23 replies to this topic

[Sneakeater]

I suspect we all have favorite places that we don't write about because they're not newsworthy (the places I'm thinking about would all be pretty old, and not necessarily great), because we feel their appeal to be so idiosyncratic as to put them beyond general recommendation, and maybe, just maybe, because we want to keep them for ourselves.

Might be interesting to talk about them.

I'll identify two to get it started.

[Sneakeater]

Mitchell's Soul Food Restaurant
Vanderbilt Ave. btw St. Marks & Bergen
Brooklyn

This isn't some special "fine" adaptation of soul food. This isn't soul food using excellent -- or even particularly good -- ingredients, or cooked in some especially sophisticated way. This is an old, inexpensive soul food restaurant. But I've never had better. Which proves that if you cook things long enough, it doesn't matter how good or bad your raw materials might be, or how sophisticated your technique.

Everything here is good. The chitterlings, the smothered pork chops, everything. And prices are modest.

This is the kind of place you worry about as the neighborhood fancies up. But I understand they own the building (how else could they have such a fuck-you schedule, being closed as much as they're open?). I've been eating here happily for nearly 25 years now. I hope they stay here forever.

[Sneakeater]

Frank's Cocktail Lounge
Fulton St. right off S. Elliot
Brooklyn

I obviously have latched onto the "mixologist" trend, and spend most of my drinking time in cocktail bars that treat drinkmaking as gastronomy.

But if you told me that all bars but one were about to be destroyed by alien zombie taskmasters, and I had to pick the one that would survive, that one would be Frank's.

Frank's was only a bit of a throwback when I started going there in the early 80s. Now it seems like it's beamed in from some distant age. It's an old skool R&B/jazz bar, live R&B (meaning the kind of music that was called R&B in the 50s, 60s, and 70s -- not what's called R&B now) on Saturday nights, live jazz some others.

Always, when you go in, a good neighborhood crowd -- mostly the older elements of Fort Greene, but a good bunch of respectful new people as well -- as well as a few wandering BAM attendees. The barmaids are not precise -- but they are Goddesses. (The bartenders less so: whoever's in charge of hiring is obviously a man.)

I have never walked into Frank's and not felt a lot happier walking out.

[AaronS]

Thanks for the write up on Frank's. I've often wondered what that place is like.

[Daniel]

Frank's Cocktail Lounge
Fulton St. right off S. Elliot
Brooklyn

I obviously have latched onto the "mixologist" trend, and spend most of my drinking time in cocktail bars that treat drinkmaking as gastronomy.

But if you told me that all bars but one were about to be destroyed by alien zombie taskmasters, and I had to pick the one that would survive, that one would be Frank's.

Frank's was only a bit of a throwback when I started going there in the early 80s. Now it seems like it's beamed in from some distant age. It's an old skool R&B/jazz bar, live R&B (meaning the kind of music that was called R&B in the 50s, 60s, and 70s -- not what's called R&B now) on Saturday nights, live jazz some others.

Always, when you go in, a good neighborhood crowd -- mostly the older elements of Fort Greene, but a good bunch of respectful new people as well -- as well as a few wandering BAM attendees. The barmaids are not precise -- but they are Goddesses. (The bartenders less so: whoever's in charge of hiring is obviously a man.)

I have never walked into Frank's and not felt a lot happier walking out.

I love me some Frank's.. I have been three times in the two weeks I have lived here.. I have gone on blues Sunday and a Jazz Tuesday.. The Jazz was some of the best I have heard at any club in Manhattan.. The beers were still 4 bucks..

This place is awesome.. And it's .7 miles from my house.

[Wilfrid1]

Unfortunately, I don't think I keep any recommendations to myself. Blabber, blabber, blabber.

[Sneakeater]

This place is awesome.. And it's .7 miles from my house.

Big .9 miles from mine.

I don't know how I do that extra .2. They're a killer.

[Daniel]

Do you ride your rascal there?

[Lex]

Do you ride your rascal there?

Sneakeater has a first class ride.

[ulterior epicure]

Do you ride your rascal there?

Sneakeater has a first class ride.

NOW do you see why his last .2 miles is so painful?

[Sneakeater]

I WALK.

Jeez.

[oakapple]

I don't have any. There are decent places where we have a quick bite in the neighborhood, when we aren't in the mood for a subway ride. If I moved, I would never visit them again.

[Wilfrid1]

Mitchell's Soul Food Restaurant
Vanderbilt Ave. btw St. Marks & Bergen
Brooklyn

Last night, I thought I saw that this place had closed and was to re-open as Piquant. Looking again, that appears to be another Mitchells in Prospect Heights. All these Mitchellses - who knew?

[Sneakeater]

That other Mitchell's was one of those places where you can't understand what economic niche it was supposed to fill. I couldn't imagine anyone ever eating there.

[TaliesinNYC]

Home Restaurant, 20 Cornelia St. (West 4th Street).

Not secret, but then again, not widely known either.

Highlights: blue cheese "fondue" with caramelized onion; grilled Hudson Valley trout; just about any vegetable dish or side that comes out of the kitchen; poached eggs with roasted red pepper relish; oyster po' boy; shrimp with creamy scallion grits, bacon and rosemary harissa; vodka lemonade.