2 "Bests" in Brooklyn: Pizza & Ice Cream

Yay for a 3-day weekend! Happy Memorial Day. For our memorial day, we thought we'd take this opportunity to check out a few flavor-favorites of New Yorkers that we had not yet experienced. Specifically Grimaldi's Pizza and the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. We'd heard of these favorite flavors, somewhere in the area of the "DUMBO" part of Brooklyn we hadn't really been to yet, so we decided to check it out.

Took F train to York St, walked a few blocks, East towards the water and then South past the Manhattan Bridge. Along Water Street, we stopped in at Jacques Torres Chocolate Shop, as we heard that's a place to check out. Tiny compared to say those Max Brenner chocolate shops in the city, but lots of yummy-sounding things, and many chocolate-dipped things such as corn flakes, cheerios, marshmellows, fruits and more. We wanted to try some of their fancy drinks but as we already had two treats in mind we held off. Bought small pieces of chocolate to try later.

We made our way to Grimaldi's and found that the lines we'd heard of were very true indeed. The outside doesn't strike you as a place you'd think hosts the "best pizza in NYC" according to some, but the crowds are up on this fact, and wait patiently. It was a hot day and we stood outside for 30-40 minutes, now wishing we had gone ahead with the frozen hot-chocolate idea at Jacques Torres after all. We read the stories in the window while we waited, and observed the sign letting us know that even for take-out we must wait. Finally we were able to order our pizza and go; you can only order whole pies here, no slices. It was $13 for a small mozzarella pizza, and we carried it to the "park" along the river at DUMBO, between the Manhattan & Brooklyn bridges. Thankfully it was worth the wait....

Great thin crust, the right balance between being thin but not crunchy-cracker crust; the sauce tasted like actual fresh tomatoes chopped up just for our pizza, great fresh mozzarella, bits of basil. Can you say happiness in pizza form??

We enjoyed our pizza in the park, observing everyone who had brought their kids or family out for Memorial Day weekend, and the people walking across Brooklyn Bridge. It was nice to relax, and though I'm usually a big fan of travel, it was nice to not travel this Memorial Day.

Soon it was time for dessert, our other "fav flav". We walked back over to the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory, facing the pier where the ferry comes in. Yet another long line to test the patience of those looking for some yummy Brooklyn treats, and it doesn't help that every tour bus or circle line boat that goes by points out the place to all of the eager tourists!

We had heard that the Ice Cream factory uses all natural ingredients and is made right there in small batches. They are not trying to overwhelm with endless flavors, but offer a limited range of very good quality flavors, and amazing chocolate sauce. After another agonizing 30 min wait, during which every person who walked out with an ice cream was given evil eyes of jealousy by all who still continued to wait, we were able to get our treats. The strawberry shake tested fresh and subtle. The vanilla ice cream and chocolate-chocolate chunk rich and decadent, and the hot fudge amazing. Delicious end to the day, and you can count these in with our favorite flavors too!

Bar Toto

Bar Toto
Park Slope, Brooklyn
411 11th St
718-768-4698

Back in Brooklyn, for a 2nd try at the local Bar Toto. Italian food, dive-bar appearance from the outside. We avoided this one for quite sometime after moving to the neighborhood, despite its proximity to our apartment. Something about the hazy, rusty windows you couldn't quite see in and the beer signs out front, just figured it was another local bar, nothing special. Finally one day last year we went for their brunch, and it was actually quite good, and when you can sit outside along 6th Avenue there it can be a nice relaxing place for a weekend afternoon.

Well we hadn't been there since, so we decided it would be worth a Fri-night post-work try back in our neighborhood after a week of work. Convinced the hubby though he seemed skeptical, had to remind him that we did in fact enjoy brunch there before. Managed to get an outside table after a brief wait and got a couple of cold beers that were much needed. We started with the houmous plate with crisp warm pita (actually sort of grilled, different, very good). I really liked the houmous, with a nice drizzle of olive oil on it. Big plate, we were worried we would get too full from pita! Then ordered 2 pizzas to share. The plain I guess margarita was delicious. Thick gooey cheese, lots of tomato sauce (almost too much sauce if you don't like that, but I forgave that aspect), great flavor and strips of fresh basil. The other pizza was the vegetarian pizza, and we hadn't realized that there was no mozzarella on that one, only parmagian. Had lots of egglplant and zucchini, among other veggies. I liked that one as well, though the hubby was less thrilled, mostly because he doesn't really like eggplant and it wasn't quite "pizza" without mozzarella, if you thought of it as veggie flatbread it made more sense. The 2 pizzas were a lot for 2, we could have shared one. Leftovers for lunch the next day!

Miracle Grill, Park Slope

Miracle Grill (Click here for menupages)
(Southwestern)
222 7th Ave,
Btwn 3rd & 4th St
Brooklyn 11215
718-369-4541

It's so hard to be inspired to cook after work, right? Or is it just me? The other day after a drink with workmates, I figured my ambitions of going for a jog in Prospect Park were doomed, even though it was a gorgeous spring day. So I grabbed the hubby and we went for a "stroll" which wasn't much of a substitute for exercise given that the main purpose was to choose a delicious place for dinner! We decided to stop at Miracle Grill on 7th Ave between 3rd & 4th, as we had walked by before but never stopped in, and hey who's not a fan of southwestern or tex-mex or whatever exact variation this place serves (by the way is it truly a Bobby Flay creation??)

The atmosphere of the restaurant was fairly plain and un-memorable though the outside patio area was great for a nice day. The menu had a lot of great-sounding choices, though maybe slightly over-priced for what we wanted. Service was fine. We'd read something about great margaritas, so I tried the strawberry one. It wasn't the best; it was a lime margarita that looked like some kind of strawberry sauce was poured on top of. The lime part tasted good, but the strawberry didn't quite blend. Hubby's sangria was good.

I had the Barbequed pork & cheese empanadas, which I had interpreted to be different than it was (I thought it meant BBQ pork, plus a cheese empanada, but it was actually 2 empanadas, one with each filling). In any case they were EXCELLENT, really liked the flavors of the empanadas. There was a side of spinach that was ok, and a nice tomato sauce. Hubby got the shrimp & pinto bean burrito with rice and green salsa, which was tasy and his salad on the side had great dressing.

Not a bad place to check out from time to time in the slope. On the way back we ducked into the Cocoa Bar nearby for a chocolate cloud cookie, divine! Cocoa Bar has a garden area out back which looks like a nice place to hang out sometime.

Just found out, another parent visit is coming soon!! They've already said they're not so into shows and stuff, they'd rather save their show money for good food, so look out!

Brick Lane

Brick Lane Curryhouse
306-308 E 6th St
(212) 979-8787

Decided to try another Curry house on 6th St, hey why not. Again, we miss our curries from (no, not India itself) England. In London Brick Lane is famous for it's long row of curry houses, with everyone standing outside trying to entice people in to their particular restaurants. They keep adding more and more free "extras" to see if you'll bite... I was once out there for a girls dinner with about 9 or 10 girls, and wow was there a bidding war to see which restaurant would get to serve us... we ended up going to the one that offered 5 (yes 5!) free bottles of wine...

So anyway when we saw the restaurant aptly named "Brick Lane" on NYC's own curry-row, and it looked stylish, menu looked good, seemed to get good reviews, we decided we should check it out. We met up with some friends we went to school with in England, and the 5 of us took the round table by the window. On a weekday the place was empty, no trouble at all though we did make a reservation just in case. We had met the creator of Cobra beer during grad school, and some classmates even worked on a project for the company, so we've all become fans needless to say. I think they gave us all free beer at one point... but apparently they can't use the name "Cobra" beer in the US, so it's called "Krait" instead, which sounds a bit strange if you ask me. But hey we drank it anyway.

Great thing about 5 people is the potential of sharing curries. So we got 5 different options and shared, and overall they were very good curries.... chicken bhuna, lamb balti, chicken korma, saag, and chicken tikka masala (all were good, I think Bhuna was my fav!). Plenty of naan to go round, and some onion bhaji and samosas. Recommended!