Food, Glorious Food

This is a post I wrote awhile ago, which has now been cross-posted at Cooking With Ideas, a blog authored by one of my ex-professors (she is still a professor, I mean "ex" in that I am out of school...) And besides being a genuine rockstar human being, she also has a cool blog, where she writes about food in the Finger Lakes, murder mysteries (especially food involved ones), restaurant reviews, and a lot of other good things (and yours truly is listed under the Geneva-related blogs). Check it out!!

Today I’ll be bringing you food news and reviews from the neighborhood. And that neighborhood is Crown Heights! Some qualifiers before starting: 1) I have only included stores and restaurants within 10 minutes walking distance of my apartment (there is one exception, but I’ll explain that later). 2) Each entrée costs less than $10 (because that is my budget). 3.) In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a vegetarian (as my mom says, “I would be one, if bacon didn’t count,” which about sums it up), but since I am living with a vegetarian, all the places I talk about will be vegetarian focused or have strong vegetarian options. 4.) I’ve never really written about food before, so bear with me!

Well, it ain’t Wegmans: Grocery Shopping
As a born and bred Western New Yorker, I have a freakish, life-affirming devotion to Wegmans, which also includes trying to shoehorn it into any conversation whenever possible (We all know this is true. But who can blame us??). There is a Whole Foods somewhere, and I think a Trader Joes, but that’s not my scene. Since I am sans Wegmans, the store I usually go to is walkable, and has the basics. The produce is on the iffy side—which is supplemented by going to a farmers’ market—and though there are holes in the floor, the music they play is danceable Spanish, and the cashiers have a tendency to sing along. The organic section is literally one shelf at the end of an aisle, which would be funny if it wasn’t so depressing (no social hierarchy of food, my foot). Although cereal and other staples tend to be much more expensive than I’m used to, big jars of curry powder and other “unusual” ingredients tend to be less. I’ve also started eating things like guava yogurt and plaintain chips, since this store is stocked for its predominantly Hispanic and West Indian customers. I can’t attest to the meat quality or price, since I haven’t purchased any here.

Eating Out/Taking In
Some categories to consider:
Pizza—like bagels, I think it is generally hard to have a bad pizza experience in NYC, although I’ve had slices that are certainly superior to others. The best, in my opinion, is either Slice of Brooklyn on Franklin or Ginos on Washington, both which are about 2 blocks from my apartment in opposite directions. Slice of Brooklyn has a good deal on slices (2 + a can of soda for $5) while Ginos is more economical if you’re buying a whole pizza. Interestingly, I have yet to see pineapple offered as a topping anywhere, which is my favorite (I know, it’s weird). The standard pizza is thin-crust with not-overly sweet sauce, and not too much cheese.

Mexican—There is a Mexican restaurant on my street, but the one I have been to is one street over, and is delightfully called Taquería de Los Muertos. The menu isn’t huge, and I’ve only tried their burritos, but OH are they good, as well as being roughly the size of a human head. I think my favorite filling is pollo rojo with the black beans, and I usually pay the extra 50 cents to make it a “super,” so it includes guacamole. They have good vegetarian fillings, like squash, peppers, corn, and mushrooms. They also make sure to tell you which bean choices are vegetarian, too.

Thai—If I were recommending just two restaurants in Brooklyn for someone to check out, it would be these two: Udom Thai and Wild Ginger. First, Udom Thai: it is next door to the Taquería de Los Muertos, and the ambiance is great. It’s small-ish, but cozy, and there are really neat wire figures on each table (each one is different) which all hold a different colored silk flower. And the food is just dandy. My standard so far seems to be the ginger noodles, which are soft, wide noodles in a spicy, gingery sauce, with shredded chicken, eggs, bean sprouts, scallions, sliced ginger, and lettuce, which provides a good crisp element. They also have food delivery-ready in a crazy fast time. I recently tried one of the curries, and that was also really good. The second Thai restaurant, Wild Ginger, is the exception to my geographic criteria. It’s in downtown Brooklyn, and therefore a bus ride away, although they *just* opened another Brooklyn branch on Flatbush Ave, only 5ish blocks from me. I am including this restaurant not only because it was delicious, but because it was the first time I’d been to a Vegan restaurant, and it has amazingly low-priced lunch specials. I got Mango Soy Protein (I didn’t know this, but soy protein has a consistency kind of like chicken and, just like tofu, tastes like whatever you cook it in). It was served in a sweet plum sauce with generously big mango slices, green beans, peppers, and asparagus, and came with brown rice with bulgur, plus miso soup. I got a ginger ale, which I think was just club soda with shredded ginger. As someone who really likes raw ginger, I loved the tanginess. Also, they get extra points for having a really cool bathroom.

The Art of Snacking
--Mr. Softee is the usual neighborhood ice cream truck (I have seen fancier ice cream trucks with lemongrass and green tea confections, but I’ll take my vanilla soft-serve with rainbow sprinkles over that.) The best part is that a Mr. Softee truck drives by the apartment at 11:00 nightly, and parks someplace nearby. One night I heard its obnoxious siren/jingle/ice cream truck call constantly for half an hour while I was trying to read, and it began to seem like an experiment to see how long the average citizen could hear the song without turning into a raving sociopath. It just adds to their charm.
--Further up the road from the grocery store is a mostly vegan (can something be “mostly vegan,” or is that like being “mostly pregnant?”) Jamaican restaurant called Natural Blends. They have substantial food too, and my cousin swears by their veg lasagna, but all I’ve had is a smoothie and a chocolate chip cookie. The smoothie was tasty, as smoothies often are, and the cookie was large and dense, with carrot and sweet potato in it and lots of cinnamon. They have a lot of really good looking baked goods there, which I plan to test out.
--Also very important to the consummate snacker are the small convenience stores, often called bodegas, which are on nearly every corner. I have the delight of living next door to one such store, which is usually staffed by a trio of brothers, the youngest of which is probably 15 and the oldest of which is probably my age. They are dysfunctional, and it’s always an adventure stopping there (for example: everyone will be outside and the youngest one will be working the cash register and he won’t know the price of something, so he’ll take candy bars from under the counter and throw them at the window until one of the other brothers comes in to help). Corner stores are good for getting deli meats, cheese, milk, and late-night seltzer and Doritos, which is my usual purchase. I also have no shame about going there in my pajamas, and in fact have done so today. Twice.

Some of the neighborhood places that I haven’t had time to try yet boast cuisines from the Caribbean, Senegal, Vietnam, France, China, Korea, the Middle East, and Japan, not to mention bagels, burgers, fried chicken, kosher groceries, pastries, organic specialty stores, and all manner of coffee. Come to Manhattan for the culture—although Brooklyn has plenty of that, too!—but desert the island for dinner. Brooklyn will be eagerly awaiting your arrival.