The Perfect Neighbor

Finding a good bar in Fort Greene isn't the hardest thing to do, as Alibi, Rope, Moe's, and Frank's Lounge are all perfectly excellent options, depending on mood. Finding a bar that also serves good pub grub, and has Belhaven Stout on tap, along with 23 other beers, is a bit harder. And finding one that serves this pub grub until 2 am was impossible--until now. Thank you, thank you, Brooklyn Public House, and as I am moving within 2 blocks of your fine establishment within 60 days, please don't do a bunk and leave in the interim. I have many more Belhavens to drink, and many more burgers to eat. And many more credit cards to tap out.

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Nightlife , Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Flea Upgrade

Since large, shiny electronic things are not normally a feature of flea markets, I'm generally not that interested in them. But for the first year of its existence, the Brooklyn Flea every Saturday in Fort Greene was a pleasant enough place to buy stuff you don't need from local artists and other merchants. Now, however, there is a very good pupusa stand (a food item that I love so much, I wrote a poem about it), and there is an absolutely amazing pizza option called Pizza Moto, by a local genius named Dave Sclarow, who built his own mobile wood-burning pizza oven. Easily worth the half-hour wait at lunch time here at the flea market.

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Shopping • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Sweet & Bitter

Bittersweet is a purveyor of things that will make you (or at least me) briefly, blissfully happy: coffee, ice cream, baked goods, and the color yellow. The tiny coffeeshop kitty-corner from Fort Greene Park has been pulling shots and churning frozen deliciousness for a couple years to the delight of park-goers and Pratt students alike. The shop is packed on Saturdays when the Farmer's Market is underway across the street, and generally humming as people linger at the handful of tables nibbling Balthazar scones and sipping well-frothed espresso drinks. The "sweet" part can be specifically attributed to its homemade ice cream--even the Times deemed the reappearance of its famed Jamaican Grapenut flavor a newsworthy event. In the less ice cream-friendly autumn, Bittersweet's unflappable baristas steam up hot apple ciders and take orders for holiday baked goods. Visible by the dogs tied up outside and the aforementioned happy-hue within, not even yours truly can be bitter about Bittersweet.

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Coffee • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

The Luckiest Number

You enter by squeezing past the subway entrance which is literally directly outside your door; already, No. 7 is a pretty unique place (and yes, dear readers, DO send us photos of all the other restaurants that are directly behind a subway entrance). The first thing you see is a cool bar, then a small lounge area whose windows directly look out on to people coming up from/going down into the C at Lafayette. Then tables behind, in a similarly cool space. And then there is the food, which is simply brilliant; No. 7 easily catapults itself to the top of the Fort Greene restaurant scene with its inventive choices--especially the completely one-of-a-kind Fried Soft Boiled Egg topped with Caviar (pictured). God knows how many of these I could eat; I hope I'm never depressed enough to find out. The cold shrimp salad with jalapeno has a great kick to it; the scallops are cooked perfectly, and, of course, there is steak, with kimchi pierogies. Next up: going to try the fried chicken at brunch. We'll see if No. 7 still bats a thousand...

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Chill Out Man

As my friend and I were sitting out on the patio drinking last Saturday night, I witnessed something at Sweet Revenge that I've never seen before and will probably never see again: a full-on hipster fight, complete with knockdowns, spilled beers, broken glass, and, of course, ejections. The bar staff was mortified, to say the least, as the vibe here is laid-back, with great tunes grooving via a DJ most nights, a grill for use by patrons, some of my favorite wallpaper ever, and, of course, that super back patio. So let's chalk the fight up to post-economic crash tensions and not sweat it. But why can't we all just get along?

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Nightlife • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

NFT Salutes You!

Yes, General Greene, we do salute you, and we do not salute for just anyone, in fact almost no one, but you are indeed salute-able, as everything we've tried here--and we've tried a bunch of things, as you are a subscriber to the "small plate" theory--has been excellent, even though we have not yet tried the candied bacon, as we are on some semblance of a diet and we have not yet found a diet that calls for candied bacon as part of its daily intake (though we will most assuredly keep looking, dear General Greene, you can trust us on that one), everything else has been quite good, especially the roasted cauliflower of which which my wife actually made quite a good version after being inspired by eating yours, again no small compliment to you, dear General, for making us aspire to do something other than simply going out to restaurants every single blessed night of the week, either way, we will see you again and best of luck; we promise to come again soon.

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

The March of Time

Last year I wrote that all this neighborhood was missing was a rock club and a cheese shop; well, one down, one to go, thanks to Choice Market's Thierry Cabigeos. Choice Greene, his second of four planned ventures, is stocked with a great cheese counter, fresh Il Forno breads, cured meats, organic produce, and an excellent fish counter run by a former Blue Ribbon Sushi chef. If they are missing anything you want, they're still taking suggestions--heat lamps for the great patio behind the shop? I guess we'll just wait for Spring on that one. In the meantime, go grab some prosciutto, gruyere, and a baguette and make lunch like Parisians do. Now stay tuned for Choice Atlantic, where Thierry will do all the baking (and hopefully sell through the night).

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Shopping • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Salvation, Not Squalor

The rooms at the Prince Lefferts Hotel are shockingly spacious, the color scheme gradating from charmingly weird navy blue and gold paisley to charcoal black and banana yellow moulding. The towels are too rough and the check-in men too flirtatious. They don't take credit cards but the handy bodega down the street will gladly charge your debit card an ATM fee, allowing you to interact with your fellow gum-snapping, slow-walking compatriots and the Franklin Ave C and Shuttle are just a handy block or so away. Cats are allowed. In my spacious single, there was a gigantic TV, gigantic bed, a mini refrigerator, extraneous rolls of toilet paper on the plastic-covered table, dresser and mirror, fan and AC and out of the not-unappealing tackiness of it all, a very pretty Impressionist painting hanging on the wall. Bedbug-free, benign of quietude, a good semi-luxurious place to spend $80 for a night off the town--in Bed-Stuy, not Clinton Hill.

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Hotels • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

BBQ4U

I decided to live high on the hog and enjoy one of my favorite BBQ delicacies, the pulled pork sandwich with a side of beans and see how the competition matched up. Jakes on the Columbia waterfront is usually my go-to guy for BBQ delivery but he let me down this time. The pork was dry which is just inexcusable. (PPS $8.95, SOB $3.95). Sorry Jakes, ain't goin' back. In fact, I tossed out your menu. So I stumbled over to The Smoke Joint in Fort Greene to try out their fare (PPS $7, SOB $3). The sammy was decent but I found the beans lacking. Beware the can of Porkslap beer. You will be tempted but do not order one. Next time though, I'll get the beef short rib which I hear is amazing. The best deal is Bar BQ in the South Slope. On Monday's they do free bourbon and $2 Blue Point pints from 7-9:00pm with live music. (PPS w/ SOB $9.00). You have your choice of Carolina Vinegar or Sweet BBQ sauce and they concoct their own batches of hot sauce. Damn tasty (and drunk) times!

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Down With the Sickness?

A friend who is addicted--quite literally--to Soule ended up getting me hooked as well. Fortunately for my waistline our habits are incongruent; he indulges four times a week and I only go once or twice tops. I understand, however, how this illness got to him. The food, a mix of Southern and Caribbean, is hearty, tasty, and inexpensive (a take-out plate, which would be more appropriately described as a platter, goes for just over ten dollars). While there is a lot of meat-based fare, vegetarians can also find a good deal of meat-free options to love, like the savory fake barbecue chicken! Be sure to give sides like mac and cheese and fried bammy a try. Soule has a vicious way of sneaking into your consciousness and sticking around until you pick up the phone and place an order.

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

A Dream in Greene

I love going to Moe's in Fort Greene. It's hip but not holier-than-thou; cool, but not overly ironic. There's the 2-for-1 draft beer happy hour from 3 to 730; they're always spinning the best mix of music from old school funk to R&B and the crowd is evenly dispersed among gender and ethnic lines due to Fort Greene's ability to gentrify the graceful way. In some ways it can be considered the perfect NYC bar. The first time I came here seven years back they used to have Duff on tap and a velvet portrait of Moe the bartender from The Simpsons on the wall. That was also the time someone asked me while waiting in line for the bathroom "Do you want to go to Columbia?" to which I replied "Not really, but I've always wanted to go to Costa Rica."

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Nightlife • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Your Local Bodega

When I finally realized that everywhere in the New York area—not just Paula's Food Mart—charges close to ten dollars for a six pack and close to eight for a pack of smokes, I fell in love with my local bodega. Sure, they only take cash and there is very often a death-paced line to the ATM (wedged between the produce and beer coolers) and sure there is often some sort of small altercation between patrons standing in line at the register. And maybe I don't particularly understand what rhyme or reason is behind the mental math they do after vaguely itemizing your items, often still in hand, by point-wagging their index finger at each item one by one. What I do know is that every time I go to buy a six pack (often around 9 dollars) or two (nearly consistently 19 dollars) and there are kids or adults at the register trying to figure out what flavor of gummy candy they want to add to their pile of crap (every time!), the eldest, most impressively mustachioed man at the register bypasses them, points to my beers, charges me, and tells me to have a very nice day.

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Shopping • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Bargain "R" Us

This is simultaneously one of the handiest and one of the sketchiest places in the neighborhood. It’s particularly handy if you're new to the area and you need any disposable (yet utilitarian) crap, like bed sheets with atrocious patterns, rubber boots of all sizes (!), and various home essentials like dish detergent, toothpaste, or macho-smelling deodorant. Those who might be suspicious as to why/how air mattresses could possibly cost 3 dollars a piece or are deterred by Bradlee’s-style department store lighting and security guys (?) seated at the door watching kung-fu films on portable DVD players should steer clear. I, however, find the sketchiness of Bargains-“R”-Us endearing.

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Shopping • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

The Outpost

The Outpost, a hipster-y coffee shop seemingly out of place in its spot, is on Fulton St. in Bed Stuy positioned across the street from a funeral home. Every time I go there for a coffee, chili, or a lox bagel, there is a large group of mourners outside of the home. On rare occasions I've even seen ambulances pull up and cart away stressed out funeral-goers. The coffee shop is one of those cafes where great employees serve teas, coffee drinks, and other goodies like granola, cookies and muffins and are friendly despite their smugness. They are either unironically pumping Nirvana or Bruce Springsteen through the airwaves, or they're blasting music that you feel like you should know but don't.

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Coffee • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Mighty Fine Pie

Grimaldi’s has longer lines and DiFara’s gets more media shine, but sometimes you just want a slice: a terrific, cheesy, chewy, subway-ride-priced Brooklyn Slice. And on that front, Luigi’s takes it. Started by a trio of Sicilian buddies almost a quarter-century back, their pies make no apologies. Nor should they: “this is real New York pizza—we’re not in Italy, we’re not in Chicago, we’re in Brooklyn; so that’s what we do.” And they do it as well as anyone in these parts. Which is why folks line up everyday at their small takeout window, an all-ages United Nations mix of enthusiasts, enjoying one of Brooklyn’s tastiest under-the-radar pies.

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

OK Ole Olea

Is tapas ever a win-win? Or, rather, a win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win-win? Not in my experience. So basically Olea’s batting average is around .700, which is off the charts if you’re A-Rod but just good enough if you’re a restaurant. Hits: Turkish cigars, grilled Halloumi cheese, goat cheese croquettes, Serrano ham croquettes, lamb meatballs (highly recommended). Misses: baby octopus (too tough, not very much flavor; go eat the octopus at Stamatis in Astoria and you’ll see what I mean) and falafel-crusted artichokes (sounds great on paper, totally dry in reality). So it’s essentially trial-and-error until you find your favorites, and then it’s dependable. And since it’s got a totally great vibe and a beautiful location on the corner of Adelphi and Lafayette in Fort Greene, we’ll renew their contract for 2008. But not for $32 million. No one’s that good.

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Scopello

Usually I wait until I’ve been to a place several times before writing it up. But, in this case, I’ll make an exception. After a recent failed barbecue experience (bad burgers, warm beer), my friend and I ended up at Scopello with the intention of downing some beers (for me) and martinis (for him). He suggested we order food, but not being very hungry at the time, I went for an appetizer: the antipasto misto. When it arrived I was satisfied with the portions of meat and cheese, but the true star of the platter was the eggplant caponata, which was delicious. It hinted at a “hidden gem” quality to the restaurant. My drunk friend ordered the leg of lamb entrée and, when it arrived, he realized he wasn’t hungry. Lamb being lamb, I couldn’t resist. And…Delicious! I mopped up the plate. The lamb alone would have warranted a glowing review, but the tender morsels of wine-marinated lamb coupled with the surprisingly good caponata and the very friendly bartender, made me think of this place as a brand spanking new NFT Pick for Fort Greene!

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

187 and Counting

Yes, that’s my cholesterol level as of May 2007. And no, it’s not exactly divisible by 67, but it soon will be, since 67 Burger in Fort Greene is good enough to justify a new hike (though the Crestor might be enough to counteract?). Ah, you say, who needs another burger joint? Answer: all of us, friends, all of us, since this country is going to hell in a Bushbasket anyway. 67 Burger: no delivery, order at the counter, someone will bring your food to you, of course get it with bacon and cheese, yes to the curly fries and root beer, and yes, I’ll be dead sooner than you. But my life will be oh so much sweeter, you tofu-licker.

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

The Smoke Joint

OK, let’s clear this up first thing—it’s not THAT kind of smoke joint. But the food they serve here is just as addictive. Founders Craig Samuels and Ben Grossman decided to create their idea of what a real New York BBQ place should be, and so far it looks like the locals have taken to their vision. Their in-house smoker (oh, it’s THAT kind of smoke!) makes sure that the flavor of the wood really infuses the fall-off-the-bone ribs, all of the sides are solid, and the customer service makes you feel right at home (last time I was there, one of the owners was running food out to customers). They’ve even got sweet tea. One thing I can guarantee—you won’t walk away from this joint with the munchies.

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill

Castro’s

This is NOT good cheap Mexican. It’s great cheap Mexican. Here’s a simple rule when entering any Mexican place: try the salsa they put out on the table. If it tastes like shit, get up and leave. Don’t bother with anything else. If they can’t do that, then why assume that the tacos, enchiladas, burritos, or anything else is going to be good? Fortunately at Castro’s, it’s all good, and most of it is waaay spicier than you’d get at most NYC Mexican restaurants of any level. Of course with cheap prices comes not much in the way of aesthetics or service (the service is so blasé they should think about just making it self-serve), but who friggin’ cares? If you want to be pampered, go to a massage parlor. Otherwise, get the house special enchiladas and call me in the morning.

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Restaurants • Fort Greene / Clinton Hill