Potato Salad/Baked Grapefruit/Red Beer
by Cristy-Lucie Alvarado
July 28th, 2008
ROEBLING TEA ROOM
143 Roebling St
@ Metropolitan Ave
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-963-0760
My last visit to Roebling Tea Room was a snacky and satisfying one. I couldn’t decide on a single dish, so I took the sides route. I needed something starchy (potato salad), something interesting (baked grapefruit), and something uplifting (red beer).
I was happy to find that, for mid-afternoon, the place wasn’t too crowded, so I chose a cozy corner and awaited my mini-meal. The potato salad, comprised of thinly sliced bliss potatoes with the peels intact, was cooked to just the right consistency, crunchy but not raw. A creamy pink dressing coated the sliced potatoes while capers and bits of red onion added a little zing and texture. I later found out that the salad gets its pink hue from Frank’s RedHot hot sauce, not paprika, as I had suspected. This atypical potato salad perfectly satisfied my carb craving.
Next I moved on to the baked grapefruit, which was cut open and carved like a star. Sparkly brown sugar was sprinkled on the face open grapefruit, which was then baked in the oven until parts of the sugar became nice and crusty. I wasn’t sure how my fork was supposed to find its way, so I dug in with hands and teeth. The juice was warm and the slight bitterness you typically find in a grapefruit was tamed by the temperature and sugar.
Finally, I topped my snack-fest off with a Red Beer: a Bloody Mary made with beer instead of vodka. Genius! It’s smoother than a Bloody Mary, and you actually get a taste of tomato juice. With a salted rim and slices of lemon and lime, this is definitely my new brunch cocktail!
Roebling Tea Room’s menu has a lot to offer, but these three items were a nice place to start and will secure many visits to come.
Posted in American , Dessert , Drinks , Potato , Williamsburg
Pork Kakuni
by Celia Cheng
March 10th, 2007
ZENKICHI
77 N 6th St
@ Wythe Ave
718-388-8985
True, it’s the year of the pig and I also just dedicated a feature to the lovable creature but I swear that I am not purposely choosing porky dishes. It’s just that, for some reason, what catches my fancy lately has been skewed towards all things porcine.
Zenkichi is one of the latest izakayas (Japanese pubs) to open to a lot of fanfare. It’s in Williamsburg, and is a welcome authentic ethnic addition to the hipster neighborhood. For those who are hesitant to travel outside of Manhattan, you’ll be glad to know that Zenkichi is literally three blocks away from the Bedford subway stop — for me, coming from Union Square, it was faster than getting to Kefi — which I tried the same week — on the Upper West Side!
The atmosphere is very true to hip, Japanese izakayas. I can easily imagine myself in Aoyama or Omotesando. The interior is very dark and jazz plays in the background. It’s the ideal setting for a relaxing meal.
The enormous restaurant occupies the entire three stories of a building but is deliberately segregated into little cubicles to give each party the illusion of privacy. Blinds divide the “rooms.” You can only faintly see the people next to you, but you do hear them. Also, you are hidden from the wait-staff and must use buttons on the table and walls to call for service — a gimmick I’m not particularly fond of. The buzzers look loud and obnoxious in contrast to the demure feel of the restaurant. It’s probably to the Zenkichi staff’s dismay that customers can buzz to their hearts desire whenever they need something — and the staff is not exactly prompt in responding!
I like the atmosphere at Zenkichi. I would love it even more if there was a bar area just for drinks and hanging out. The first time I tried Zenkichi with my sister, we were sitting in lover’s lane. We were across from all the real lovers who reveled in their little two-seater cubicles, blinds separating them from the rest of the world. Naturally, we felt a little out of place.
Enough about the atmosphere, let’s move on to food. Zenkichi’s food is pretty yummy, but not amazing. It’s better than mediocre and some dishes are better than others, but after two tries, I still have trouble pinpointing what’s not working.
I think the issue is the selection. It’s hard to pair complementary dishes at Zenkichi, and some ingredients repeat themselves too often. Of course, at izakayas or any small-dish restaurant, the point is to sample many things. But two of the salads we ordered were very similar, and three dishes were deep-fried. It became hard to distinguish which was the cream cheese and anago tempura, and which was the shrimp and camembert tempura. Cream cheese and tofu seemed to appear in almost every dish we ordered. While the two are very different, the textures were similar. And after a while, I got tired of both.
Apparently, the most popular dish for gaijin (foreigners) is the cream cheese and anago tempura — which I enjoyed very much — and the most popular dish for Japanese is the kakuni — pork belly. It never occurred to me that people might be afraid of the fat on the pork belly, but a friend said she got to eat all of the kakuni because her dinner-mates wouldn’t touch it. Lucky her!
Slow-cooked fatty meats like kakuni, which is actually a Chinese dish well loved by the Japanese, are actually not that fattening because the slow process of cooking melts off the grease. The remaining fat just tastes good as it glides across your tongue and down the hatch. Don’t forget to put a little Chinese mustard on the meat for a subtle but pungent extra kick.
I’m pretty confident that Zenkichi will get their game together soon. They need to tweak or expand the menu but overall the place is charming and the food is good. I think they would do better business if they were located in Manhattan, but the atmosphere of the restaurant matches the atmosphere of the neighborhood — quirky and urban chic — so I guess it works.
Posted in Japanese , Pork , Small Plates , Williamsburg
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Salad w/ Beets, Watercress, Radishes & Pecorino
by Celia Cheng
April 15th, 2006
DINER
85 Broadway
@ Berry St
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-486-3077
As a hard-core meat lover, I don’t gravitate towards salads on menus. In fact, I generally only end up ordering them if I feel guilty about my meat-heavy diet and need a little balance. So in some sense, I tend to think of salads as necessary roughage for the diet but never as meals by themselves. Yet, lately, I’ve been eating some downright yummy salads.
I’m not sure about classifying a salad from Diner’s menu as a craving, but the special salad I had at brunch was really delicious. Though the ingredients are simple (beets, watercress, radishes and pecorino), I still believe that a good salad is hard to make. You have to strike all the right balances, even with just a few ingredients. Just like my recent review of the chop salad from Diner’s sister restaurant, Bonita, I thought it deserving here to spotlight what often gets cast as a supporting dish.
I also tried the chorizo hash with caramelized onions and two fried eggs. The hash and eggs were good, but since there was some cinnamon in the hash, after I was done, I didn’t feel like I got my share of savory for the day. It’s strange that a little bit of flavoring can really affect how you feel. The hash was by all means a filling meat dish, but because I didn’t get my savory quota, I thought I wasn’t full.
Anyway, Diner is definitely as good as everyone says, and I can’t wait to go back for dinner one night and try the fries with homemade mayonnaise. In the meantime, I do hope that the wait staff can work on being slightly friendlier and more organized. It’s no wonder that Williamsburg has a bad rep as Hipster Town, not as a compliment but as criticism of some seriously degenerate attitude.
Posted in American , Brunch , Williamsburg
Chopped Salad
by Celia Cheng
March 24th, 2006
BONITA
338 Bedford Ave
(S 2nd & S 3rd St)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
718-384-9500
Okay, it’s not that I want to harp on Bonita, but I just can’t get over how good the food is, not to mention the great service too. Even though it’s a “famous” place, you never get any attitude here.
The chopped salad is unique in that it has pulled pork in it. While the vegetables in the salad keep it light and refreshing, the pork really brings in the flavor and makes this a delicious dish. It’s good to share with friends as an appetizer or it could be a substantial meal for one.
Let me just gush a little more. Come on, when there’s good food to be had, we must share. The fish tacos are super yummy too. The fish is pan-fried, so it has a bit of a crispy texture that makes all the difference. One order comes with two, and though we were sharing, I seriously wanted both of them for myself.
The vegetarian tamales were also delicious, with cheese and peppers inside the corn dough. I often find tamales to be too dry, particularly when the filling is meat, but these were perfect.
Bonita is just almost too good to be true, but I’m not complaining. I’ll just count my blessings.
Posted in Mexican , Salad , Williamsburg
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White Truffle Gnocchi Parmegiano, Melted Butter, Mushrooms & Broccoli Rabe
by Celia Cheng
February 10th, 2006
SWEETWATER RESTAURANT
105 N. 6th St
Brooklyn, NY
(Berry St & Wythe Ave)
718-963-0608
Okay, so I’m a little in love with Williamsburg. Well, actually, I’m in love with the good food in Williamsburg. I love the fact that on a Friday night, I can walk into a good restaurant or gastropub, like Sweetwater, and not have to wait for a table, eat a delicious meal, enjoy the company of not only my own party but the eclectic (though not annoying) crowd in the rest of the joint and not pay an arm and a leg. What it boils down to is no attitude, good grub and reasonable fare. Now why is that so hard to find in Manhattan?
I originally thought I would be trying Sweetwater’s burger for dinner, but when I saw the white truffle gnocchi, I knew I had to order it. White truffle, gnocchi, parmesan, butter, mushrooms and broccoli rabe are all my favorites. I do have to warn you, not that it’s not obvious, but this is a heavy dish. Although totally worth it, and I didn’t realize at the time that my system would suffer from the richness of this dish for a couple of days. But if I had to do it over again, I would still lick the plate. Well, maybe half of it next time.
I feel like this review is too short, but at the same time, I’ve said all I needed to say: why the restaurant is wonderful and what I crave. Sometimes, it’s just that simple.
Posted in American , Pub , Williamsburg
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