardwalk.

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Hell, even the Cyclones baseball field is pretty outstanding.

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And the aquarium is pretty fun as well, even if you’re not 8yrs old.

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Coney Island makes for a really awesome day-trip in the summer. My wife and I even liked it back in 2007 when we came in the off season.

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Bunk Sandwiches; Union Wine Company; Salt & Straw Ice Cream

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED!

A food-biz friend of mine, Jared (@foodandcity), invited me to an awesome event that Union Wine Company hosted at his client’s sandwich shop (Bunk Sandwiches) to fire up some press behind their newest wine-in-a-can, a sparkling wine/champagne in a golden can.

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So my buddy invited his food crew, and the PR folks behind Union Wine invited their crew, so this was a big smash up on the streets of Williamsburg with wine being served out of a vintage 1972 Citroën H Van “Tasting Truck.”

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As it turned out, Salt & Straw, an ice cream company out of Portland (in fact the other two businesses also originated in Portland), was also on-site, serving up delicious, unique and inventive scoops.

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So let me take these down one by one. I’ll start with the ice cream, since that was actually the first thing I tasted.

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A table inside of Bunk was serving up five wildly creative flavors.

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I tried them all, and I think my favorites were the marionberry habanero and the gin spiced blackberry jam. The habanero had a great kick of spice at the end, but everything was mellowed by the sweetness of the ice cream. The gin spiced blackberry jam popped with a zing of flavor from the juniper spice and the blackberry added a nice roundness and hit of sweet.

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All of the ice creams are top notch quality and extremely creamy. Even the sorbet was rich, creamy and not icy like you’d expect.

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You can only get this shit in the Portland and Los Angeles areas at the moment, so this was a special treat. People were freaking out to get a taste. Hopefully they will open up shop here in NYC soon.

SALT & STRAW
Various Locations
Portland, OR
Los Angeles, CA

Bunk Sandwiches

The awesome people at Bunk passed around three different food items while we sipped canned wine and sucked the ice cream off of plastic spoons. The first thing I tried was this muffuletta.

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I’ve been searching for a good muffuletta sandwich in NYC since about 2008. I think I finally found it.

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I first became aware of these during a trip to New Orleans, where food history indicates that they became popular among Italian immigrants in the old days. My wife and I passed by some place late at night, and I saw these giant hamburger bun looking things through the window. I thought they were giant burgers!

It turns out they were large Italian sandwiches. To be precise, these are sandwiches made with layers of various Italian meats and cheeses that are topped with an olive salad or olive spread “salsa.” All of this is then assembled upon a type of Sicilian sesame bread called muffuletta. So, yes; the sandwich is technically named after the kind of bread it’s served on. There’s also some contention about whether it is spelled “muffuletta” or “muffaletta,” apparently. But if you’re ever in NoLa, the uncontested, undisputed place to get these is called Central Grocery, and it’s right near Cafe DuMonde, which is famous for its beignets… so two birds.

Okay so Bunk makes an awesome version of this sandwich on what seemed to be a foccacia bread. So delicious. The meats were all good quality, and the olive spread was coarsely chopped with all different colors and styles of olives in the mix. So fucking good. It didn’t matter that the bread was different to me, because the flavors were all well represented.

They also served up some pork belly Cubanos.

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These were both toasty and tasty! The pork belly was sliced really thin so the meat just melted in your mouth.

Last, mole tots! These tater tots were topped with a mole sauce, fresh cheese, red onions, avocado and cilantro.

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Noah, the man in charge over at Bunk, referred to them as “totchos” (tot nachos, in case you suck at life). They were delicious and very inventive, which seemed to be the theme of the day given all of the unique shit I was tasting.

I definitely need to get back here for a real deal meal with my wife, not only for a muffuletta fix, but because their menu is chock full of amazing sandwiches.

BUNK SANDWICHES
740 Driggs Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Union Wine Company

And now for the wine… I tried a few sips of everything they were offering. They had a pinot gris, which was nice and dry, if that’s your thing and you like white wines. They also had a rose, which was mildly sweet, crisp and refreshing. The champagne was fun, though I am not really a champagne guy to begin with, so I may be the wrong guy to ask about that. The pinot noir was pretty good though. It was light, and had hints of cherry. But the wine cooler was actually great. At 6.5% ABV this is like a fruit beer, of sorts, made with several different fruits and herbs/spices. It tasted like blood orange or grapefruit, though those fruits were not used in making the drink.

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Wine in a can is taking off! And I bet the boys from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are laughing their asses off about it. Their joke is turning into reality. Life imitates art?

UNION WINE COMPANY
19550 SW Cipole Rd
Tualatin, OR 97062