Robot Journal : I went to Brooklyn Fare for dinner and all I got was a great meal and a good time

10/1/2009

Brooklyn's Kitchen
Oh. food. Why are you so good?
Last night we had dinner with ten other folks at Brooklyn's Kitchen which is part of the local grocery store Brooklyn Fare. It's a pretty great idea. They have a large kitchen a few doors down from the store where the baked goods and other tasty snacks are made - but of course, nothing much happens in the evening in the kitchen which would oddly be a swell time to open a restaurant.

Dealio
It's BYOB and $70 per person. Currently they are booked almost completely through December. Ouch.

Menu
Japanese yellow tail
Crab salad
Langoustine
Scallops and sweetbreads
John Dory in broth
Milk fed pig
Plums with moscato jelly

But, first, tiny tasty things

We had twelve people in our party (which is oddly the number of chairs around the large table). You are eating in the kitchen facing the chef's station watching the chef and his team prepare each course. The chef, Cesar Ramirez, was a gracious host and answered our questions about his process and style and what the heck he was doing with that little thing that did that thing over there.

He started us off with a number of small dishes (or as you fancy pants folks might call them: amuse bouche) that unfortuantly I lost count of and forgot a lot of the details. There may had been six small dishes. Maybe eight. At this point, it is difficult to say.
What I do remember is oysters and apples. Truffes. Foie gras. Brains. Little fried balls of things. All of the small dishes were excellent.

The main dinner
I love the menu and the simple descriptions.
"Crab Salad"
"Japanese yellow tail"
Holy cow.

The "Crab Salad" was visually stunning. Crab wrapped in some sort of lettuce drizzled with a little sauce, caviar, mushrooms (that were dusted with... something) and topped with the most gorgeous micro-greens.

There was a scallop and sweetbreads with a very unusual vanilla sauce that my brain still hasn't decided if it liked it or not. The scallops and sweetbreads were lovely.

The "John Dory in broth" did contain a nice piece of fish and a broth - but about a thousand other ingredients including some sort of fish (cod?) cheek that was tasty.

It was all great

Oh, there was drink

Did I mention it was BYOB?
I brought a 1994 German Reisling and a 1998 Lopez de Heredia rosado (rosé) from Rioja, Spain. The Reisling was corked. Sad. The rosado I think may have been the hit of the show.

Someone else brought one of my favorite wines - the Tyrrells Semillon from Hunter Valley in Australia. This is a wine that doesn't really hit it's stride until it's about ten years old. There was champagne. And a Savennières from the Loire Valley. And a bunch of reds.
Oh, and a Sauternes.

View all the images on the FLICKR!

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