Feeding Umi » Brooklyn

Identity Crisis in Bushwick?

umi — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:45:55 +0000

I’m sure it’s not hard to run into identity issues in this town, especially in Bushwick, Brooklyn. There have been tons of great places popping up. There’s New/American Italian, Fusion/New Japanese, great Mexican places, and now Ramen.

So, back in the summer, this beautiful Restaurant Bar opened up, called the Morgan. The space was large and gorgeous with wood interior. There was a whole space in the back and the basement for parties, for bands, etc… The beer selection was great and the food was pretty amazing. It got some flak for being overpriced or pretentious from the local Bushwick website, but I never thought that that was true.

The first time I went in there, I had their truffle fries (with parmesan) and was blown away. Ryan’s stopped by here to get his oyster and charcuterie fix. I loved their salad and steamed mussels. We never ordered their tasting menu, burger, or any other entree. We were happy with the bar fixings.

The fifth or sixth time we went in there, we found out that they got rid of almost everything on the menu that we liked. I just got off work and was enjoying a beer and waiting for Ryan to walk over. When he got there, we finished our beers and went to Roberta’s. For real. And after that we never really went back.

The other day, we were walking with Ryan’s sister on our way to brunch at Roberta’s, and she mentions that The Morgan is a Thai place now. ?!?!?!!? So, I insist on peeking in and lo and behold, it’s a freaking Thai place. WTH? WHY? Sadly, and maybe unfairly, I’m just not down with that. The flyers outside shows the burlesque and comedy shows they do in the back, the interior hasn’t changed, and everything is deceptively similar… except they changed their plaque and there is a dingy paper Thai menu stuck to the front.

How can I express my disappointment? That night when I looked at the menu and asked for the things I usually get, I gave one of the managers feed back that I really go there for the truffle fries, charcuterie, and mussels. They were sweet and said that they appreciated the feed back. Deep down, I was hoping that in a week or so it would be back on their menu. Now, I don’t know why all these changes are happening or whether the restaurant wasn’t able to sustain itself, or whether it’s doing better because of this change… I REALLY wanted them to be successful. I really loved their first menu, their craft beers, etc… I thought the neighborhood needed a place like this. I knew other people that thought the same thing. If the reviewers criticizing The Morgan of gentrifying the neighborhood spooked them… well, that’s dumb. I wanted them to hold their ground. I wanted them to eventually offer amazing brunches. I wished they would have just soldiered on with the original premise.

Ryan’s mentioned that the gentrification process here is a little different. With this whole mess I totally agree. Ryan’s observation is that there is a maintained effort to keep the neighborhoods looking the same. You don’t want to take away the mystique of pre-gentrified Bushwick. So you have all these bars with no signs out front, going about their business via word of mouth. (The Narrows, Tandem, etc…) You can’t really doubt that there are stereotypes about any restaurants out there. Most places here (even Burger It Up!) tout suppliers with self-sustainable organic farms, organic grass fed meats, and at times their own home grown vegetables. I feel like all of the establishments out here do a little bit of self-deprecating. Honestly, the prices are not cheap, but the food is good. And in this regard, The Morgan wasn’t different… except I feel like they lacked the self-deprecation that businesses here like. The Morgan was grand and beautiful inside. And maybe that’s why they got some flak. It’s a shame, because it is a great space and had really great food for those short months.

I really wonder why they thought to reinvent the place as a Thai restaurant? And a boring one at that.

Marlow and Daughters – Dry-Aged Strip Steak

umi — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 21:34:23 +0000

I don’t know whether Ryan is not getting enough iron or what, but he’s been craving red meat lately. And full disclosure, except for rare instances where we go to Shake Shack, we really rarely eat red meat. We mostly eat a lot of pork, chicken, or shellfish. However, these days, we’ve been eating steak at least once a week. (At most, we eat it twice a week in small amounts. We don’t regulate it, but it just sort of ends up that way.) Ryan loves to grill meats, but we’re mostly stuck indoors. (Last week, we went over to Amy’s over at Laundromat to use her building’s new grill. We just picked up some pre-marinated meats at Wholefoods, some asparagus, and spring corn.) Recently, Ryan’s picked up some grilling technique via the cast-iron skillet we have and marinated and cooked some pretty mean steaks.

I’ve cooked some steaks on the cast-iron, too, although mine are usually salted, instead of marinating. Salting? No, I’m not talking about “seasoning” it. In fact, afterwards, I wash it off and pat COMPLETELY DRY. I’m talking about this technique. It’s mighty good. Ryan, on the other hand, swears by miso-marinading the steak and broiling in the oven.

He’s perfected the method, starting out with a pretty tough flank steak to our last rib eye, both from Wholefoods. This time, he wanted something special and looked up specialty butcher shops. We found a great one near Bedford Ave in Brooklyn and took a trip there.

Marlow and Daughters
95 Broadway
(between Bedford Ave & Berry St)
Brooklyn, NY 11211

This place is a little bit of a walk from the Bedford Avenue L train station, but really worth a trek. This shop has tons of lovely things like organic vegetables (picked me up some rainbow chard!), cold cuts (picked some up), sausages (I’ve never had hand made hot dogs, so we bought a couple and plan to eat them tonight on a toasted potato bun), cheeses and yogurts (picked up a tub to make frozen yogurt). You definitely go there for one thing and come out with $50-$100 worth of stuff. Anyway. This is how we ended up with a little over a pound of dry-aged NY Strip Steak. We were looking at the dry-aged rib eye, but it was lofty 2lb monster with the bone… so yeah.

They butcher in house and a lot of steaks were left over from requests from restaurants from that day. The meats looked really great and fresh, if more expensive for the authentic butcher experience. The people that work there are super attentive and helpful, and of course, knowledgeable about their meats. Unfortunately this isn’t the type of place I would trek to once a week, but a splurge per month is definitely in the picture.

Red Miso Marinaded Steaks

This is Ryan’s recipe for steaks, which resembles the Japanese miso-zuke technique of marinading fishes. It makes the meat really flavorful and the mirin allows the outside to caramelize (the sugar content – so if you’re cooking a thinner steak and you suspect the cooking time to be less, then add more mirin for more of an instant char). Use around 3 table spoons per pound of meat with a splash of mirin or more if the steak is on the thinner side. Our steak last night was over an inch, so the mirin was minimal. Marinade at room temperature for an hour. If you want a stronger flavor, marinade in the fridge for some time and leave out for the last hour.

Twenty minutes before cooking, adjust the bottom rack of the oven to be around 6 inches from the flame. Set the oven to broil and leave in your cast-iron pan. Once the steak is good to cook, be careful and take out the cast iron and heat on the stove at the highest setting. (Please double up your oven mitts, as the one touching the cast iron was blackened.) The idea is to char the steak of a super hot surface. Place the steak on the skillet and brown each side for 30 seconds-1 minute. Depending on the thickness of the steak, once the meat is browned, throw into the oven (still on broil) for 2-4 minutes. I like mine medium rare, where the very center is still rare (less cooked than pink), so we left the steak for 2 and half minutes. Finally, take the steak out of the oven and rest on a cool surface for 10 minutes. There will be drippings from the meat that you can use later for sauce.

The meat was just SO tender and buttery. The dry aged meat gave the steak a real beefiness. And in fact, the miso didn’t detract from that, since it added a slight funkiness, tang, and saltiness and didn’t taste over powering-ly like miso. It was definitely one of our most memorable steak moments at home. The cut and quality of the meat is so important. Once we bought this flank steak that was just so chewy, even after marinading (and then it was full of artificial flavor, but not much meatiness, you know?) it was still one tough mo-fo. That moment made me really appreciate better cuts of meat. And personally, I’m not a big filet minion fan. It’s tender, but lacks a beefy/meatiness. Eh.

Roasted Kale

The kale, I kept simple. After washing the kale, I dried it thoroughly before tossing with some virgin olive oil. I added salt, pepper, garlic powder (see a pattern?), cayenne pepper (TONS), and Japanese shichimi chili flakes (7 variety). I cooked for a couple of minutes until the edges of the leaves are slightly crispy and everything else tender and dark green.

Sauteed Rainbow Chard

To accompany this dish, we roasted some kale (left overs) and sauteed some rainbow chard. We kept it easy and cooked it with 4-5 cloves of garlic and olive oil. I sprinkled some garlic powder, salt, and pepper for good measure.

I like the trim the chard from it’s stems and cook the stems extra long. I divided them up, and initially cooked the stems in oil and garlic for 5 or so minutes. I used around one clove of garlic and reserved the rest for when I sauteed the leaves. I put the stems aside and heat some additional oil and throw in the rest of the garlic into the pot. I used a pot to contain all the chard, but the leaves quickly wilted and shrunk to 1/4 it’s size. After 5 or so minutes, I threw the stems in, tossed around, and took the pot off the fire. Just sprinkle some lemon and grate some parmesan on top. Delicious.

Bon appetite!

We plated the steaks on top of brown and white rice respectively, each tossed with a small slab of butter, lime, salt, and parmesan (we know how to do it up!).

Feel free to adapt this for the grill. You just need to get the temperature really high. Let us know if there are any steak recipes that you recommend!!

Next post: We’ll report back on their hot dogs and yogurt (although I tasted that it was definitely yummy! I love that the 3 ingredients next to the yogurt are: organic whole milk, cultures, and vanilla) tomorrow!

Mini Update: Cafe Ghia

umi — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 08:49:36 +0000

Sometimes I want to make mini updates to mention a particular new dish at a place I’ve all ready talked about, or to show case a small something. Not a full update, but a mini-update.

My staple brunch item at Ghia’s, was the daily scramble. For the spring, they had butternut squash, kale/spinach, and goat cheese in an soft scramble egg, with a side of potatoes. The mild goat cheese and sweet butternut squash in this savory dish was eye opening. This time around, they had asparagus (which is in season now), mushrooms, and goat cheese… which for some reason didn’t tickle me as much. I like asparagus, but just not particularly with eggs or cheese. That might sound weird, since I think the idea of a poached egg on a bed of grilled asparagus sounds sublime… but let’s just say I wasn’t feeling it today.

Luckily, they had their vegan scramble, which sounded delightful. It had tofu, sweet potato, kale (the sweet potato and kale sort of recreated my butternut squash kale love from the previous dish – do you see a pattern, internet?!), scallion, spicy black bean sauce, with a side of ginger-lime tofu “cream” and toast. Uh… AMAZING. I also ordered a side of egg, sunny side up (beautiful orange runny yolk, just the way I like it. Excellent eggs, by the way). Whether you’re a meat eater, vegetarian, or vegan, this dish is so savory and creamy. So, definitely don’t miss this.

side note: WHAT IS IN THEIR ginger-lime tofu “cream”? It was super tasty and felt decadent, but without yolks like in mayonnaise or any dairy, I’m really curious what gives it its texture. I just googled and came up with a vegan sour cream recipe that calls for silken tofu, firm tofu, lemon, and soy sauce. I can’t imagine that those ingredients in a food processor would give you something like sour cream or this cream in question… hmmm.

Cafe Ghia

umi — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:18:18 +0000

Cafe Ghia
24 Irving Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11237

The corner of Irving and Jefferson was left bare after a dark neighborhood bar shut down a few years ago. Ryan’s totally been hoping that something cute opens up there, since it’s a prime location, but we were sad that the building looked like nothing was going on for a long time.

Of course this all changed a couple of months ago. We saw the windows had newspaper plastered on and there was some serious work going on over there. Then in the last 2 months, we saw a serious bar table and some espresso machines/coffee stuff, which sparked some debate. Will it be a bar? Or a cafe? (We were hoping bar.) And at nights when I walked by the place after work, I would plaster my face on the window hoping to get some inkling of what was coming. (You know, and in the process creeped out the owners of the place.)

They are a restaurant/cafe that is open for breakfast/brunch/lunch/dinner 7 days a week. Awesome, right? They are open until 1am-2am (depending on the foot traffic) and their kitchens current close around 11pm (although they will probably start having late night snacks available until closing).

On the first weekend of April, they opened up! (Apparently they were hoping to open up since October, but things kept getting pushed back.) Of course we slid on in Sunday evening, one of the first people in that night to survey our new neighborhood restaurant.

The place offers seating of around maybe 15 people on the floor and another 8 or so at the bar. It’s full of light and super cute with great shelving system that I am totally jealous of. (Seriously, I need something like that.) The menu is simple, but has vegetarian opens, soups, appetizers, and Ryan’s favorite… Charcuterie plate (and a cheese plate). They have wines, local beers (Sehr Crisp! Pork Slap! Oh my!) and a good brunch cocktail selection. (Including some serious hangover recipes: Emergen-C cocktails? Ben’s Breakfast Beverage Buffet: Coffee + Water + Coke + OJ?) The best part is the price point is really good. Their house wine is delicious and affordable. They have a seriously lovely white wine, called BOE (with a beautiful label done by a local Bushwick artist).

Their dinner menu is a little light (but hearty enough with good portions), currently consisting of their soup of the day (more on that later), salads, charcuterie plate, cheese plate, and sandwiches. When we went there for dinner, their mac n’ cheese and burgers weren’t on the menu, yet. Ryan and I got the turnip soup to share with the cheese plate and charcuterie with chicken liver. The SOUP was seriously good, you guys. I still think about it. It was the perfect consistency and creamy with some drizzled pesto and pumpernickel croutons. I loved everything there, but that was MY FAVORITE thing.

The cheese plate was delicious. They were all very earthy and they are all from the farm that the chef worked at previously (local in NJ, I believe). There was a creamy harder cheese, a stinky soft cheese, and a sharper harder cheese. The breads were toasted (kinda like a sandwich) and was soft and crispy. The charcuterie plate was good. Love the prosciutto and coppa. They were all cured in house, as well. GET THE CHICKEN LIVER. It was creamy and savory and everything I love in pate. It was A LOT of food.

I loved that this place is dedicated to being open for breakfast and lunch during the weekday. I wouldn’t get to take advantage of this, but Ryan certainly could. We went there for brunch twice and loved what we had. Some home runs were the breakfast sandwich (bacon egg and cheese? You can’t really go wrong – and Ryan loves his sandwiches and bacon), daily scramble (I love the combination of goat cheese, butternut squash and spinach. The butternut squash is done so well and adds to the creaminess of this whole dish. I love the fact that the second time around they used kale. That balanced out quite well.), and the belgian waffle (I have no words to describe this. It’s like a pumpkin pie custard delight).

We’re so excited that this place opened up on that corner. With this place, arepas place, the coffee place and the salad place on Wyckoff, there are tons of daytime options near the Jefferson stop now. Over all Cafe Ghia is a missing puzzle piece to the growing culinary scene out here.

Weekend Brunch – Crepes

umi — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:55:24 +0000

Few weekends ago Ryan tried to recreate his father’s crepes. The crepes themselves were adapted from various online recipes:

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 teaspoon salt

Or something like that. The real interesting things happen with the fillings and toppings. Next time, I want to make a simple egg custard. This time around, Ryan made some savory crepes by frying up bacon to a crisp and pulsed them in the food processor. Them he mixed the crushed bacon with oregon gouda shavings. For a sweet crepe, we just used some confectionary sugar and lemon.

Light, simple, savory, and sweet.

Ode to Brooklyn

umi — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 12:28:02 +0000

There was a great article a few weeks back in the NY Times about Bushwick collectives. It actually features one of my favorite Bushwick restaurants.

Roberta’s, for example, the locavore pizzeria near the Morgan Avenue L stop, acts as a kind of community headquarters for area residents and local business owners. In a backyard tent, the managers of the Wreck Room bar and the Deth Killers of Bushwick, a fashion company, can be found doing inventory on their laptops.

I love the fact that business is flourishing around that area and the neighboring stops these days, including the two places I recently posted about. I was telling Ryan the other day, that I should feature at least one new Brooklyn place in my blog a week. But I am not sure whether that is a schedule I can commit to, you know?

Overall I love the dining community out here with their organic-minded and/or community centric philosophies and genuinely good food. There’s the “hipster hang outs,” which I just use for a lack of better word, but really isn’t a bad thing. I usually use that to connotate people that recently moved here in the last 1-8 years, you know? And then there are the democratic community focused eateries, such as Los Hermanos taco factory, or the new Arepas restauarant.

As I mentioned down at www.winglike.com, which I recently started back up, Brooklyn is pretty fragmented by neighborhood (It’s pretty big), but over all really up and coming. Also, the food choices are really what’s improving the neighborhood for me. I mention the gallery spaces, shops, etc… but really I think it’s the new choices of bars and restaurants opening up.

Three Angels by the Park – A Coffee Place

umi — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 21:22:40 +0000

There is a new coffee place right near the corner of Troutman and Irving, right near Maria Hernandez Park. It’s a cute place with a LARGE seating area out back, both indoors and outside. It’s super laid back with good lattes and hot chocolate and just the usual fare of cookies and muffins. It was a little hard to spot, but it is across the street from the park. In side, the chairs are cozy and a little miss matched. It’s note quite as stylized or hip as it’s Morgan stop equivalent, Orwell cafe, but it’s a welcome addition near the Jefferson stop, I’m sure.

Narrows Bar

umi — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 21:13:49 +0000

Narrows Bar
1037 Flushing Ave.
Brooklyn, NY

This place is a little hard to find, but if you keep going towards Life Cafe on Flushing, you’ll find it to your right. It’s where the old gallery Pocket Utopia used to be located (which an artist friend of mine had a residency). It looks like a small place, but has a REALLY CUTE outside area (with a BBQ) with tons of space. Off the bat, once you go inside, the place is dark and cute with regular patrons, although it just opened. The bartenders are courteous and signature cocktails are straight on. Otherwise, they have an all night all the time special of bud & jameson or sol & jalapeño infused tequila for $6, of which the latter is my go to.

Morgan Old Fashion – The main alcohol in this is rum, but it’s beautifully made and a great new rendition on a classic drink. If the other drinks sound too girly for you, this is the tastiest way to go. (Other than the specials)

Lucky Lindy – Beautiful blend of St. Germain, Cava, and everything else to make your lady swoon.

Babushka – A great summer drink that’s fizzy and citrus-y. My other go to drink other than their tequila special and Old Fashion.

Caulfield’s Dream – Cute name, but the spearmint scares me off. Never ordered it, but it seems to get rave reviews…

I love that there’s a place right near by the Morgan stop. As much as Wreck Room is fun, I like that there’s a non-divey alternative in that part of Bushwick. Go there while you’re on your way to Roberta’s or Momo’s.

New Addition – Momo Sushi Shack

umi — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 20:53:58 +0000

What’s really exciting these days are the new places popping up all over Bushwick Brooklyn! We recently went to this great small bar on Flushing Ave, called Narrows Bar. There’s a wine store right around the corner from Roberta’s, and next to that this new Sushi place.

Momo Sushi Shack
43 Bogart Street
(between Moore St & Grattan St)
Brooklyn, NY

Ryan found this new place on Yelp and the front was slightly worn down with no distinguishable signs, similar to Narrows. The place is owned by the same people that did Bozu in Williamsburge, which I have never been to, but Ryan has. However, I think this place is cheaper, with a communical bare eating space, and no alcohol. I think they let you bring your own bottle, and otherwise, they have soft drinks.

I wouldn’t say this place is Japanese… just like I wouldn’t say neo-rolls with cream cheese and lox isn’t exactly traditional sushi. However, I like them. (And for the record, when my grandmother came over from Japan and she tried them, she liked them.) I’m not really purist like my father was (he was a Sushi Chef), but this place is like postmodern. They do “nigiri” (which is just another word for holding together – which connotes pressing the rice together with the fish) in “bomb” form with minced raw fish, rather than whole pieces. And everything is fresh, delicious, AND the kicker is they use pretty good rice. It’s a good sushi place. I like how they are doing something completely different. Off the bat, they have all ready mixed soy sauce and wasabi for you. One pot is pure soy sauce, the other is 50/50, and the last pot is like 90% wasabi.

Now, let’s get to the food. They have several fish, non fish meats, and vegetarian things here. It’s great. Also, most appetizers on the menu are around $5-7 and extremely affordable. Most of the other places are under $10. First off, we ordered the ceviche with scallops (you can also get it with yellow tail). It’s not your usual ceviche… and this must be my FAVORITE thing on the menu. I ordered this the first time and continued to order this (and the party platter) for all the other two times I’ve been here. The cevich comes with your choice of scallops or yellow tail, with salmon and avocado. It rests on a thin pool of grated yams (which I LOVE – grated thicker pieces than traditional Tororo) and topped with grated daikon. They have a dashi base favor where you don’t need to add anything. They bring you small bowls if you have a guest and suggest that you mix and mash it up before eating.

We ordered some risotto rice croquettes. I LOVE Japanese cream croquettes (usually it’s creamed corm or white sauce inside). I love anything fried, but these rice croquettes are yummy, savory and totally comforting. I would either order these or the stuffed mushrooms, which are super flavorful, hearty, and savory. I like a little savory variety.

The gyoza is pretty solid. We saw a couple of plates of these babies go out, so we had to grab one. They have a vegetarian variety, if that’s the way you roll. This is a very tasty solid appetizer, along with the Japanese fried chicken. Japanese chicken is usually in wing form, tebasaki, or little boneless chunks of white and dark meat with a dark thick fried coating, which is slightly sweet. They do the latter very well here. (And their chicken is usually one of the specials).

Last but not least… Bombs – this is what is so distinguishing here. They make them similarly, I am guessing, to a nigiri (although I am sure they use a mold). the rice is good, not squished, and the toppings are ELEGANTLY molded and placed. We usually get the party platter with the spicy una bomb. From left to right, they gave us a salmon bomb, tuna bomb with avocado, unagi bomb, and a spicy tuna topped with daikon.

A meal for 2 here is typically anywhere from $30-40 with a variety of things. Get the bombs and ceviche, and experiment with other small dishes.

Venezuelan Restaurant in Bushwick

umi — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 03:44:41 +0000

So tonight I came home around 7pm, trying to prepare myself for a late night. You see, tonight is the NBA Draft and I had to wait for the picks by the Knicks. I didn’t feel like fussing over dinner and Tracy found this arepas place in the hood. I had to be home at around 9:30 to wait until potentially midnight. Yeah. So, we all had dinner at this new place that opened up in Bushwick Brooklyn. We all being REALLY big fans of Caracas Arepas Bar, we were all pretty excited.

Guacuco Restaurant
44 Irving
Brooklyn, NY

The Restaurant just opened last week and was really spacious and cute. It wasn’t completely trendy or hipsterish, but it wasn’t completely divey or local, either. There was tons of light, it seemed like a family run business, and there was a good mix of diverse backgrounds there… and it’s not yet too crowded. We sat down and our host was really sweet and nice.

First of all, there was fresh juice, coconut milkshake, which I got, tamarind drink, which is what Tracy ordered, and sugarcane/molasses in lemonade, which is what Ryan ordered. They were all really good and Ryan and Tracy’s drink was tart and refreshing. Mine was creamy and delicious with lots of shaved coconut chunks. Actually, mine was quite filling. The drinks were a good size, but still pretty expensive, considering… around $3-4 dollars a cup.

Next we ordered fried plantains with Venezuelan cheese. The plantains were candied, and pretty delicious. The serving was a pretty large and the plantains were hearty with a thick fried outside. It was good, but I don’t think I would be able to finish the whole thing on my own. Definitely share. It was a great snack, though and we poured the arepas sauce that they offered over them. There was a “pink sauce,” the “house blend,” and finally a “spicy sauce.” I was a big fan of the “house blend” and the spicy sauce” together.

Tracy ordered the vegetarian arepas, filled with plantains, avocados, a chunk of delicious white cheese, and tomatoes. Ryan and I ordered the vegetarian arepas, as well, along with the ham and cheese and the shredded fish in herbs.

The vegetarian arepas was delicious. The cornbread was crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. I think we are still a little partial to Caracas, but this place is a great substitute. The arepas are around $6.50, which I am told is definitely more than a little cheaper than Caracas. The cheese is different.

The ham and cheese was surprisingly delicious and different than what Caracas offers. It was hearty, a little salty, and the cheese was melty. There was a lot of ham and it was a great combination.

The fish… was VERY fishy and hearty, but in a good way. Does that make sense? It was really greasy and it actually made the arepas break and fall apart. Very hearty with herbs and cilantro and very satisfying… if not a little bad for you and FILLED with grease. All in all, I was very satisfied with everything I had. Come, visit me, get some arepas, and then get a drink at Bodega.