5 Best Foods from Brooklyn - 2011

All of us are bombarded with "best of 2011" lists this time of year, but to my knowledge nobody provided this list: FIVE BEST BROOKLYN FOOD ITEMS - 2011.

So here it is in alphabetical order.

1. Ace Jams - Simply fantastic jams made in Prospect Heights. The flavors are memorable of perfect fruit with a little twist. We are very partial to the blueberry shiso. These jams are expensive but still good value - so we enjoy them as a splurge. Ace jams are available only at Brooklyn Larder.
2. Baked - Hardly a surprise here, the brownies are unparalleled. When we are borrowing a car, inevitably we end up here. Brownies!
3. Brooklyn Larder - This is a fantastic store for meats, cheeses and very high-end provisions. Our favorite reason to go there is for gelato and sorbet. I make gallons of ice cream each summer and don't think my quality ever parallels Brooklyn Larder. All the flavors are great and well worth the price.
   
4. Morris Kitchens - Both the ginger and boiled apple cider syrups are just tremendous. From spooning over vanilla ice cream to making a beverage with seltzer and rum, the products are delicious and impossible to make at home. You'll find their products at Brooklyn Flea and fine food stores around town. Pricing is strange as it seems that the best place to buy is directly from Morris Kitchens at Flea (2 for 20 or 1 for 12).
5. SCRATCHbread- If you are near Bedford Ave / Quincy, go into SCRATCHbread where Matt Tilden and team make fantastic breads and sweets? His items are interesting, different, and delicious. Our favorite is the foccacia and seems to be in good supply at Brooklyn Larder and Union Market.

Coffee in NYC - definitive guide

I've received a lot of "hey did you see this?" e-mails since the NY Times published an exhaustive quality list two months back (with interactive map).

While the NYTimes is exhaustive, the author provides no real delineation between best and serviceable. Here's my organized guide, with 38 places still to visit!A Level - Best of the City

1. Abraco (east village)
2. Blue Bottle (williamsburg, chelsea)
3. Cafe Grumpy (williamsburg, chelsea, park slope) - note the park slope location is tiny!
4. Cafe Pedlar (cobble hill)
5. Culture Espresso (penn station)
6. Kaffe 1668 (tribeca)
7. Ninth Street Espresso (east village and chelsea)
8. Oslo (Williamsburg)
9. Stumptown Coffee (penn station)
10. Toby's Estate (williamsburg)
11. Third Rail Coffee (village)

B Level - Worth visiting

1. Bluebird (east village)
2. De Luxe (park slope)
3. Everyman Espresso (east village)
4. Gimme! Coffee (williamsburg, noLiTa)
5. Gorilla (park slope) - trending downwards after the coup de barista!
6. Joe (west village, chelsea, grand central) - somehow the chelsea shop makes better espresso drinks than the other locations
7. Ost (east village)
8. Sit & Wonder (prospect heights)
9. Maialino (madison park)
10. Tar Pit (Bushwick)

C Level - Fine

Birch (noWheresville)
La Colombe (tribeca)
Fort Defiance (red hook)
Glass Shop (prospect heights)
Ground Support (soho)Milk Bar (prospect heights)
Southside (park slope)Think Coffee (nyu-ville)
Iris Cafe (brooklyn heights)
Bakeri (Williamsburg)

D Level - Serviceable

1. Cafe Regular (park slope)
2. Clover Cafe (boerum hill)
3. Roots Cafe (park slope)
4. Roots & Vines (lower east side)
5. Van Leeuwen (trucks)

F Level - Avoid

1. Cafe Regular Du Nord (park slope)
2. Saturday Surf (soho)
3. Root Hill (Gowanus)
4. Jittery Joe's (midtown)

N/A - Not visited yet

1. Baba (williamsburg)
2. Beaner Bar (greenpoint)
3. Boneshakers (williamsburg)
4. Breukelen Coffee House (crown heights)
5. Brooklyn Label (greenpoint)
6. Cafe 474 (park slope)
7. Cafe Mocias (upper west side)
8. Champion Coffee (greenpoint)
9. Espresso 77 (queens)
10. Five Leaves (greenpoint)
11. Indian Road (inwood)
12. Knave (midtown)
13. Marlowe & Sons (williamsburg)
14. McNally Jackson (noLiTa)
15. Moomah (tribeca)
16. The National (lower east side)
17. Second Stop (williamsburg)
18. the Smile (east village)
19. Sweet Leaf (queens)
20. Variety Coffee (williamsburg AND greenpoint)
21. Village Tart (village)

October Cocktail - Gimlet

I was more interested in the process of making lime cordial than I was in the actual gin gimlet. Over the last 10 months, I've grown to like gin. I may even say it's my favorite distilled alcohol. Anyhow, after I read Toby Cecchini's T Magazine (recipe at the bottom) article on making lime cordial, I added this drink to A COCKTAIL A MONTH.

I tried Hendricks, Plymouth, and Bluecoat and thought that Bluecoat was easily the best match. I don't know if it's the better gin, but seemed to pair with lime much better.

Once you make the cordial, the drink is easy to make.

Ingredients

1. 2 oz. gin
2. 1 oz. lime cordial
3. lime wedge

Directions

1. Add ice to tumbler
2. Add cordial
3. Add gin
4. Stir
5. Garnish with a lime wedge

Prime Meats (no. 7 of 12)

We are definitely not getting to all 12 restaurants. But we did visit Prime Meats last week. And overall, it was meh. Though related, Prime Meats is not as tasty as Frankie's. The food is good. The ambiance nice. The service was fine. Nothing wrong with the place, but it's not one of the places we'd decidedly return to.

So what did we have?

We started with oysters from Massachusetts and Rhode Island. They were excellent - fresh, briny, juicy and visually appealing.

SOS followed that with her typical first-time-in-a-restaurant-order of a burger. This $18 burger was fine, almost too fine. The patty was a perfect cylinder that exactly met the bun's edges. The toppings were all sliced uniformly and were seemingly fresh. In the end, the burger had two downfalls. First, she asked for it to be medium rare. After finishing it, there wasn't a drop of "juice" on the plate. It was too medium and not juicy enough. Second, it had no soul. It felt like a picture postcard representation of a burger. Maybe in 2011 Brooklyn, we're too used to some burgers having a strong bacon taste while others have a unique crust and others have a good deal of salt within the meat. This had no character, no soul.

I ordered the choucroute garnie. It's a classic Alsatian dish and the preparation was fantastic. The sauerkraut was equally sour, rich, and cabbage-y. Delicious. And the meats were rich and slightly gamy. We loved it.

We ordered a quartino of the most bland, unappealing wine I can remember. Strangely, it came from the very reputable negociant - Joseph Drouhin. This wine tasted watered-down.

Total, with tax and tip came to $80. Not crazy, not a value. Very meh.

September Cocktail - Margarita

Margarita. It's something most of us have pretty average experiences with. Think hard. Can you remember the last time you had a great margarita? If so, how much of that "great" connects to the place, the people, or time of year? My point is that a pretty average margarita can taste great on the first warm day of June after a long workday, especially when shared with great company.

I set out to try and make a great margarita even if drank alone, on a rainy night in September.

Three rules I learned through my tests:

1. You must shake a margarita vigorously. It needs the intense chill and the aeration.
   
2. Cointreau is much better than standard triple sec. It's a little extra, but worth it.
3. A salted rim adds positive complexity.

I tried a few tequilas and preferred Puro Verde. I'm not enough of an expert to describe why, but this produced the margarita I expected. There's no harshness in this tequila.

Ingredients for 1 margarita:

1. 2 ounces tequila (preferably blanco)
2. 1/2 ounce lime juice
3. 1/2 ounce Cointreau
4. 2 dashes citrus bitters (I used Bitter Truth Grapefruit)

Technique:

1. Use the spent lime rind to moisten the lip of a rocks glass.
2. Roll the glass through a plate of kosher salt.
3. Add ice to glass
4. Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker
5. Shake vigorously (more than you think you need to)
6. Pour into rocks glass.
7. Garnish with lime wheel