Red from happiness and gluttony, not from wine or "Asian Glow"

 

I only had the pleasure of living, working, and then obviously traveling in India for three months in 2008. This by no means made me into an expert on Indian cuisine. I did, however, gain exposure to foods I did not know even existed in the subcontinent’s repertoire. I also figured out which of these things I loved dearly, and was crestfallen, but not surprised, to find that they scarcely exist in reliable form in the United States.

The first time I surfaced from the Bergen Street F train stop, the bold burgundy awning screaming RAGA INDIAN CUISINE in white block font caught my eye immediately. First, I noted the name with a bit of nostalgic pleasure (raga is Sanskrit for the tone of music, or for specific melodic and rhythmic patterns of traditional and/or religious significance). Then, I quickly shuddered and decided to avoid the place. It was next to Atomic Wings and Domino’s pizza, and looked closed at prime time, so I didn’t see what good could ever come from walking through Raga’s door.

Of course, fate did lead me to walk into this dim, quiet, low-chic place with a friend who lives in the area. We were greeted by three avid waiters who were borderline creepy in their attentiveness. I couldn’t help but break into a grin, because I felt like I was traveling alone in India again, ducking into the cool darkness of an empty restaurant at odd times of the day and having a solo feast while everyone witnessed the spectacle.

Enough reminiscing, though, let’s cut to the chase. Here’s the menu, available on basically every food delivery website operating in the metropolis.

We had:

*Chicken Tandoori (NOT Tikka)
*Matar Paneer (NOT drivelly Saag Paneer)
*Lamb Biryani (NOT overplayed kabobs)
*Paratha (NOT just naan)
*Saffron Rice
*Mango Pickle
*Garlic Naan (the french fries of Indian food…they’re so pedestrian and fattening in excess but you just can’t let them go)
*(SALTED Lassi (not pictured since we’d already consumed them by the time more food arrived)
*(Red Wine (a bit incongruous, but we were in the mood to party after seeing all the food)

The tandoori chicken was MOIST and had that indescribably special yoghurt flavor, with a touch of tandoor smoke to it. The Matar Paneer had big, plentiful cubes of cheese curd quivering in a thick and flavorful spicy tomato sauce rich in firm, verdant sweet peas. The lamb biryani had tons of meat and veggies in it, not like the rice and boney bits you get at most places if you can even find biryani. The paratha was buttery with ghee but also crispy and flaky. The saffron rice was fragrant, and had ribbons of carrot integrated into it. The mango pickle was appropriately SALTY AS FUCK! The garlic naan could have warded off vampires, and the natural tasting lassi filled me up a bit too much, but probably neutralized the intensity of spices that I bolted down afterwards. The wine pushed us over the edge and all seemed right with the world.

At the end of the meal, as we sat holding our stomachs onto our bodies for fear that they’d fall off from the weight, the servers appeared and gave us Kulfi (thick, cardamom flavored traditional ice cream) AND rice pudding …ON THE HOUSE!

On the verge of hysteria from the food high we were now in, we hollered at the smiling men that we’d be back soon! The only thing is, the meal was so satisfying that we haven’t dared to go back just yet…it’s like we’re both still full from that meal.

Ordering via seamlessweb or other services might suck; I wouldn’t know. But honestly, what are people doing ordering something messy and complicated like Indian food? I’ve done it before, and was never satisfied. Also, when my friend and I were there, the place was spotless and the service was amiable and prompt (I repeat, they gave us free dessert). Suck it up and give this place a chance. You might find a roach somewhere, but you might find that under your own pillow tonight, this being New York City. OR, you might just be transported…

The breakfast that started the day...and started an obsession

The Cobble Hill Coffee Shop, 314 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11231

During the fall of 2008, the beloved Donut House retired to its cocoon and re-emerged as what is now known as Coffee Shop – The Cobble Hill Coffee Shop, that is. No title is more befitting for an eatery that embodies and delivers the sunny morning mellowness of this South Brooklyn neighborhood (Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens).

Perhaps because the ownership remained consistent after the metamorphosis, the diner exudes authenticity and belonging. Perhaps the best way to compliment a business whose chief merit is a sense of normalcy is to benchmark it against core characteristics of any place that strives to provide that down home feeling that keeps us going back, cholesterol count be damned.

1. Standards

It seems obvious to do a rundown of what needs to be on a diner menu, but you’d be surprised how many places are missing what you crave.

That said, diners MUST have sweet (waffles, hotcakes, French toast, jam, marmalade, and maybe crepes) and savory (eggs, omelets, sausages, bacon, ham, home fries or tater tots, regular sliced bread instead of artisan stuff, a boat load of butter, and possibly poached eggs, hollandaise sauce, and lox) breakfast foods served at ALL HOURS. Lunch selections MUST include burgers, melts (especially tuna), clubs, and reubens. The Coffee Shop has all this and more (paninis, eggplant parmagiana, fish & chips, Greek stuff, liver, frank ‘n’ beans, and even salads for the self-conscious and delusional) available from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. They take cards, too, so if the night before fleeced you of your cash, you won’t go hungry.

Few diners offer much more beyond uninspired omelettes, greasy pork products, and stock sandwiches with limp fries. The Coffee Shop surpasses run-of-the-mill diners with deli-level specialties and plain old favorites that are SO country that they are usually completely overlooked. I guess I’m talking about corned beef hash. Tell me one other place where they have this readily available in the city! It’s delicious, with the stupefying sodium content of the canned shit but the complex flavor and texture of real food.

Go here to see more of the takeout-able menu.

2. Beverages

All diners have coffee; drip all the way, often old and sludgy, but always with that special quality that calms you down and amps you up at the same time because you just have to go with what came out of the machine and it’s a thrill to lose control like that when you’re used to standing over Starbucks workersto make sure your espresso is made right. While this place is called the Coffee Shop, it’s the farthest thing from a caffeine boutique with its artsy cups of foam. In fact, I suspected that the single option coffee was Folgers, and it WAS the best part of waking up.

As for juice, normally, you’ll find a $5 half pint of OJ at some fancy ass place. It comes in an anal looking vial but tastes like it’s from concentrate, or straight out of a Continental Airlines cabin. Here, the worst case scenario is $3.50 for 10 to 16 ounces of orange juice, grapefruit juice, or even tomato in a big, friendly, beveled, kitchen style plastic cup. They even mixed grapefruit with orange for me. The last time I had that done by my own hand, or at some beatnik’s cafe in Berkeley, so it meant a lot to me. So forget the sodas squirting out of mechanical udders at other places. Here, the juice is what’s worth the squeeze.

3. Atmosphere

The best diners tend to be unpretentious in atmosphere, right down to its bitchy (Seinfeld’s soup nazi, a waitress in a diner in my hometown) or nurturing waitstaff. However, lots of diners are either downright dirty, taking the hole-in-the-wall aesthetic to the extreme. Or, they are unnaturally dolled up with inflated prices to match, piming some image like a shiny new product .

The Coffee Shop strikes the perfect balance in how a diner should appear and feel. It’s clean but not fancy, intimate but not gloomy, cozy but not cramped, lively but not loud, and fragrant but not odorous. The staff and benevolent owner are of the extremely friendly variety, and they’re not trying to get anything out of you in exchange for good service, either. True, assholes working at a local diner can sometimes wield their own brand of charm, let’s face it; it’s nicer to be greeted with a smile than to fight for street cred first thing on a weekend morning from a server who hates the world, and possibly you.

This is one of the top brunch places I’ve been to in my whole entire life. It’s where I had coffee AND orange-grapefruit juice AND ice water, bacon AND hash browns, two eggs sunny side up on a bed of homefries AND bites of a friend’s crispy waffles…essentially what you’d get in a real household when no one is too hungover or lazy to throw down and make everything at once, reaching across the table to sample one another’s dishes and refill multiple cups and mugs with big pours from pitchers of nectar.

The only dilemma is whether to get outrageously drunk the night before just to feel the full extent of the relief of eating here the morning after…or to stay sober in order to savor each unadulterated moment as you feast.

 —Jia H. Jung

In reality, there’s a downside to solitary work confinement.  There are the obvious distractions  – unwatched episodes of Jersey Shore on DVR, eleven o’clock gym classes or that dream where you’re dating Ryan Gosling and it’s just about to get to the good part.  Clocking in at home forces me to self-monitor my own productivity with a critical eye because despite all appearances (cut to me napping in the 2pm sun like a fat, lazy house cat), I do have work responsibilities.  And for some reason, slacking off at work in a cubicle seems more acceptable than pretending to be productive in my pj’s.

One of the biggest challenges of post-grad adulthood has been separating my professional life from my personal time.  For instance,  I only recently acknowledged that sleeping with my iphone was probably unhealthy.  But my line of work inherently cock blocks my life, so when I was first informed of our big office move into my tiny ass apartment, I wasn’t exactly thrilled.

Now, I encourage anybody who works from home to spend a day or two at a nearby cafe where free wi-fi has become the standard (more on this later).  It’s good to be in the company of actual human beings once in a while and its also prime time for local celeb spotting (Hey! @Mshowalter).   But after spending 30 dollars one day on a handful of non-fat lattes, I realized this wasn’t the most fiscally responsible alternative.  With all of this in mind, I decided that I needed to set up a home office that was clearly defined as a space where I could devote to work alone.  Thanks to a relatively spacious apartment (800-900 square feet) and two incredibly patient and understanding roommates (Hi Xtine and Nic), I set up a little work station with the basic elements of a functioning office.

Unfortunately, four months into my at-homery, I’m finding that my set up isn’t as conducive to productivity as I had wished.   My little work area is quickly turning into a dusty rest stop for all the junk I can’t hide in drawers and 8 straight hours on the couch isn’t really doing my back any favors.  As an at-homer, its essential to designate a part of your abode to do business.  That said, I apparently didn’t put much thought into the execution and efficiency of the space as evidenced by its increasingly hoarder-ish aesthetic.

Now that we’ve decided to extend our lease, I realized its time I invest some real time and money int0 creating an environment that I can  proudly call my home office.  So, I’m giving myself an interior decorating assignment and will track my progress on this blog! It’s the Benjy and a Month challenge.  I’m giving myself 100 dollars and 30 days to redecorate this space with the resources I have around my neighborhood.  Okay, so this should really take a Sunday afternoon but I want to get creative and I promise you the results will be worth it!

Luckily, Target and Ikea are great options for budget friendly ideas and both happen to be a  stone’s throw from me (Another Gobble Hill perk!).  But there are other bargain/99cent/hardware stores that should offer a ton of creative alternatives.

Keep track of my progress here and I’ll make sure to keep you all posted on any good finds!  Happy Decorating!

Here’s a pic of my home office, on a good day:

There are no shortage of supermarkets in our hood.  Personally, my go-to has been Trader Joes.  Despite the long lines, questionable produce and inconsistent stock, they carry product that I trust at prices I can afford.  And for a busy, single gal, it’s hard not to appreciate their diverse selection of cheap and healthy frozen dinners.

Brooklyn Fare, across the Hoyt/Schermerhorn AC subway stop, opened its doors rather quietly about two years ago.  While Chef Cesar Ramirez’s pet project, The Chef’s Table @ Brooklyn Fare, was gradually garnering a foodie following, its supermarket sister seemed to be struggling to find its place in the landscape of Bococa grocery stores.  Outside of its hot/cold prepared food offerings, there was nothing unique enough to bring in the masses – and being tucked away in a sometimes sketchy street between Downtown Brooklyn and Boreum Hill didn’t help.

I’ve stopped in on my way to the subway for a banana or a latte but those times have been few and far between.  So, I was pretty surprised to walk in today and find that the store had practically doubled in size.  While I thought BF was on the verge of shuttering its doors, apparently it’s been doing better than I presumed.  What’s gotta be in large part due to the success of the now 2-star Michelin rated Chef’s Table, Brooklyn Fare’s latest expansion may have just upgraded its status from stop-in to go-to.

The store’s stock is a good balance of mass market and specialty, local products.  Whether it’s oreos or organic, my needs as a a shopper have a lot of range.  So the new and improved Brooklyn Fare appears to be the perfect pitstop for stocking your pantry with everything you need in one visit.  They also feature local products which is nice for Brooklyn purveyors looking to get exposure to a wider clientele.  Additionally, along with a bunch of weekly coupon cutting sales, their price points are pretty competitive.  For example, today I bought 4 Chobani greek yogurts for 5 dollars and their Rao’s homemade marinara sauce is sold for $6.99 a jar where others may charge up to $7 or $8.99.  Finally, their produce section appears to be pretty fresh and their spread of cheeses quite broad.  I’d say a comparable shopping experience would be like a much smaller but closer version of Fairway.

NYmag’s Grubstreet reports that they also intend to build a more affordable version of the Chef’s Table next door!  Well, looks like I was wrong all around and will be frequenting this corner more often than I thought!

UPDATE:  Goblette Xtine and I went to BK this weekend to shop for our Dress Up Oscar Party.  Produce is actually not that great and priced a bit high.  But other products were good and a plenty.  Will definitely still be a supermarket option.

If I’m an expert on anything, it is, without doubt, late-night binge eating.

And I am proud to say that after almost 3 years in this neighborhood, I now have the whole cycle – from hunt, to purchase, to consumption – down to a speedy science. The secret: ZIAD’S.

Ziad’s, an unassuming deli on Smith street between Bergen and Dean [map], is the Gobblettes’ favorite post-party pit stop for many reasons. Here are just a few off the top of my head:

1. They’re open 24/7 (almost). I think they might be closed from 430am-530am on weekdays or something, but it’s never posed a real problem. (At 4am, everyone should really be making an executive decision to either continue partying, or start eating.)

2. The owner dude (Ziad?? maybe??) of ambiguous Eastern Euro origin is kind of a badass! He’s stocky and tough, definitely works out, definitely capable of fucking someone up if they were causing trouble (so things stay pretty peaceful in-store). And he’s generally very nice. Once he did get really pissed at me for being drunk and eating my self-curated coleslaw and macaroni sandwich (???) at the cash register but that, I think we could all agree, was a considerable provocation. Also, he’s usually there in the mornings and sometimes calls me “sweetheart” or “hon” so it’s nice to start the day with that.

3. There’s a cute 18-year-old cashier who looks like Drake. We are each other’s “boos.”

4. FINALLY : THE FOOD!

Ziad’s has, by far, the best options for potato chips, packaged cookies (Berry Milanos! believe it!), soda, iced confections, and misc. ‘fresh’ foodstuffs (cold cuts; cheese; etc). (Their beer selection is as lacking as any other bodega in the BoCoCa area – but so be it.)

One highlight: their breakfast fare. Unlike most delis, they make a pretty decent, hearty breakfast sandwich for a reasonable price (usually less than $4). My favorite: toasted everything bagel with cheddar cheese, sausage, egg, tomato, hot sauce and ketchup – ask them to wrap the halves separately for optimum pre- and post-commute gnoshing. And their normal sandwiches are pretty legit as well (my picks – roast beef or meatball on a hero).

Another highlight: the deli chefs. Everyone I’ve ever ordered a sandwich from has been friendly, quick, and down with some serious sammy experimentation. My coleslaw & macaroni “creation” was probably not the best of ideas, but the deli bros served it up happily to me, without batting an eye. They even commended my ingenuity! I really respect and appreciate that. No one should shame you for the shitty food choices you’re making at 3am. Except for maybe yourself. Nah, not even yourself! Eat more shit, live a little, who cares! [artery bursts]

And last but not least: THE JAMAICAN BEEF PATTY. These can be found at food carts all around the city; this I know. but the ones at Ziad’s taste fresher than the others I’ve had. Maybe I’m biased, I can’t be sure. All I know is that between the hours of 1 and 4am, there is nothing, literally nothing, that can satisfy my hunger the way a Ziad’s beef patty with cheese (and hot sauce, obv) can.  It is God’s gift to drunk Asian bloggers.

So there you have it! The Gobble Hill tip of the day. Please use it wisely! Hooray for Ziad’s.

- Christine