So much Red Hook, so little time...

As I mentioned before, we spent the day exploring Red Hook yesterday. We walked all the way there and all the way back. Since there's only one form of public transportation to, around, and from this little neighborhood, (the B61 bus, when its running,) and it's separated by a canal and an expressway from the rest of Brooklyn, a person has to walk a ways before they find a street that crosses over or under.

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Carroll Gardens, which we passed through on the way into Red Hook, is adorable, and we spent some time perusing surprisingly reasonable vintage shops on Court Street and talking ourselves out of a premature brunch at several delicious looking restaurants with garden seating. It's a super tempting area, and surely worth a trip of its own. Stay tuned in the near future...

The only place in New York from which you can see her face

Once we crossed under the Gowanus expressway, we meandered past the Red Hook Houses, the largest public housing development in Brooklyn, and through the parks and playgrounds and past Ikea and the Six Point brewery. We found ourselves at the big converted Liberty Warehouse off of Van Dyke street.

You've been warned

The pretty garden walk led us to Steve's Key Lime Pies, (A on the map,) who's kitschy signs and tables out front made me worried that maybe we'd found a Red Hook tourist trap, but by then we were too hungry to resist. I had the only beverage on the menu, a limonade, (key limes, not lemons, remember,) and we each ordered a "Swingle" and were not disappointed. These mini pies (they only serve key lime pies, according to the signs,) with buttery graham cracker crusts are covered in rich dark and slightly bitter chocolate. And mounted on a stick, of course. The pie filling is firm and smooth, creamy and custardy, not gelatin-y, and the slightest shift off of sunlight-yellow towards the green end of the color wheel. Nice and tart and sweet but not too sweet, it's no wonder they've been able to stay in business for 16 years serving only key lime-based desserts.

The Swingle!

Having eaten our dessert before our meal, we set off to explore some more and follow the rumor of some killer clam chowder at some lobster place...

The Red Hook Lobster Pound, (B on the map,) sits a block over from the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. There are two entrances on Van Brunt street. The first is where you go in and order at the counter. The second is a small hall with picnic tables and a counter for plasticware and napkins where you can wait for your meal to arrive and then enjoy it in potentially messy bliss.

We skipped the lobster this time, (but the $20 lobster dinner special on Wednesdays would be worth the trip back,) and just got the clam chowder. Served unceremoniously in cardboard cups with little bags of oyster crackers, I was prepared to decry the $7 price. But this was about as perfect a rendition of New England clam chowder as I have had. And this coming from someone with a commercial fisherman in the family. Potatoes were diced small and not cooked into mush. The creamy base was rich with pepper and clam flavor, and the pieces of clam themselves were big and meaty without being made rubbery.

If only you could smell this...

Whoopie!

I finished my lunch with a Robicelli's whoopie pie, of the chocolate cream filled variety. (I've always been sure that the whoopie pie comes from Pennsylvania's Amish, dating back to at least the 18th century. I never actually heard about Maine's claim to the little treats until moving to New York, but since the earliest recorded version of it in thy state is from 1925, I'm sticking with those stubborn Amish. They aren't exactly the type of folk to get creative with their food...) Robicelli's "pies" are dense and sticky-moist chocolate cake/brownie/cookies that hold a really perfect buttercream filling that's firm enough to bite through without worrying that it's escaping out the back. Knowing that they offer cupcakes too now, I'm promising to hunt some down for you readers...

-SdJ