Brooklyn Hots

[Sneakeater]

This harkens back to a somewhat neglected strand of OG NBC:  vernacular food with heightened technique and ingredients.

Here, the Vernacular Food Concept is:  Rochester.

I don't know where (or even if) chef/owner Brian Heiss cooked before.  He's mainly a wine guy.  Indeed, his major presence on this block of Greene Avenue in Clinton Hill is his natural wine shop Radicle next door.  Brooklyn Hots doesn't have a license yet; the idea is that you buy a bottle at Radicle and take it in.  This makes solo dining a little awkward -- but if ever there was a dish designed to soak up alcohol, it's a Garbage Plate.  More worrying is that it just seems wrong to be eating this food with anything other than a Genny Cream (although really this is the kind of food that goes great with natural wine).  Their license is pending.

A Garbage Plate is a Rochester specialty consisting of a base layer of fries with some macaroni salad and various meats (classically cut-up cheeseburger and hot dog) doused with mayonnaisey meaty hottish (this is Northern New York State)-sauce glop.  If that sounds disgusting to you, just don't talk to me.

Now the dangers of making a precisely cooked version of a dish like this is that the precise cooking removes the delicious messy gloppiness that provides much of the dish's appeal.  That was a real fear here.  But no.  Twice-cooking the fries in the Belgian manner; making the crowning glop sauce from scratch out of a carefully calibrated combination of good ingredients; using quality meat in the burgers:  these all make this extra-delicious (you don't even feel that sick after you've finished).  And they have a good sense for how far to take this:  the red and white hot sausages (hot dogs and brats) they use aren’t house-crafted in the basement but rather the popular Rochester brand.

I would die if I ate here often.  But I can't deny I love it.

[Sneakeater]

I keep meaning to try Place des Fétes, the classy French seafood wine bar that Oxalis opened on this stretch of Greene Avenue.

But the simple, maybe sad, fact is that I can't walk by Brooklyn Hots without going in.

[Steve R.]

No.  Just no.  As many of you know, I’ll eat almost anything.  And I’ve been upstate NY enough to have eaten this “dish”.  And, no, I havent been to Brooklyn Hots.  It is stoner food and what it goes perfectly with is the new NY legalization of marijuana.

[Wilfrid]

I know I ate a canned fish sandwich with potato chips yesterday but I think I can resist this.

[mitchells]

A guy sitting next to us at Bakery Bar in New Orleans ate this:

TRASH FRIES

the best way to get trashed with your friends! hand cut fries, garlic cheddar cheese, pork debris, grilled onions

Then followed that up with this:

DANGEROUSLY GRILLED CHEESE

flaming hot cheeto buttered toast, smoked cheddar, pepperjack, buffalo ricotta, onion-bacon jam

And he was not stoned.

 

[Sneakeater]

You guys gonna start talking shit about poutine?

[Wilfrid]

I've eaten poutine, I've eaten disco fries, this just seems to push the envelope.

[Steve R.]

I’m in Montreal as I write & might eat poutine before we leave (I’ve had it before… not my favorite combo, but ok).  We did go to a place called Foie Gwa (connected to Atwater Cocktail Club — physically so, as well as ownership) that had twice fried potatoes topped with a bechamel sauce, some non detectable truffles and had some cooked onions underneath.  That was pretty damn good.  And, the “Trash Fries” that Mitchells posted about seem perfect for me (not the DGC).  But, really, Brooklyn Hots’ dish is a no go.  Mac salad & hot dogs, with the glop sauce described.  Nope.  Gotta be pretty far gone to appreciate that. 

[Sneakeater]

Just to be clear, that isn’t “Brooklyn Hots’ dish” but rather The National Dish Of Rochester—invented years before pot went mainstream. 

[Steve R.]

Yes.  That’s why I’ve had it without having ever been to Brooklyn Hots.  

[mitchells]

And Stoner Food has been around way before pot went mainstream. Just ask @joethefoodie 😄

[joethefoodie]

1 hour ago, mitchells said:

And Stoner Food has been around way before pot went mainstream. Just ask @joethefoodie 😄

Oh yeah.  To be honest, one of my favorite French fry ways is simply French fries with gravy.

 

[Wilfrid]

Chips with curry sauce, Scotland everywhere and other parts of the UK. Marijuana not required. Beer.

[Sneakeater]

@joethefoodie(and me) (and everybody now in their 60s or 70s) were when pot went mainstream.

[Sneakeater]

I mean:  1968?  1969?  1965?