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07/09/1999 Archived Entry: "My Food Tour of Brooklyn"

For the 23 years I lived in Manhattan, whenever I would go back to Brooklyn – to visit my parents and old-neighborhood friends, to go shopping, or to go to a restaurant – they would tease me, not understanding my joy at all, “Ah, Arthur is going to the holy land.”

Now that I am back in Brooklyn after all those years of living in maddening Manhattan, I know I am back in a special place. I was able to share that yesterday with 11 journalists from around the country – Dallas, Tampa, Chicago, San Antonio, to name a few places – who have been brought to New York by the New York City Visitors and Convention Bureau (CVCB). The gist of the junket is to demonstrate how New York is the restaurant and food capitol of the country, maybe the world.
My duty was to show them the food sights of Brooklyn. Originally, the CVCB consultant who was putting this together wanted me to tour both Brooklyn and Queens with the group. She’s from Tennessee. She’s lived in Manhattan for (I’m guessing) nearly 20 years, but she had no idea how big the boroughs were. For the record, Brooklyn is 81 square miles, and has a population of 2,300,634, according to the 1990 census.I thought that was quite enough to cover in a 9-to-3:30 trip. Brooklyn is the fourth largest city in the U.S. (if you detach it from the rest of New York City). I figured it deserved a day for itself.
At that, we only skimmed the surface.
We started with a cheesecake breakfast at Junior’s, the venerable family restaurant in Downtown Brooklyn. We then stopped at Sahadi, the Middle Eastern import store, these days much expanded with prepared foods, besides incredible buys on spices, oils, beans, grains, and … you name it. Down the street, we went to see bread baked at the Damascus Bakery – and eat their wonderful spinach pies. We stopped to take in the view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Heights promenade, and walk a few of the neighborhood’s beautiful streets. The we had a bite at the still gas-lit,Gage & Tollner, founded in 1879 and one of New York’s two landmarked restaurant interiors. We had their famous fried “clam bellies,” which are really Ipswitch clams (the ones used for steamers), some crab cakes, fried oysters, and a taste of the she-crab soup in the newly renovated kitchen.
Then we drove around Park Slope and made our way down Ocean Parkway to Brighton Beach. M & I International is the Russian store that probably has more food than they have in the entire country of Russia. What a store! I could spend months eating my way through it. We took a walk on the boardwalk “What body of water is this?” someone asked. It was hard for this Midwesterner to fathom that it was the ocean. “Look in the distance and you can see Spain,” someone else teased. (I didn’t dare.)
Finally, we stopped at Mrs. Stahl’s for a classic potato knish. I’ve got to get back there soon. They have a new concession, someone making shish kebabs and they looked fantastic.
As I said the group, this was a very small taste of Brooklyn. We could spend a week food touring and still have only scratched the surface.
Following are the names and addresses of the places I took the out-of-town journalists.


Junior’s: 386 Flatbush Ave. at DeKalb Ave., Brooklyn NY 11201; (718) 852-5257.

Sahadi: 187 Atlantic Ave., between Clinton and Court Sts., Brooklyn NY 11201; (718) 624-4550.

Damascus Bakery: 195 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11201; (718) 625-7070.

Gage and Tollner: 372 Fulton St., at Smith and Jay Sts., Brooklyn NY 11201; (718) 875-5181.

M & I International: 249 Brighton Beach Ave., between 1st and 2nd Sts., Brooklyn NY 11235; (718) 615-1011.

Mrs. Stahl's Knishes: 1001 Brighton Beach Ave. at Coney Island Ave., Brooklyn NY 11235; (718) 648-0210 and (800) 648-0210.