qedestrian

I have a confession to make. Though I suspect food and drink are my writerly calling, I sometimes dream of being an expert on my other, less comestible, passion: transportation. I’ve researched and written about many transportation issues for grad school, but I’ve never offered up my thoughts in a public forum like this blog. But now’s as good a time as any to get started on a theme that’s dogged me for my whole life. Ever since I was a tiny (okay, tinier) kindergartener with a somewhat-lengthy commute to school, I’ve been invested in transportation, a topic close to the hearts of all New Yorkers. I hope I’ll transport you with many a story in the future, but right now I want to call your attention to one specific cause: the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, glorious connector of Brooklyn and Staten Island.

Okay, now that you’ve thought about the Verrazano for a moment, consider some of NYC’s many other impressive bridges–the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Williamsburg ones, for starters–and then think about how, if you’re like me, you’ve walked across them countless times. (Or at least you plan to–I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’d never walked a bridge until a college classmate suggested it not so many years ago. I like to think I’ve made up for lost time and ground in the intervening ten years or so.) But the Verrazano–so big and glorious that its engineers had to take the curvature of the Earth into account! (possibly my favorite factoid from Robert Caro’s marvelous The Power Broker about our local master builder and master monster Robert Moses)–boasts no such paths. The MTA has recently begun a pilot program for racks on buses so that two–two!–bikes can ride astride the prows of buses crossing the bridge. But other than that, if you want to cross that breathtaking span without a motor vehicle, you’d best train for the NYC marathon (or the Five Boro Bike Tour, thanks, Mark), ’cause that’s the only way you’ll manage.

So what if you, too, could walk or bike the Verrazano? What if you could satisfy your wanderlust, or visit your family, or do whatever else you’d like to do on Staten Island, without need of a car? That’s the dream put forth by Transportation Alternatives and the Harbor Ring Committee, and it’s been a dream of mine too, ever since I first got the bright idea to take the ferry from Manhattan to Staten Island and the bus back to Brooklyn, only to realize how frustrating–and hazardous for a pedestrian–it was. And so last Saturday I found myself volunteering for TransAlt’s rally to make a bike and pedestrian path a reality.

At the rally, Bay Ridge and Staten Island residents and elected officials, plus runners, cyclists, and curious and even initially skeptical passers-by, offered a broad base of support for crossing the Verrazano sans car. I suspect I’ll always remember one attendee saying that she’d been advocating for a pedestrian and bike path since before the bridge was even built–certainly more commitment than I could ever claim. And, perhaps even more excitingly, the rally’s organizers announced that the MTA is working on a feasibility study for the path. So keep your fingers crossed, and check out the advocates’ work, and maybe one day you can listen to me pontificate about transit and food as we walk across the dazzling height of the Verrazano.

(And maybe, while we take a stroll through scenic Bay Ridge on our way to or from the bridge, we can stop by my #1-all-time-favorite bakery Robicelli’s. Who knows, maybe you too would appreciate some warm pumpkin coffee cake and whiskey pecan pie for breakfast.)

Transportation Alternatives on the Harbor Ring

Robicelli’s, 9009 5th Avenue, Bay Ridge (stay tuned for more, including pictures of marvelous pies, cupcakes, and puddings)

Sometimes you get it into your head, for no very good reason, that there’s a bar or restaurant you’d like to try. And sometimes you’re lucky, ’cause you wind up at Fancy Nancy, and they’ve just changed their menu, and it’s resplendent with the fall flavors you’ve dreamed of all year.

I’m the first to admit that I’m intrigued by fancy cocktails with mysterious ingredients, sometimes to my detriment. (Just try one of the dead simple, extremely fantastic mixed drinks at Fort Defiance, which I want to write about soon, and you’ll see where straightforwardness can get you. And it’s much farther than most fancy drinks can.) As time’s gone by, I’ve become familiar with most bartenders’ tricks, but even I was mystified by “SF mix,” in Fancy Nancy’s Lost in SF cocktail. So I ordered the drink without asking for details–a first, apparently–and was rewarded: SF mix is a delicious combination of Fernet (which I am pleased to say I recognized), Chartreuse, and rum. Yes, please!

Impressively, my second drink, Gator Bate, was even better. I’m a sucker for concord grape concoctions (and straight-up concord grapes fresh from the farm share, yum) and I’ll always order a drink that features them, but I’m almost invariably disappointed. Not this time–Gator Bate managed an intense concord grape taste without sacrificing its other tastes, yuzu and fennel. My bartender said it was her favorite of the current cocktails, and I can see why.

Though the drinks were the star of the show here, I’d be remiss not to mention my butternut risotto, which, costing no more than a cocktail, provided a reasonably filling and very tasty counterpoint to my libations. Almonds imparted crunch to an otherwise smooth and comforting dish, while greens provided a welcome hint of saltiness.

For dessert, my (wise) bartender suggested an horchata-based drink (which I–sadly–wound up declining) or a gin, cranberry, and egg-white one. Much like concord grapes, egg white cocktails are my kryptonite, so I opted for the Sloppy Seconds (or I guess thirds at this point), a nice fizz to finish the evening, though it lacked the striking balance of the Gator Bate. Next time, I’ll have to try the horchata-ey Havana Nights for sure.

All in all, my food and drink were delicious, the service was super-friendly, and I look forward to trying all of the other almost as tempting cocktails on offer. (Maybe especially the on-tap concoction–boozy, herbal, fruity, dark–that my bartender offered me in a tiny glass for a nightcap.) The crisp evening, and my walk back to the train–you guys, I can kinda walk normally these days!–didn’t hurt either. Fancy, indeed.

Fancy Nancy, 1038 Bedford Ave, Bedford-Stuyvesant

Northern Territory, 12 Franklin Street, (slightly) Greenpoint

So humor me here. Imagine that walking is your favorite thing. And imagine how frustrated you’d be if you hurt your #$^@#$ foot and couldn’t walk without feeling like it was going to break in the middle. And imagine how delighted you’d feel once your foot got a bit better and you managed to walk all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge again. And imagine that you wound up at a pretty sweet new bar for a rest at the end of your travels.

If you can imagine all that, you know what it’s like to be me this evening; and you know what it’s like to be pretty darn happy despite your appendage-related woes. Because not toooo far from the Brooklyn Bridge, you’d have found Fawkner, a nice new bar on Smith Street with an impressive happy hour–$8 house cocktails and $2 off (local, crafty) beer. While I opted for a cocktail, full of rum and vermouth, and it was perfectly fine, I think next time I’d choose one of the excellent beers–like Finback’s gingery, easy-drinking Double Sess, one of my favorites, which, if I recall correctly, costs the princely happy hour sum of $5. (At least in my (upscale, hipper-than-thou) NYC drinking experience, this is the equivalent of a unicorn sighting.)

Perhaps even more exciting than the drinks are Fawkner’s sandwiches. For an admittedly eyebrow-raising cost of $11, I got the huge fried chicken option. I was lured in by the promised corn pudding (which I only really tasted on half of my sandwich) but I am really here to tell you about the maple syrup dipping sauce. C’mon, guys, what could be better than delicious fried food dipped in maple syrup? If you know, please tell.

In addition to my food bounty, the service was super-friendly, particularly my bartender. (Don’t get me started on bad service … I’m trying to keep it positive on this blog since I wouldn’t feel right publicly denigrating restaurants and bars–I can only imagine how hard it must be to succeed in this town–but man, I hate me some rude service, and I love me some friendly bartenders and waiters who don’t judge me for wandering in solo with hobo hair. Fawkner more than delivers on this front.) After a hard day at work it’s nice to chat about booze and your job and your neighborhood in a friendly atmosphere like Fawkner’s.

In conclusion, get thee to this vaguely-literarily-titled bar (apparently it’s about falcons, not venerable southerners, but I hear what I hear). I promise you’ll find all sound, no fury. Plus a sweet dio-ram-a.

Fawkner, 191 Smith Street, Cobble Hill

The Graffiti Room, 184 Mott Street, Little Italy-ish

As I have grown up (in age; in height, not so much), many things have become more complicated. Coffee is not one of them.

When I was a teenager, I drank all the sugary confections you might expect (though I winced at the high school friend who dumped several packets of sugar in a Frappuccino). In my college years, I’d pretty much simplified to a splash of milk and a packet of Splenda. After a while, I temporarily gave up artificial sweeteners, and since the thought of coffee with milk and no sugar has always put me off for some reason (not milk-and-espresso drinks, though, who can say why) at some point, I just stopped adding milk.

So now I drink black coffee with an occasional break for (mostly unsweetened) espresso drinks. It’s weird; as you will know if you’ve read even a few posts here, I don’t shy away from sweets. But coffee is so complete in itself that adulterating it just feels wrong. And everything I’ve just said goes ten times more for iced coffee. Is there anything more perfect than a cold-brewed coffee on a hot summer day? (Or a cloudy fall day, or a snowy winter day, or … )

And so it was with dismay that I discovered that La Colombe’s regular iced coffee, for which I waited on a long line, is, in my opinion, pretty much undrinkable. It tastes burned and acidic and pretty much every flavor I dislike. And I had high hopes for La Colombe because of my soft spot for everything Philly-related.

Luckily, my opinion has turned around with the introduction of La Colombe’s draft lattes and cold brew on tap. Granted, I’m a sucker for these sorts of things (I may have tried every nitro cold brew ever; go ahead, laugh), but La Colombe really delivers. If you feel like a chump for ordering a $4ish shot of espresso over cold milk (aka an iced latte), you’ll appreciate the added value of La Colombe’s already frothy on-tap version. Plus, the cold-pressed coffee itself is pretty darn good. And if you want true perfection, you will order the black and tan, which is (unsurprisingly) cold-pressed coffee topped off with the perfect amount of draft latte to drink up before all the carbonation bubbles away.

No more regular La Colombe iced coffee for me. Now if I could just convince everyone that drinking iced coffee all year round is the only sensible choice…

La Colombe, 420 Lafayette Street, NoHo (et al)

Pies ‘n’ Thighs, 43 Canal Street, Lower East Side

Double Windsor, 210 Prospect Park West, Windsor Terrace
Firestone Walker 14

If you’re like me, a bar that serves desserts is pretty much your dream spot. And so you’d probably await the opening of dessert bar Butter & Scotch with bated breath. And when it finally opened, you’d do your best to check in from time to time on its top-notch roster of desserts, cocktails, guest chef dinners, and … Tiki Tuesdays.

That’s right, it looks like tiki’s a trend that’s here to stay, with several venerable bars resplendent with tiki drinks and tiki nights. If you’re like me, you admire Ravi DeRossi’s bars (especially Amor y Amargo) but the idea of a $15-and-up tiki menu makes you die a little on the inside. (Nope, Mother of Pearl, no plans to visit until I get a pretty substantial salary upgrade, and maybe not even then.) Luckily, while some cocktail prices are ludicrous, I’ve found that there’s also been a resurgence of affordable options. Like Butter & Scotch, whose tiki offerings weigh in at an appealing $8-10 or so.

Since the morning chill reminds you that summer’s not going to last forever, you’d better get your frozen drinks in while you can. (You’ve gotta concede you’ve been known to enjoy a frozen drink or two, after you finally learned to check your snobbery at the door.) So you’d best start out with with the Ariel’s Song, a concoction of numerous rums, Frangelico, triple sec, lime, and (it gets you every time) house-made orgeat. Served in a serious tiki mug, topped with orange, lime, and cherry, Ariel’s Song lets you breathe in summer for a few extra beats.

And since it’s an impromptu Tuesday vacation, you might want to follow it up with a Hemingway daiquiri, which you may have noticed is the perfect classic drink: rum, maraschino, grapefruit, and lime play perfectly together, with no need for extra gimmicks. Though Butter & Scotch’s version might not be quite as good as the one at the Daq Shaq (located in the Owney’s Rum’s distillery up in the nebulous border of East Williamsburg/Bushwick) it’s pretty damn good, plus you can get it with a perfect triple chocolate brownie, served melting with chocolate chips. (And did I mention it costs a staggeringly reasonable $8?)

If you’re like me you’ll be pretty damn happy at the bar at Butter & Scotch. Especially if you’re finishing up the last few pages of Delancey, whose author Molly Wizenberg may have inspired you to get back into food writing (and pizza eating) again, and if the photographer sitting next to you at the bar tells you just how delicious Delancey’s pizza is. And if you, like me, take the bus (I guess you probably don’t, but that’s a rant for another post) you’ll be delighted to step out of the bar, promptly nab a B48 to Prospect Park, and be home in about 20 minutes. It’s a good life, friends.

Butter & Scotch, 818 Franklin Avenue, Crown Heights