1654 replies to this topic

[Anthony Bonner]

NBC didn't begin with hipsters, though. NBC began with with the people who moved to places like Park Slope and Cobble Hill in the '80s and '90s. (The restaurant scene beginning in the '90s.) The original "NBC" strip was Smith St. NBC became hipstery at a later stage.

Sure - but in that I don't want to argue "NBC" exists - it wasn't until the hipsters got involved that "NBC" became something worth traveling outside of manhattan for.

I've been reading your posts for a long-time, and of that first generation of places I think the only one you would suggest is worth a subway ride is Franny's.

[Sneakeater]

I also can't stop laughing that someone things its an absolute truth that hanging out with the hipsters of privilege is superior to the Eurotrash crowd.

At their extremes they both suck a lot, but in small doses lots of fun. Frat boys are the same way as well.

I tend to think that hanging out with ANYBODY is better than hanging out with the Eurotrash crowd. I once ran screaming out of Bar Blanc cuz I just couldn't take it. (Hmmmmmmmm, what's that chef doing now?)

But we all have our prejudices.

[Daniel]

I feel like Eurotrash wears more cologne.. Hipsters are skinny and you can push them aside more easy. But yes, any group that has come together in order to play dress up and act out some sort of collective uniqueness is not going to be on my good times check list.

[Anthony Bonner]

ET are skinny too tho. Also easy to move out of your way. More hair product on the ET in addition to the cologne.

[Lex]

Hipsters = plaid.

[Orik]

What I think shows that Brooklyn is still not a mere outpost of Manhattan is the difference between Isa (and presumably Freja) and Acme. I can say from experience that the food at Acme is better than at Isa (the Spanish Hipster says Freja is better, and I believe him -- but I haven't eaten there yet). But who wouldn't rather hang out at Isa? Acme recognized that to succeed in Manhattan, it had to cater for douchebags. Isa, on the other hand, can at least try to succeed in Brooklyn without pulling in all the models and the men who chase them.

When Brooklyn dance clubs begin to look like Tenjune, then we can say Brooklyn is over.

Sorry, just noticed this.

Half of me tends to agree with that, but then the other half thinks Isa would love, love, love to be filled with dbags and that all Isa is doing is trying to stay alive until there are enough of them around in all those empty condos and rentals, because the natives are bitching and moaning about high prices and small portions, and sitting there for hours on an appetizer and a cocktail. (In fact both times at Isa we were surrounded by tourists from the midwest and south as there are cheaper hotels nearby that are more popular with them than with hairy men in speedos.)

Many other good points, I'll write more tomorrow.

[Daniel]

What I think shows that Brooklyn is still not a mere outpost of Manhattan is the difference between Isa (and presumably Freja) and Acme. I can say from experience that the food at Acme is better than at Isa (the Spanish Hipster says Freja is better, and I believe him -- but I haven't eaten there yet). But who wouldn't rather hang out at Isa? Acme recognized that to succeed in Manhattan, it had to cater for douchebags. Isa, on the other hand, can at least try to succeed in Brooklyn without pulling in all the models and the men who chase them.

When Brooklyn dance clubs begin to look like Tenjune, then we can say Brooklyn is over.

Sorry, just noticed this.

Half of me tends to agree with that, but then the other half thinks Isa would love, love, love to be filled with dbags and that all Isa is doing is trying to stay alive until there are enough of them around in all those empty condos and rentals, because the natives are bitching and moaning about high prices and small portions, and sitting there for hours on an appetizer and a cocktail. (In fact both times at Isa we were surrounded by tourists from the midwest and south as there are cheaper hotels nearby that are more popular with them than with hairy men in speedos.)

Many other good points, I'll write more tomorrow.

I like your point Orik.. There is something about Isa that naturally makes me not want to go.. Even though, I have made several attempts in my mind, once I leave the door I can't bring myself to go there. Has anyone been to 1 or 8 in Williamsburg?

[Daisy]

I like 1 or 8 . Good food and service, and it's very pretty. Not cheap.

[Daniel]

[Daniel]

I like 1 or 8 . Good food and service, and it's very pretty. Not cheap.

There are three dollar signs attached to every review i read about the place. however, it says there is a 45 dollar omakase. I still can't figure that out. I paid 70 dollars for two lousy plates of pasta and a salad last night, to me that was expensive.

[Sneakeater]

NBC didn't begin with hipsters, though. NBC began with with the people who moved to places like Park Slope and Cobble Hill in the '80s and '90s. (The restaurant scene beginning in the '90s.) The original "NBC" strip was Smith St. NBC became hipstery at a later stage.

Sure - but in that I don't want to argue "NBC" exists - it wasn't until the hipsters got involved that "NBC" became something worth traveling outside of manhattan for.

I've been reading your posts for a long-time, and of that first generation of places I think the only one you would suggest is worth a subway ride is Franny's.

The funny thing is, you can agree with everything in my post, and STILL think most of the NBC restaurants aren't worth a subway trip. Are their best Manhattan cognates: Back Forty, say? Really, how good can even the best mid-level cooking be, in terms of destination worthiness? There can only be a couple of Ssam Bars and Franny's in a generation, I'd think.

(I'd also add that there are subway trips and there are subway trips. If you live near the L in Manhattan, the subway trip to Williamsburg is shorter than to most parts of your own borough. So the shift of the center of gravity of NBC to Williamsburg made it a lot more accessible to Manhattanites than it was when it was focused on Cobble Hill/Borum Hill/Park Slope/Prospect Heights. Hell, that might even be what Orik really is saying when he remarks that Williamsburg is now an extension of the East Village.)

[Adrian]

When I lived in the LES, I always felt like WB was an extension of the EV-LES. A little more hipster and a little less restricted, but not much.

The funny thing is, you can agree with everything in my post, and STILL think most of the NBC restaurants aren't worth a subway trip. Are their best Manhattan cognates: North Forty, say? Really, how good can even the best mid-level cooking, in terms of destination worthiness? There can only be a couple of Ssam Bars and Franny's in a generation, I'd think.

A related point, I'm surprised at how comfortable some of the current cutting edge-ish trends are in an NBC environment. Obviously the extreme dry aging at a place like Roberta's is comfortable in an NBC environment, but, on Friday, I was somewhat surprised how well "new Nordic" plating fit in at an NBC type place. It doesn't sound like Acme is NBC, but Frej and Isa seem like they are.

[Orik]

(I'd also add that there are subway trips and there are subway trips. If you live near the L in Manhattan, the subway trip to Williamsburg is shorter than to most parts of your own borough. So I think a lot of Mannhatan people go to places in Williamsburg as if those places weren't in Brooklyn, if you know what I mean. Hell, that might even be what Orik really is saying when he remarks that Williamsburg is now an extension of the East Village.)

Yup, but only when the L is working. Like, you can reach Allswell in 15 minutes door-to-door, which is more or less the same time as walking to Back Forty, but then wait for 30 minutes on the way back because the L was being repeatedly sent back to its originating station for whatever reason.



Also there used to be a lot fewer options if you took the trip to Roberta and it was slammed vs walking over to Frank's or whatever. Now all of a sudden all the facial hair has vanished from Bedford (really, not a single plaid-clad beardo at MP, Allswell, El Beit except for the waitstaff, had to go all the way out to Graham Ave. to find any) and everything is going on OpenTable or UrbanSpoon.

[Sneakeater]

Really, how good can even the best mid-level cooking be, in terms of destination worthiness? There can only be a couple of Ssam Bars and Franny's in a generation, I'd think.

I think I want to either develop that statement or take it back.

It SHOULD be possible to have lots of great mid-level places. So much so that they're not destinations because every neighborhood is full of them. If Brooklyn's contribution was heightened attention to the mid-level, its failure has been that the restaurants still, on the whole, aren't that great. But I actually view that as a problem with America and its weird food culture, since great mid-level restaurants certainly aren't a problem on that other continent we write about sometimes.

[Wilfrid]

I accept the L can create problems (it did for me after my dinner at Gwynnet Street), but in fact I often approach Billyburg from the other end if I'm coming from EV/LES. The J from Essex Street is much more predictable than the L and the Peter Luger stop is an easy walk from most places you'd want to eat.

Perhaps my perspective is different because I've chained myself to a blog. Some of these restaurants might not be worth a trip from Manhattan if you just want to go out to dinner (Isa is an exception); but they're certainly worth a trip if you want to go somewhere new and interesting for dinner (and hence if you want to write about somewhere new and interesting).

In EV/LES terms, these places aren't better than Hearth or WD-50 (again, Isa is kind of an outlier), but where are the equivalent restaurants in EV/LES which have opened in the past five years?

ETA: The next EV restaurant I review, for example, might well be The Cardinal. But am I really interested to eat burgers and BBQ?