Monday, April 02, 2007

Adventures in Brooklyn

So yesterday Bridget, Rich, Erika and I took a road trip to Brooklyn to visit Deb in her new neighborhood (Cobble Hill). Being that I used to reside in Carroll Gardens this was a little of a homecoming for me. Although the area is MUCH trendier than when I lived there 8 or so years ago. For example, Smith street is now lined with trendy cafes and shops instead of pawnbrokers and “mobfronts”. The 5 of us had brunch at this trendy place called Apartment 138, which looks like it was once someone’s actual apartment. The place was hopping and the food was really good. $10 got you any brunch special plus a drink (choice of Bloody Mary, Mimosa or Pabst Blue Ribbon. Not quite sure where the PBR fits in, but nonetheless it’s awesome they even offer it as an option).


Any place that serves PBR for brunch is ok in my book!

The food at Apartment 138 was definitely return-visit worthy, as the portions were large and the quality was high. I had fluffy buttermilk pancakes that filled me up before I could even finish. Eating a few fresh corn muffins for an premeal snack i’m sure didn’t help any. I tried the omelette which was good as well. They actually sauteed the onions and mushrooms and used roasted red peppers in their omelettes which was a different touch. The bacon was extra crispy (huge bonus) and the potatoes were flavored nicely. The Bloody Mary’s went down smoothly too…and the fact that I didn’t get charged for my 2nd one was definitely an added bonus! The main dining area gets busy so its good they have a bar available for those long waiting periods (we actually sat in this side nook which was nice…it was like our own private enclave). They also have a downstairs game room with a Foozball and Pool table, so there’s fun for the kids (or adults) if you’re waiting an hour for your table! But overall the experience was very good! And very reasonable, since brunch for 5 only cost $58 plus tip (and since Rachel Ray was no where to be found, we were able to leave 20% instead of 20 cents).

But the real adventure came when we tried to find Buffalo Wild Wings.


For those who haven't seen their ads, they've been playing them on tv constantly...with the female waitress who trips and loses her tray of buffalo wings in the air. However she recovers in time to make a diving lunge and collect all of the wings unharmed on the tray. Afterwards she gets a standing ovation by the patrons. Anyway, Rich and I were talking about the place last week after Rich saw the commercial for the umpteenth time and decided to look it up online. (Btw that's so annoying...when national restaurant chains advertise in your area and you know there are none within a 100 mile radius. For example, Sonic. How many times have you seen their ads? Where's the closest Sonic to NYC...Phoenix?). Well lo and behold BWW actually has two New York franchises, one in New Rochelle and the other in Brooklyn. Well when Rich told me the news about the Brooklyn location (we were at the Rangers game at the time) I had Bridget look up where the location was, and sure enough it was in downtown Brooklyn. I mean growing up in Bklyn there weren't too many chain restaurants, nor should there be, especially since we have enough top-notch mom and pop type operations. However they have been springing up recently (mostly due to gentrification and the influx of big box retailers such as Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, Costco, etc). But a Buffalo Wild Wings? That's just completely random. The only other chains in Brooklyn are Applebee's, Friday's, Outback and Houlihan's (at least that I know of). But their new location makes sense, since its right in a mall, and right across the street from where the new Nets arena is being built.

Anyway, the place was nice...not as fancy as the Houlihan's next door to it, but definitely a sports bar type of place. It was empty, albeit it was a Sunday afternoon with no sporting events going on. Even though we just ate brunch we figured we had to sample the wings while we were there. We had some honey bbq and regular buffalo mild wings. They were ok...definitely tendy and had some meat on the bones. The mild sauce was more tangy than spicy but nonetheless tasty. They have this thing called a blazin challenge, where you have to eat 12 of their blazin wings in six minutes without anything to drink or any dips (ranch, blue cheese, celery). Similar to Cluck U chicken, their blazin sauce is a habanero based sauce with cheyenne peppers added in. Eddie, our cool server, brought over a little sampling of the sauce for us. Having had the Cluck U chicken sauce before I was ready for the heat. It was definitely spicy and attacked the taste buds and your lips, making your mouth tingle. However wasn't uneatable...although I wouldn't want to eat a dozen without the relief of beer or blue cheese. Anyway, if you complete the challenge you get your picture on the wall and a T-Shirt. Although they don't give out any Tums to the losers.

I just tried searching for the official commercial on YouTube but to no avail. But found this rather humorous "homemade" commercial produced by two kids who were obviously very bored one evening:


But all in all seems like a cool place. There are tv’s galore and at least 8-10 of them are big screens so plenty of viewing room. Definitely a place to spend an NFL Sunday or a March Madness day in. Especially since you don’t even have to go outside, you can take the subway to Atlantic avenue (1,2,3,4,5,Q,B, among others) to Atlantic Avenue and pop upstairs directly to the mall. Definitely worth checking out at some point for a road trip if you want to venture out of the city. Plus there’s a Chucky Cheese in the mall as well, so those who have any children can feel free to venture there.

In other news, 10 years ago this past weekend we were trapped by a major snowstorm in Poughkeepsie that cut out power on the Marist College campus and left us "homeless" for a few days. It was a fun few days...as evidenced by this newspaper clipping. The day after the snowstorm was like 60 degrees which was crazy. Especially since we were able to get a few days without classes and plenty of time to just mess around. Anyway, know that's not newsworthy or anything, just felt I'd mention for nostaglia's sake!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

sounds pretty cool!

Anonymous said...

Pabst is GOOOOOD!

Anonymous said...

advertisements in action...gotta love it!