Call me a traditionalist, but for my inaugural “Eating Park Slope” column it only seemed right to review a neighborhood breakfast staple: the bagel. Because in this fine Brooklyn neighborhood, I defy someone to show me a single resident who doesn’t love a good bagel. Fed to children with a thick layer of cream cheese, a good bagel can buy more consecutive minutes of silence than any mass-marketed pacifier. Decked out in luxurious trimmings such as lox, capers and cukes, the same bagel is elevated to celebratory brunch status, deserving of a partner mimosa even.  But as any discerning Sloper …

The chalkboard sign on the sidewalk puts it bluntly: “Hot Balls!” Polpette, which bills itself as “Home of the Meatball,” opened about a month ago in the take-out space next to Fornino on Fifth Avenue near Carroll Street. The two restaurants share the same kitchen, and you can order anything from Fornino’s take-out menu at Polpette, but the latter presents itself as a distinct entity, with garish red walls and a few counter stools contrasting with Fornino’s understated elegance. “Polpette” is the Italian name for meatballs, which form the heart of the menu here. They can be ordered a la carte…

Now that autumn is in full swing in New York, all bright and crisp and blue (at least for today, anyway), it’s time we gave some serious thought to apples. Barrels and barrels of apples. New York State produces an average of 29.5 million bushels of apples every year, second in the nation to Washington. While 53 percent of those apples are sold as fresh fruit, that leaves plenty left over for cider, applesauce, vinegar, and apple butter. But let's make some time, my dears, for autumn's great boon ofapple-enhanced baked goods. Here are a few of our local favorites.  Apple Turnover at Colson …

If Americans can name any one element of New Zealand cuisine, it’s undoubtedly Marmite, that salty, yeasty love-it-or-hate-it spread used to fortify sickly schoolchildren across the British commonwealth. Mark Simmons, the chef behind the new Union Street restaurant Kiwiana, wants to expand New York’s knowledge of New Zealand’s considerable culinary bounty. But even while opening our eyes to the wonders of horopito pepper and New Zealand lamb, he can’t seem to help but throw in a little Marmite as well. Anyone ordering his manuka- and Marmite-braised babyback ribs will see the wisdom in his …

If you happen to pass by Jubilat Provisions when the door’s open, you might be drawn into the little Fifth Avenue shop (near 17th Street) by the smell of smoked meats that pours out into the street. And you might find yourself buying a couple of pounds of sausage or fish that you didn’t realize you needed until you smelled that smell. At least this is what happened to me last week.  I was on that stretch of Fifth Avenue, with its lingering vestiges of a mostly by-gone Eastern European population, to go to brunch at Korzo, the Czech-owned gastropub that wisely changed its name from Eurotrip …

Park Slope is having a pretty good year when it comes to pizza. In addition to the time-tested array of slice joints lining Fifth and Seventh avenues, we’ve recently pulled in a fresh crop of the newer, more genteel breed of pizzerias, attentive to both interior design and high-quality ingredients. Everybody has their favorite pizza parlor, perhaps as often as not determined largely by proximity to one’s home or easy access to a hot greasy slice when stumbling drunkenly up the subway stairs late at night. But there will always be a few places that rise above the rest and make enough of a case…

There are few finer ways to celebrate making it to the end of another workday than a nice little drink of something—and all the better if that little something is discounted to reward you for making it out of the office at a reasonable hour. Since, in my experience, a single after-work toast usually ends up extending long into the night, it’s generally a good strategy to start your carousing somewhere that also offers an incentive to pack in some tasty solids as well. Here are our favorite spots for great happy hour snacks. Jumbo Wings at Park Slope Ale House Is there a food more appropriate …

Of the twelve cheeses on the menu at the new Fifth Avenue wine bar Wolf & Deer, six are raw milk, two are goat’s milk, and three are sheep’s. Arriving just in time for happy hour one day after work, between St. Marks Place and Warren Street,my friends and I availed ourselves of Wolf and Deer’s excellent three-for-$10 deal. We chose Old Kentucky Tomme, a creamy and stinky raw goat cheese from Greenville, Indiana; Pont L’Eveque, a pasteurized cow’s milk cheese from Normandy that was mild, rich and nutty and had a texture like the chalky part of St. Andre; and La Leyendas, a raw sheep cheese …

There’s been a big to-do about macarons lately as the iconic Parisian sweets shop Maison Ladurée prepares to open a branch on the Upper East Side at the end of the month. It was long ago predicted that macarons would overtake cupcakes as the nation's most important status accessory dessert, and although we invariably roll our eyes and make gagging sounds at these kind of pronouncements, this is a happy development indeed. Macarons are much better than cupcakes.  Let’s review, for a moment, the merits of a macaron, those tiny sandwiches of almond-flour, sugar, and egg whites: the gem-like …

Along with the opening of chicken-obsessed PurBird last week, there’s been some media fuss lately about a new chicken trend in the fashionable eating world. Chicken is the new pork. Chicken is the new ramps. Chicken is your new best friend. This got me thinking a lot about one of the most disrespected members of the food kingdom. Most people I know who care about food care very little for chicken. It’s dirty, it’s bland, it’s shot through with antibiotics and/or salmonella. “Chicken is boring,” food-bro Anthony Bourdain declared in his book “Kitchen Confidential. “Chefs see it as a menu item …

It’s not like Park Slope really needed another burger joint, but I was intrigued by the prospect of Bareburger, the mini-chain that just opened a new outpost on Seventh Avenue and First Street. While the business trumpets its virtues of organic produce, free-range meats and recycled/sustainable furnishings, it was the variety of meat on the menu that caught my game-loving attention. Ostrich, elk, and bison sit right up there with more prosaic patties like beef, turkey, and lamb. But a part of me was skeptical. Does exotic game really make for a better burger, or is this just a gimmick …

The menu at the new Seventh Avenue Greek spot Faros Estiatorio is huge, and the space is gigantic. There’s a kitchen in the basement, sending food up by dumbwaiter to two floors of dining, each with its own back patio. The restaurant can seat 150 diners at a time. Faros has built its home in one of those long-anonymous architectural gems on Seventh Avenue, its glass and wood exterior graced by a big, arched, second-floor window. The interior boasts exposed brick walls, four fireplaces, gleaming copper pots, and a few nautical touches. It doesn’t entirely escape the strangely dated mall-…

New York is in the midst of a heat wave, with temperatures reaching evil heights and staying up there for the foreseeable future. But don’t fret, people: it also happens to be National Ice Cream Month! As declared by President Ronald “Jellybeans” Reagan in 1984, this is the time for all good Americans to celebrate our cold sweet ally. According to the International Dairy Foods Association, Reagan “recognized ice cream as a fun and nutritious food that is enjoyed by a full 90% of the nation's population.” So grab a scoop and try to finish it before it melts. Here are our local favorites, in no…

The recent news that Gold’s is trying to make its old-school jars of borscht cool again got me thinking about my fierce love for cold soups. When the heat and humidity rise in the summer, there’s nothing I'd rather eat. And although I do not include jarred borscht among my loves, having been terrified by the sight of it on my parents’ pantry shelves as a child, fresh borscht varieties, like the luscious, kiefer-based Lithuanian saltibarsciai are a major summer favorite. A recent survey of Park Slope’s restaurant scene did not turn up any evidence that the cold borscht revival has set in yet, …

The phrase “gourmet falafel” fills me with certain dread. I imagine a misguided menu boasting "innovations" like chipotle asiago, sriracha, meyer lemon, and white truffle. I’m pleased to report that though the new Dean Street café Kulushkät uses that dreaded phrase on their awning, they’re merely referring to a refined take on Middle Eastern and Moroccan basics with an emphasis on fresh, high-quality ingredients. The owners Yigal Kadosh and Andrew Rowley traveled to Israel to learn the chickpea arts, working in a hummusia in Netanya and studying in a grandmother’s kitchen. Their falafel is …

My dinner arrived at our table with what appeared to be the spine of a large mammal spanning the entire length of the platter. It took me a minute to recognize it as a chicharron—the strip of fried pork skin, nearly a foot long, had been scored to the base to separate nuggets of fat and flesh into the shape of individual vertebrae. The chicharron was part of the bandeja paisa ($15), a goliath’s portion of meats and other fried delights served up at the new restaurant Colombia in Park Slope on Fifth Avenue between Fifth and Sixth streets. Originally designed to be eaten for lunch by Andean …

On the little road that extends into the park from the Grand Army Plaza on Greenmarket days, there’s a mushroom stand that with a sign that reads “Mycomedicinals—Madura Farms—Goshen, NY.” Daniel Madura Jr. started his mushroom farm back in the 1970s, at the time selling only white button mushrooms. His business gradually gravitated mostly to other vegetables and onions, with the fungi taking a back seat, but in the last six or seven years he’s gone full mushroom again—this time with a wide variety and a message about their curative powers. On a recent Saturday, the stand was manned by Madura’…

Drawn in by its cheery teal facade, I went to check out Couleur Café shortly after it opened. In a neighborhood already swarmed with homey little coffee shop cafés, this new spot on Seventh Avenue near 15th Street shows encouraging early signs of bringing something new to the neighborhood.  We began our little Sunday repast with a ham and cheese sandwich on a croissant ($4.95), which was just as buttery and flaky and delicious as you’d hope. Next came a smoked duck salad ($9.95). Slices of duck, ringed with a stripe of fat, lie atop a pile of perfectly crisp-tender string beans, surrounded by…

The Windsor Terrace Greenmarket is minuscule compared to its Grand Army Plaza counterpart at the other end of the Prospect Park. Cradled just inside the park’s entrance off Bartel Pritchard Square, the market has just five stands right now. On a sunny Wednesday morning, this might be all you need. The current lineup includes Williams’ Fruit Farm’s spread of apples, free range eggs, baked goods and flowers; greenmarket staple Bread Alone; American Seafood, selling fresh catches like sea scallops, porgy, and bluefish; and J. Glebocki Farms. John Glebocki is a fifth generation vegetable farmer …

Ever since Hanco’s opened its Park Slope branch two years ago, banh mi joints have been spreading in the Slope like dandelions. Last time I counted, there were four, and a few more could easily have popped up while I wasn’t looking. Yet Park Slope has lacked a full-service Vietnamese restaurant since Fifth Avenue stalwart Mekong closed years ago. Enter Ha Noi. Ha Noi opened just a few weeks ago in the spot vacated by the unlucky Second Helpings, which was gutted by a fire last year. The space has been completely transformed, with brick walls, dark tiled floors, and wicker lamps creating a …