HBH gourmet sandwiches, Smith street

We ordered delivery from HBH through Seamless one night and were somewhat optimistic. Some good yelp reviews and descriptive menu choices bodes well. We chose the Smith Street Cheese Steak, the Big MacDougal, and the Jalapeño Mac n Cheese.

A half hour later, our food arrived. The sandwiches were wrapped in butcher's paper and yet they had soaked it through with oil. Not necessarily a bad sign, but certainly not a healthy one. For a Philadelphia native to order a cheesesteak might sound like a recipe for disappointment, but I try to keep an open mind.

Smith Street Cheese Steak? 

This sandwich, while having no physical resemblance to an actual cheesesteak, still looked awfully tempting. The short rib was soft and succulent, and the shallots were a sweeter replacement for the fried onions you expect on a steak wit'. The onion ciabatta held up pretty well under the grease from this sandwich's contents, including the aioli which had begun to break down into its component parts. (Oil being the main one.) Other than the greasiness, though, this was a delicious sandwich. Not even close to a cheesesteak by any purists definition, but something I'd be more than happy to order again. Rich and meaty and flavorful, I'd even go so far as to say it was as good as some more authentic specimens I've tried in Philly. The $12 price is a bit steep, though.

Pulled Pork sammy.

The Big MacDougal was closer to what you might expect when you ask for a pulled pork sandwich. The name made me think they were going for a McDonalds flavor combination, but it's basically (extremely tender and flavorful) pulled pork topped with coleslaw. Only in this instance, it's a more vinegar flavor profile to the kimchee rather than the usual mayonnaise-y slaw you'd get at a roadside BBQ. It's a pretty good sandwich, and better priced at $9, but not as impressive.

Mac n Cheese. With green bits.

The let down here was the Mac n Cheese. We could see green bits of jalapeño, but could barely taste it or the cheese, for that matter. Buttered noodles with Kraft parmesan sprinkled on top would have tasted as interesting. Maybe this dish is better when you eat it in the restaurant, but it certainly didn't survive the trip to our apartment. Skip it if you're getting delivery.

Maybe this place is worth a visit in person. I'll post again when I make it over there.

-SdJ

Korzo, South Slope

While walking down 5th avenue one day recently heading towards the Greenwood Cemetery, we got caught in a sudden rainstorm. We ducked into the Eastern European themed Korzo between 19th and 20th streets and cozied into the nook in the hall between the front bar area and the dining room with the piano in the back. (This is yet another of New York's 2-location chains, the other being at Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan.)

The decor here is cozy and the furnishings all have a real weight to them; it would be easy to imagine this place has been around for a few decades or more, rather than just a few years. The bartender who also waited on us was helpful and patient. It's tempting to make this into a regular weekly hangout.

Heavy furniture, medium beer

The cooler days and the rain made hot soup sound like a good idea, and the Soup du Jour was a hearty cream of red potato and dill soup with a spicy chili oil floated on top. Grilled house baked bread alongside it was perfect for sopping up the leftovers.

Creamy potato soup. And plenty of grilled bread.

Korzo practically makes it's own everything. Bread, mustard, pickles, (beet!) ketchup, noodles, cures it's own sausages. They even have their own beer in conjunction with Peak Organic Brewery out of Portland, Maine. Don't click if you're under 21. (The house beer is delicious, btw, and on another visit, when the $3 good cheap rotating draft was kicked, they served the house Korzo Ale for $3. It was a great all-night special. The beer menu is pretty solid, too, with most beers available by the pitcher or in 1 liter glasses too.)

The Hausbrau

We also tried the Slav burger and the Spicy Hungarian Goulash. The Goulash was a thick stew of beef brisket, paprika, and red pepper over what were described as "crispy" spatzle, but which actually turned out to be simply thick and delicious, if slightly soft spatzle. There were caramelized onions in here too somewhere, and a piece of home made Langoš (Hungarian flatbread) which was lighter and softer than a pita, and warm from the oven or pan or wherever it came from. Again, the assumption here is that you'll want to eat every last drop of food from your bowl. This assumption is accurate.

Goulash over Spatzle. And flatbread

The burgers here were called the best burger in NYC by the Village Voice last year. The patties and their respective toppings are wrapped in Langoš dough and deep fried. The Slav burger had slow cooked pork, house made sauerkraut, and Bryndza, a sheep-milk variation on Feta. The deep frying process leaves a delightfully golden and crispy outer pastry and a perfectly medium-rare patty. This burger is also ridiculously easy to hold with none of the messiness associated with most bar sandwiches. The Bryndza has enough bite to stay interesting over the rich combination of meats, and the sauerkraut is authentic, though in short supply in this dish. The accompanying fries were a combination of sweet potatoes and hand-cut chips, and both were tasty with the beet ketchup that came with them.

Korzo burer: The Slav

There are "jazz nights" on Tuesdays in the dining room, but there's a divider curtain which somehow keeps the sound from entering the bar area, so if you want to drink and don't like jazz, don't worry. And if you do like jazz, they've got a couple of regulars apparently who know their stuff. Two televisions do play some sports but with no volume, although you shouldn't worry that it's a super sporty crowd. And when the weather is nice, the front wall opens up to let the night breeze in. The menu is so full of delicious sounding meals that we want to go back again and again until we've tried them all. So far, everything we've had here has been as solid as the heavy antique furniture.

-SdJ

Quiet lunchtime in the rain.

Crisp cool morning, warm breakfast

Couleur Cafe is currently offering what might just be the most satisfying little breakfast dish a person could have on a cool September morning.

It's well below 70 before work now, and they open at 7AM, so you'll just have time to sit down and enjoy a delicious but hastily made cappuccino or a latte while they make you an order of baked eggs.

Hot Cap

From the specials menu, you can add any three ingredients from a very short list, and choose a side of either toast, garlicky potatoes, or salad. I felt like I scored a win with Gruyere, bacon, and caramelized onions. Layered in a small ceramic tartine dish with two eggs cracked on top and baked for ten minutes, this was like a little delicious oven in my tummy for the rest of my morning.

Baked Eggs!

The the eggs maintain a mostly runny yolk, at the expense of also having a slightly runny white, but there's enough deliciousness below them to soak it all up, and the potatoes I chose on the side were there to help and be tasty while they were at it. The nest of onions and bacon held together by one of my favorite melting cheeses could have stood on its own, but runny egg yolk always makes a breakfast dish that much better.

If you're up early and can't quite shake the chill, head over and treat yourself.

-SdJ

Roots cafe

We've been venturing south of Prospect Avenue/Parkway lately on 5th Avenue. It's funny how that part of town has always been off of my radar, even though it's certainly closer than some of the other areas we have explored recently. (Until recently, the only reason we would cross Prospect was to get to Eagle Provisions for their unlimited beer selection.)

If it weren't for the sandwich board, you's never know

This week we went to Roots Cafe one morning for coffee and a breakfast pastry from someplace other than our regular haunt at cafe 474. The cafe itself is adorable, but might be trying a little too hard with their plethora of quirky objects on the wall. Some comfy chairs and a bookshelf with a few board games were signs that it's just fine to stay a while.

Comfy Adorable Interior

The baristas are friendly and the patrons were all relatively young and cool and babyless. In the 40 minutes we stayed about a dozen people came and went and they all seemed to know the guys behind the counter, so there's clearly a regular crowd.

Iced coffee isn't the best indicator of a quality cafe, but it's pretty good here. The bagel with cream cheese and tomato I ordered took about 15 minutes to hit the counter, but it was delicious with flavorful fresh tomato slices that could have easily been skimped on. My everything bagel turned out to be whole wheat, which was actually kindof a nice surprise.

Everything bagel, Cream cheese and tomato

I'm not getting all food critic on this place. Just enjoying the little details. I can see why so many people come here, despite the faded storefront that's almost invisible from across the street. If you can find this place, it's a nice comfortable spot to spend an hour or two.

SdJ

Referral

In lieu of a review here tonight, I am sharing an article in the Red Hook Star Revue. Check out their PDF view and look for page 17 at an article called "Van Brunch Street."

It's a great local paper, based right on union street near the water, and distributing over 8,000 free papers about every two weeks. They stand out by keeping most of their advertisement local and tasteful. Their articles are well written too.

I was lucky enough to have something published there under a nom de plume. It's a longer and slightly less informal article than you'll usually see here, but I hope you like it. And with luck, you'll be able to look forward to more of the same.

-SdJ

Zito's part two, the revenge. (the delivery, actually)

We changed dinner plans tonight and ordered in from Zito's via Seamless. (Yes, I know that Seamless cuts down on the profit a restaurant makes on its meals, and yes, I know that it can take a little longer. I'm sorry. Sorry, Zito!)

Trying to eat as healthy as possible after a week of junk food from trucks, we ordered the Sicilian Tuna and the Panelle. Unfortunately, they were out of the latter, so it was replaced with the Meatless. (I should point out that this is the second time that we've tried Zito's, and the second time they've been out of a sandwich.) we also remembered that we could choose our rolls and skipped the default Rustico in favor of the wheat.

An hour and change later, the sandwiches arrived. The tuna was a dark brown, which was a little bit of a turn off at first, considering that Tongol and similar are usually a blondish gold at their darkest. this sandwich also comes with balsamic vinegar and olive tapenade, though, which explain the color. Pretty tasty and tangy from caper berries, and kept somewhat fresh with the addition of cherry tomatoes and arugula, it was a good sandwich. For $8.50, though, a person could do better.

The Meatless had plump and meaty grilled portobello mushrooms, bright green and spicy broccoli rabe, and roasted red peppers. The mushrooms were great, and the rabe and peppers were the best of a classic Italian combination of tastes. The artichoke spread listed on the menu, however, was barely perceptible on this sandwich. Again, the price was high for what we got.

Half and Half - the Meatless and the Sicilian Tuna

I should point out here that the bread was excellent. Most while wheat variations of a sub roll can get to be too dense and heavy. These, while certainly substantial, were chewy and light enough to allow the flavors of most of the sandwich fillings to be enjoyed. (although possibly responsible for the artichoke spread disappearing...)

Once more, Zito's is pretty good, but there's gotta be a better sandwich out there for the same price. But i suppose that convenience is a big draw in New York.

-SdJ

That Little Lady

One of the surprises when I first visited New York city in my youth was that the Statue of Liberty didn't tower over everything, like the Jesus statue in Sao Paolo. But when we took a field trip out to the island one time, she was at least as big as I imagined. However, from 95% of Manhattan, you can't even see her.

Living in Philadelphia for years, our version of this was the Liberty Bell. Visitors always expected it to be enormous, or perched high in the air in some old colonial era tower. (It's no bigger than a small round person, and it's right at street level, easy to see if you want to. I got to see it just walking around town about once a week, which was nice.)

When I moved to my temporary housing in Manhattan around this time past year, I remember thinking how odd it was that I was on the 19th floor with a view over the roofs of most of the buildings around my apartment, and yet I couldn't see that statue. I had kindof secretly looked forward to having this grand symbol of hope to tell me I'd made a good decision in coming here. Instead, I mostly got to see steam coming out of parking garages and scaffolding covering office buildings.

When I found my first floor apartment here in Park Slope a couple months later, after speaking with the super and deciding to take it, and as I was walking out the front door and turning downhill towards the subway, there she was. Small in the distance, but visible straight down my street and out in the bay. Not every decision I've made has been the right one, but for the first time in New York, I felt welcome.

-SdJ

Finally! The Coolhaus truck!

...Well, one of three (plus a cart?) in NYC, apparently. You may remember my excitement when I first had a "mintimalist" ice cream sandwich from the chest freezer at Zito's. Since then, I've been checking their twitter daily to see when one of their vehicles is within a few blocks of me, and it finally happened.

Hidden under some scaffolding

T3, as this truck is named, was parked on Vanderbilt in Manhattan, right near Grand Central. It was five blocks away from work, but the weather was relatively cool today, so I figured I could get there and back without ending up with icecream soup. It was a close call.

I get overly excited when I'm presented with too many choices and I always pick more than I can eat in one sitting in these scenarios. Since I'd also gotten lunch and a drink, I didn't have the capacity for two inch-and-a-half thick ice cream sandwiches, but I got them anyway and stuck one in the freezer.

Snickerdoodle and Southern Belle

My first pick was Snickerdoodle cookies with "Southern belle" ice cream inside. The combination of Maker's Mark, peaches, and sugared pecans is practically a shopping list of delicious things that remind a body of the south, so the title is adorable and apt. Not only that, though, they go really well together. I'm glad I got this summery concoction before its suddenly out of season. There's a strong enough whiskey flavor to make you question how much of a lady this belle really is, but the deliciously crunchy pecans and sweet peaches could fool you at first blush. The cookies were cinnamon-y and buttery and strong enough to hold all that wonderful ice cream and you'd be very happy if someone just handed you one of these cookies all by itself.

Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Stout, and Pretzels!

A couple of hours later when I was feeling a little afternoon snacky, I pulled the second sandwich out of the freezer at work. Chocolate chip cookies were held at arms length by chocolaty stout beer with salty pretzels. (Maybe letting this get a little melty was a bad idea, as the pretzels were soft by the time I got to eat it.) There might have been sea salt in the cookies too, but wherever it was coming from, that salty taste was cutting through the cold sweet stout ice cream with every bite and warming my mouth in the process. These cookies are apparentyl the original offering from Coolhaus, and it's easy to see how someone could build a food truck empire on this hearty, chocolaty foundation. Coolhaus offers half a dozen different cookie options but if they were out of everything else, you'd still score a win if you filled two of these with any of their ice creams.

Sometimes the trucks or the cart come to Brooklyn and set up in some of the parks here or at some of the outdoor movies and pier events, so follow them on your twitter and get there.

-SdJ

Ted and Honey, Cobble Hill

On a very long walk the other day, we found ourselves in Cobble Hill in and thirsty. We had wandered too far north on Columbia street and had to turn east before the expressway. The map app on my iPhone showed Ted & Honey as the closest place to get a casual beverage during that strange afternoon time between 3 and 5 when nobody is open. Like other places I've mentioned, this is a business which has exactly two locations. (The sibling is in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.)

Cozy Sidewalk out front

The bright red entrance, complete with babyholding couples out front, was welcoming and assured us that a little perspiration wouldn't be frowned upon. Once inside, the Helpyourself water pitcher confirmed that we were in the right pace to quench a thirst. The staff behind the counter, (although the website gives the impression that there is table service during dinner hours,) were friendly and happy, even to the point of singing along a bit with the old jazz playing over the speakers when they weren't helping patrons.

Happy sunflowers

There's a full espresso-bar menu, and iced coffee was my original intention. Something cold and invigorating at the same time. And the coffee here is good and strong. But then I noticed the drink specials. There doesn't seem to be a full liquor license here, but beer and wine are well chosen. The specials are of a variety that I've grown to appreciate lately: lighter summer drinks made with beer or wine rather than hard stuff. These are the kinds of things you can drink all afternoon and keep a nice buzz without blacking out after dark. The Shandy, a mix of pale beer and lemonade, is the perfect summer afternoon beverage. They also had a nice dry soda and red wine cocktail, and the "Sunshine in a glass" which was basically a prosecco-based mimosa with some dry rose mixed in, all for only $6! considering I'd just had a much smaller mimosa for $9 during brunch, this was a bargain. I still went for the Shandy because of some misplaced notion that mimosas are only for breakfast.

The inevitable iced coffee

Drink the Shandy!

There's a little wall of treats you can take home with you, including pre-packaged beverages, branded coffee mugs, local honey, and "Ted's Orange Apricot Jalapeno and Chipotle hot sauce." There's also Wifi, so feel free to stay a while. (Although to be fair, you should probably vamoose around 5 for the dinner setup. But I'm just guessing about that.)

Market shelves

Don't forget to try the Shandy.

-SdJ

Cozy Entrance

The Locals

My intention tonight was to finally get around to reviewing Prospect, a bar between 14th and 15th streets on 5th avenue which has been open now for 6 weeks today. I stepped in and ordered a Victory, (I used to live 5 minutes from their brewery and their Prima Pils is still one of my go to favorites on a warm night,) planning on checking out the food menu too, which was promised to arrive about now... Not yet, it turns out. I'll give them a couple more weeks and come back.

Der Kom from the outside

I left after one beer and headed down 5th to Der Kommissar. I love this place, and it needs a day on this blog. The food is super simple, but perfect when you're drinking; the beer selection is small but well cultivated, and the vibe is super casual and comfortable.

I had a Debreziner, a Hungarian sausage that looks like a slender hot dog but packs a spicy/pungent garlic and paprika punch. They serve all of their sausages here on grilled baguette pieces, and you get some kraut and a pickle or two on the side.

Debreziner, Pickle, Kraut, and Knodel

As an additional side, I ordered the Knödel, a dense eastern European dumpling typically made from semolina or potato and some parsley. This version had the consistency of good gnocchi, and was slice thin before being browned on the grill. Hearty and flavorful, this little dumpling made me wish for colder weather so that I could take advantage of it's warming properties.

The kraut here is good, and has caraway seeds floating around in there somewhere. The pickles are ok, but Brooklyn has some pretty amazing pickles to compare with these...

To drink at DerKom, I had the Ayinger Jahrhundert, which was a sweet and potent Dortmunder, followed by the Smuttynose Vunderbar, a delicious pilsner that deserved an encore.

This place is unpretentiousness at its finest. You can come here straight from the gym, (as two women did next to me,) and eat fried hotdogs and sausages, and no one will say a thing about that disparity. You can nerd out with the bartender, like the guy at the end of the bar comparing stages of his life to the original three Star Wars movies, and no one will judge. You can watch the Big Lebowski or the Dark Crystal or whatever other (amazing! )movie is being shown on the projection screen at the back, or some crappy tv on the tiny screen behind the bar. Come here often, and with chill friends. Just be careful that you don't stand too close to the hand dryer in the "sheisshaus" bathroom.

-SdJ

Scrawled on the bathroom wall

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.

View Larger Map

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

Oh, Canada! (Or, Red Hook Sunday.)

We've discovered a sitcom on Netflix called "Little Mosque on the Prairie" which could only be created in this day and age in Canada. It has the the kind of cheesy earnest humor that you might have found in American sitcoms before 9/11, but has since been replaced by irony and sarcasm. Apparently, though, Canada is able to devote enough viewership to a show like this to keep it on the air for 5 seasons... Watch and see what I mean.

When the weather on a day we planned to hit the beach turns cool and breezy, we do some roaming beyond our little neighborhood. This time we walked to Red Hook. It's not easy to get in and out of, but there are plenty of things worth trying there. You'll get to hear about some of them in the next day or two. In the mean time, we've been on a kick making lots of homemade meals in the du Jour household lately, and you may see some pictures showing up like these from time to time:

Chili and a Pimm's cup

I'm not about to review my own creations per se, but they're still going to get shown off.

-SdJ

Pasta with broccoli raab, corn, tomatoes and Parmesan

Kahawa cafe, park slope

Kahawa just opened less than a week ago on 15th street and 5th avenue. It's a little coffee and pastry shop with a good selection of cold beverages too. A tiny little corner space, cute without trying too hard.

They use Illy coffee, which I haven't seen much of here in Park Slope, but the iced coffee is pretty flavorful. The staff is super friendly but you can tell they are still getting comfortable with the new space.

The pastry selection looks great, with lots of the things you expect to be able to order with a latte or cappuccino, but there are some happy extras like the homemade Twinkie-like-concoctions that come in different flavors like Red Velvet and Almond Cream. Red Velvet was really intensely red with cream cheese filling, while the almond cake was moist and marzipan-y with a lighter cream filling. Both were delicious, and everything was super affordable. Try this place before they start raising prices.

-SdJ

Couleur cafe, revisited

I said this place warranted a return visit, and I went back to try something other than coffee. (There was coffee, too, of course.)

C'est adorable!

A special of the day was a Croissant D'Avignon. I love little sandwiches on croissants, so I gave it a try. The croissant itself was good but maybe a little stale. It was loaded with fresh summery radishes and cucumbers, though, held on with herbed cream cheese. Hard boiled eggs (but with slightly translucent yolks, so not boiled as hard as some might be used to,) and cornichons finished the presentation. It really was a perfect little bite for a warm August morning.

Croissant D'Avignon

The fact that everything here at Couleur Cafe is presented on little mismatched porcelain plates and that the bottle of cold water you're given comes in an old French lemonade bottle just add to the charm of this cafe. The staff is young and energetic, considering the early hours, but good caffeinated offerings like you can find here probably help. I'm looking forward to a lunch visit in the very near future...

-SdJ

Sidecar, 5th Avenue

Sometimes I get the feeling that I've missed the heyday of Sidecar. I've read reviews that say the prices are too high now, they've increased while quality has decreased, that the food was better "back in the day" and so on. But whenever I go there, I'm more than satisfied.

Portions are plenty big, so if they were bigger once upon a time, I don't feel gypped. Prices can be a little high, but I think they're justified. $14 for a burger with fries is a big deal when you compare to a place like Sea Witch, but is, sadly, becoming de riguer. And $10-$12 mixed drinks would be unreasonable if they were your regular tourist bar creations, but when they're made with such finesse and usually with house made bitters, syrups, jams, and so forth, I'm happy to splurge.

Burger + Jalapenos

I've been to Sidecar for dinner on numerous occasions, but this time we came for lunch on a brunch menu day. We've come for more breakfasty fare before too, but sandwiches were in order on this visit. (Along with a couple of cocktails, since it was Sunday, after all.)

Pimm's Summer Cup

I started with the Pimm's Summer cup. Your usual Pimm's with the addition of muddled watermelon and mint, served in a frosty silver cup and garnished beautifully. (My one complaint here, as this is pure cocktail snobbishness, is the contrast between the artful drink-making and the ice-machine ice slivers. Having experienced the difference that hand-crushed ice or cubes and rocks carved from a big block can make in a drink, I get a little whistful when I'm served a perfect cocktail with less than perfect ice.) but I digress. This was pure summer in my mouth. A drink I could have reordered all day, and not too high proof to make that a bad idea.

Tomino

The other drink on the table was the Tomino. "very dry" according to the menu, this concoction was a pint glass(!) of gin with some coconut water and bitters. Deceptively smooth, but clearly designed to knock you down. Not sweet at all, despite the pink color.

BLT Extraordinaire

I ordered the BLT. Thick challa toast slathered in homemade sun-dried tomato mayo held lovely delicate Boston lettuce, and slices of real tomato-flavored tomato, which I almost forget exists these days. But the real star was the super-thick house-cured bacon. Darker and slightly less salty than your average/awesome breakfast meat, they cure all of their bacon (along with other meats) in the basement and you can taste the love. Home fries were perfectly crispy-crunchy outside and seasoned well with onions, sage and rosemary.

My lovely companda's burger came with Sidecar's perfect fries, (seriously perfect every time,) and was juicy and firm. Cooked pinkly medium, and topped with jalapeños and white American cheese (have I mentioned how weird it is to me that everyone uses orange American here? It's good to see the un-dyed variety.) The only less than impressive part was the sesame seeded bun, which was merely average.

Sidecar does run a little on the expensive side to warrant a daily visit, but the food is always so good, and the decor so inviting, that it can take a conscious effort to walk past this place some days. And if you always have, then maybe you should let your temptation lure you in for once.

-SdJ

The red tin ceiling