GoogaMooga, you tease! The beginning of our relationship held so much promise. You debuted with The Darkness, a magnificent treat that so many of your suitors couldn’t get off work early enough to see, a guitar shredder clad in David Lee Roth’s best zebra-striped jumpsuit doing handstands on the drum riser and wailing
falsetto. You wooed me with Mac and Cheese from Beecher’s Handmade Cheese, so creamy and dense, the word succulent comes to mind. And even if Wayne Coyne’s voice was ragged, the La Mamasita Arepa from Caracas Rockaway was crisp, chewy, oily-as-hell, and stuffed with grilled mushrooms and plantains and cheese. It’s true that the mushrooms got lost a bit in the jumble of tastes, but it was yummy all the same. I washed it down with a strange and tasty Chery and Basil soda from Brooklyn Soda Works and then watched Karen O leap and yawp across the stage like a maniac, all dressed in a collision of Liberace and Michael Jackson, grungy blues riffs turned into dance music and Brooklyn jumping about happily. Continue reading
Category Archives: Restaurants
GoogaMooga: Ready, Set, Go.
Superfly Presents unleashes the Great GoogaMooga today. We’re psyched. Check out below the thoughts Superfly co-founder Kerry Black has on the grub at the festival.
Why combine a food festival with a music festival, and why is Brooklyn a good place to do so?
Put most simply, we love food and we love music! Together, the two are the perfect combination. We wanted to really celebrate everything that makes New York culture so amazing with GoogaMooga, and Brooklyn is a very obvious leader in both food and music. We’re New Yorkers who are always seeing shows and eating out, in Brooklyn in particular. Then to throw GoogaMooga in Prospect Park was our ideal. There is so much beauty and personality to that space.
How will this year’s GoogaMooga be different from last year’s?
We’re introducing Cafe GoogaMooga this year and three very cool Pop-Ups by April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman, Gabe Stulman and Roberta’s. The VIP Cocktail Experience is a new take on VIP with 10 different cocktail bars like Dead Rabbit Grocery and Grog, Clover Club, Pouring Ribbons, and Dutch Kills.
Any particular favorite vendors you’re looking forward to patronizing?
All of them, but let’s see…Roberta’s Ren Fair, Kasadels, Jeepney, and Baohaus.
Great GoogaMooga: Marcos Lainez from the El Olomega
Marcos Lainez’s family has been selling fresh Salvadoran food to hungry soccer players in 
Red Hook since 1988. Their signature snack is the pupusa, a stuffed corn pancake created by the Pipils Indians in the territory now demarcated as El Salvador, but they also turn out freshly fried plantain chips and atoll de elote, a hot drink made of yellow corn. Pupusas are similar to arepas or gorditas, except instead of regular corn dough, pupusas are prepared with nixtamal, a kind of corn flower that’s mixed with an alkaline solution that makes the nutrients more easily absorbed by the body. The Pipils (or their progenitors) figured this out around 2000 BC, using quicklime and ash. We asked Marcos about his pupusas, Brooklyn eats, and the weekend’s performers. We edited his answers a bit to fit the format.
What is Red Hook El Olomega Pupusas’ specialty?
Our specialty is the Pupusas. A pupasa is a traditional Salvadoran dish made by hand using traditional, non-additive corn flour. The main ingredient is pork & cheese but can be made of a variety of flavors, like beans & cheese and spinach & cheese. From our menu my favorite pupusa is a very traditional Loroco flower and cheese.
Why is Brooklyn a good place for El Olomega?
We have been in Brooklyn for over 20 years and the pupusa is still fairly unknown
here and in the U.S., but each day it is gaining popularity among a very wide group of people. Brooklyn is now a very diversified borough, and this is the time and place to let them know about this Salvadoran treat.
What band are you looking forward to hearing at GoogaMooga? What’s the best concert you’ve ever seen?
I am looking forward to hear the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I am not familiar with them, but had to give my friend a ticket because he has talked about them so much that I am very excited. Saturday and Sunday I expect to be very busy, so I will do a quick tour each day. Continue reading
Great GoogaMooga: Aimee Follette from Sun In Bloom
The vegan chocolate peanut butter cupcake from Sun In Bloom that I just demolished
The Great GoogaMooga is upon us! With concerts ranging from The Flaming Lips to Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, the food and music fest promises to draw the hungry hordes to Brooklyn this weekend. So that you can properly prepare to get your grub on, we’re running some profiles of the vendors we’re most looking forward to as we count down to the festival.
Last year, GoogaMooga was heavy on the pork, but this year it’s aiming to please its vegetarian friends as well. Hoisting high the vegan banner is Park Slope’s Sun in Bloom. Here’s more from chef and owner Aimee Follette on community, massaged kale, and Radiohead:
If you look closely, you can see that they give a source for this quote. I think that's pretty cute.
What is Sun In Bloom’s specialty and why is Brooklyn a good place for it?
Sun In Bloom’s specialty is creating hand-crafted gluten-free vegan foods, made with some serious love, that can be enjoyed by everyone. I opened Sun In Bloom with the intention to introduce the healing power of food and how it truly can create a foundation for us all to experience our best life. My vision for Sun In Bloom being a community meeting place goes hand-in-hand with why people move to Brooklyn; they move to Brooklyn to be part of a strong community. I think generally, people have a strong desire to be healthy and are recognizing the food they eat will either make them feel good or make them feel sick.
What is your favorite dish of the moment?
As the chef of Sun In Bloom, I only create dishes that I really love. However, I do have an affinity towards our Bella Divine salad — kale massaged in a live (made from sprouted sunflower seeds) sesame ginger dressing, raw sauerkraut, dulse, and avocado. Continue reading
The Fish-&-Chips Classes Beneath John Lydon’s Salty Smirk: The Atlanic Chip Shop
I am, I sometimes admit, something of a poseur vegetarian. For the past few years, I’ve 
dabbled in the occasional non-Kosher bottom feeders and, on the even rarer occasion, an honest-to-God fish. I feel bad about the fish, though. I dwell on them once I’ve eaten them. So I only do so a couple of times a year.
One of those times was a few weeks ago at The Atlantic Chip Shop, the purveyor of the best fish and chips, deep-fried chocolate bars, and Carlsberg on tap in Brooklyn. Shannon was out of town and my buddy Rachel was in, and Rachel, having become something of an informal (but forceful) advocate of all things meaty over the past decade or so, jumped at the chance to go. She always jumps at the opportunity to witness someone eating meat. Have you noticed, vegetarians, how excited some folks get if they suspect you might eat some flesh? They act like it’s Christmas morning. It’s cute.
The Chip Shop in fact offers some choice tasty veggie options, including a mushroom mac and cheese and a Welsh rarebit, but the fish is the most captivating opportunity. It’s divided between three pesca-social classes—Cod, Haddock, and Plaice—and you can choose between them while sitting beneath a few Sex Pistols posters hanging on the wall, which John Lydon probably would appreciate. Continue reading
Grub Match: Foodie Throwdown in the Nation’s Capital
If the stereotypical New Yorker is loud and rude, what’s the stereotype of someone from Washington, D.C.? If the first D.C. Grub Match is any indication, that person is driven, discerning and a model of good taste. Also, a tall, skinny white female whose name begins with M. And so it was that I found myself deep in the heart of Alexandria with Martha, Mignon and Margaret as they prepared to fight it out for the title.
Round 1: Lyon Hall (Martha’s pick)
Things got off to a smooth start with high praise of the food at Lyon Hall. The word “amazing” was used liberally to describe everything from the sausage to the spaetzle. Though the menu is rife with pork products, even our vegetarian contender Mignon found plenty to like at Lyon Hall, particularly the happy hour specials like the warm pretzels with three different dipping sauces and the pickled vegetables that change weekly.
Margaret did find a few weak spots on the menu, however: “When it came to the cassoulet I was a little disappointed because they didn’t cook it all together, they put some stuff on the side…the whole point is that everything is mixed and delicious together.” Also, she felt that the dessert selection didn’t live up to the high standard set by the savory dishes. Even so, Lyon Hall managed to dodge any serious punches during this round.
Interlude: Vince makes a guerilla grab for the title.
Here’s another difference between a New York Grub Match and the D.C. version: in NYC we make do with beer at a bar, while in D.C., Vince, Martha’s paramour, makes a seriously bitchin’ brunch for everyone. He actually baked loaves of brioche two days beforehand for the express purpose of making it into French toast topped with berries and freshly whipped cream. Which begged the question: was he trying to upend Grub Match by being some sort of dark horse candidate? Things just got interesting. Continue reading
Margaret’s Grub Match Pick: Crème Café & Lounge
The third and final contender in our special Washington D.C. edition of Grub Match is international attorney and chicken and waffles aficionado Margaret Dennis. Her pick is Crème, a brunch favorite in the northwest quadrant of the city that serves up Southern specialties. Here’s more from Margaret on why she loves both comfort food from home and surprises from abroad:
Do you have any food pet peeves?
“Artistic” (i.e., tiny) portions. I’m all for savoring my food and not wolfing it down like I’m starving, but if I’m paying to eat out I’d like to leave full.
You’re headed to a deserted island to live on grass and coconut milk–what’s your last meal before you go?
A deliciously prepared cassoulet. You really can’t beat it on a cold winter’s night.
You’ve come into uncountable gobs of money—who do you hire as your personal chef?
Deb Perelman of the Smitten Kitchen food blog. Not only are all of her recipes outstandingly delicious, she always has amusing commentary, and I feel that would be a useful trait if someone were standing in your kitchen all day making food.
What’s the single most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten?
That’s pretty hard to pick. I’ll go with one key memorable one. When I was 15, I spent the summer with a family in a tiny village in Alsace, France. At one point we went over to the grandmother’s house for homemade tarte flambé cooked in her grandmother’s clay oven. It was one of the first time’s I’d been abroad and I’d never realized food could taste that different from what I was used to in the U.S….and that fabulous. Continue reading
Martha’s Grub Match Pick: Lyon Hall
Our second contender in the Washington D.C. Grub match is Martha Bowen, international relations guru and future ambassador to Indonesia. Her pick is Lyon Hall, a hotspot of homemade mustard and cured meats. Here’s more from Martha, including why you should never underestimate the power of a good bathroom:
If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Tomatoes. Raw, California-fresh with just a little salt, drenched in olive oil, sidling up to some glorious cheese. I love them.
Do you have any food pet peeves?
People who won’t try new foods.
You’re headed to a deserted island to live on grass and coconut milk–what’s your last meal before you go?
Carnitas made by Vince. (Editor’s note: Vince is Martha’s significant other and possible Grub Match Secret Weapon.)
Have you ever worked at a restaurant?
Yes, several, but only in national parks – Mt. Rainier in Washington State and Denali in Alaska. So I only really understand serving to tourists, where you have to be able to talk like a park ranger while serving up ridiculous quantities of clam chowder. Continue reading
Mignon’s Grub Match Pick: Bayou Bakery
Grub Match is back, and this time we’re rumbling in a new city. ‘Tis the season of Presidents Day and inaugural balls, so we’re bringing the ruckus to the nation’s capital where three feisty female contenders are ready to duke it out over which restaurant will take home the D.C. Grub Match title. First up is elementary school teacher Mignon Miller, with her favorite outpost of Big Easy flavor, Bayou Bakery. Will her midwestern sweetness and spicy taste in restaurants knock out the competition? Here’s more from Mignon:
If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Definitely cheese, or possibly ice cream. Or even better, cheese ice cream!
Have you ever worked at a restaurant?
I used to sling garlicky breadsticks from a basket to customers at Fazoli’s fast food Italian chain during high school. Later, I specialized in spilling drinks on kids at their own birthday parties when I waitressed at a country club in Ohio. Continue reading
36 Hours in Baltimore: Part II
Saturday afternoon, after Reece’s eggs took the edge off a slow morning-after and post museum trip, we went to the Abbey Burger Bistro in Federal Hill. Abbey patrons can build their own burgers around meats such as alligator, kangaroo, and elk. I don’t eat that shit.
I didn't eat this. But this kinda captures a lot of what they do. And we were too excited to remember to take our own pictures.
I do, however, eat fried green tomatoes, which the Abbey has turned into a burger, and it will knock you out. I mean, Knock. You. Out.
The batter on the tomato wasn’t too thick, wasn’t too thin (“Juuuust right,” said Goldilocks), and was fried to a golden crisp with the tomato hot and juicy inside. I topped it with cucumbers, herbed yogurt, and probably a quarter-cup of goat cheese and ordered it on a whole wheat bun.
It was amazing.
I mean shockingly good.
I know this is a bit anathema to say of a place that serves elk on a bun, but this place makes the best fake “burgers” I’ve ever had. On previous visits I’ve tried the shroom and homemade veggie burgers, and they’re fantastic as well.
Part of the success is based on the mix-&-match component of the build-your-own arrangement, but the greater part of the success stems from the superiority of those build-your-own ingredients and the expertise with which the tomato is cooked. That’s not to say that this is healthy food, per se. The burgers come with homemade chips that will fulfill your fat intake for the weekend, and for $2 more Rae subbed about a pound of delicious sweet potato fries for those chips. And the sheer number of possible ingredients (meat & “meat” – 13, bread – 7, cheese – 13, toppings – 37) can be overwhelming. But goddamn if this wasn’t the best lunch I’d had in recent memory. Continue reading