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06/07/2006 Archived Entry: "More Brooklyn Restaurants -- and Upcoming Appearances"

As promised, here’s more on Brooklyn restaurants. Those of you who get my newsletter have received this already. I sent it out before I left for Italy and the Mediterranean cruise, from which I returned yesterday. Somehow, in the rush of getting ready (isn’t it always a rush, no matter how organized you think you are?) I failed to post it here, in the diary. (If you haven’t signed up for my free email newsletter, please, please do. Just put your email address in the red bannered box above.)

And, let me remind you that www.arthurschwartz.com (also known as www.thefoodmaven.com) is a very extensive web site with over 200 recipes. See the website’s index, although it is not completely up to date – my summer project. Or use the search engine – the search box at the top of every page -- to find a recipe by ingredient. The site also has a guide to some of my favorite restaurants in Rome and in Naples. Also for you world travelers, there is a page of Italian Travel Links, with hotel and guide recommendations; the places I stay in myself. I am about to update those, too. I have more recommendations to add, and, as I am always revisiting recommendations to check on their quality, I have new comments to make.

There is also all the information you need to give you an idea about m y culinary vacations in Italy – just click on Cook at Seliano. And there’s other stuff. For instance, don’t forget to occasionally check Maven’s Appearances to see if I will be appearing – at a bookstore, at a cooking school, at a library or museum, or for a benefit -- anywhere near where you live.

Not listed, however, is tomorrow night’s (Thursday, June 8) appearance with Gael Greene at the 92nd Street Y, on Lexington and 92nd St. Her memoir, “Insatiable,” was just published. If you ever read Gael in New York Magazine you’ll know the book is full of sensuous delight, including her sexual exploits. It’s bound to be a doozy of an evening. As I just returned home, I am not sure if there are still tickets available. I will find out later today when I call the Y. (Right now, you don’t want to know how early in the morning it is. I am still jet lagged.

Then – and this didn’t make my posted appearance schedule either because it was planned only days before I left -- on Wednesday, June 14, beginning at noon, I will be doing a cooking demonstration and book signing at the Williams-Sonoma store in the Short Hills, New Jersey, mall. That is the Wednesday before Father’s Day. Do I need to say that my books make great Father’s Day gifts, especially “Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food: An opinionated history” because many fathers don’t cook and it is more a reading book and picture book than a cookbook. On the other hand, it does have more than 100 “legendary” recipes.

And … yet another event that is not listed in my appearance schedule (yet): On July 10, I am taking my New York City Food slide lecture on the road again, this time to the Spring Lake, New Jersey, public library – 1501 Third Ave. in that lovely town. Call the library to make a reservation. I have done this presentation at the Museum of the City of New York, at the Brooklyn Museum, at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, and at many public libraries. I have to say, everyone finds it very entertaining – one journalist actually called me a “culinary comic” -- as well as informative. You know how I love to tell stories, and this is, as the cover of my last cookbook says, “an opinionated history” of New York City, as told through food.

NOW, BROOKLYN RESTAURANTS, PART II
Mabat, a glatt kosher Israeli grill on E. 7th St. and Kings Highway in Midwood, is a bit of a drive for me from Park Slope. But, as the Michelin guide would say, it is worth a detour. I had actually not been to Mabat for years until recently, and I have to say it is even better than I remember. What you first order here is an array of mezze. They have many kinds of salads, spreads, and dips, all wonderful. You could easily stop there – especially if you want to eat vegetarian – but they have very good grilled fish and meat. Take a skewer of lamb, beef, or chicken, marinated or not, or a steak or chop or a fish. The service by young women is proper, efficient, and just friendly enough. The price is certainly right. We way, way over-ordered for three husky guys, and left a more than generous tip, and the bill still came to only $32 a person. And two of us had steaks, the most expensive item on the menu. The wine and beer is, however, BYO; which saves something. And, of course, don’t expect a thick, super-tender steak as you would in a great steakhouse. For the money, however, it is quite fine, with a good taste of the grill and always perfectly cooked as ordered.

On a negative note:
Mendy’s, a branch of the couple of kosher Mendy’s delicatessen restaurants in Manhattan, has recently opened in the new Jewish Children’s Museum on Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. With its own entrance on Kingston Ave., one might think that it is meant to be more than just a cafeteria for the museum. However, one would be wrong. It lives up to all our worst expectations of a museum cafeteria. Enough said.

Back to recommendations:
In the last issue of BKLYN magazine, which has just very sadly ceased publication, I wrote about revisiting three restaurants I used to go to many years ago and that are still holding up very well. They would be Fiorentino’s, a Neapolitan American restaurant on Ave. U and West St. in the Gravesend neighborhood; Buckley’s, a wonderful Irish pub and restaurant on Nostrand Ave. and Ave. U in Marine Park, and Bamonte’s, another Neapolitan-American, and the oldest continuously family-run restaurant in the city – established in 1905 on Withers St. in Williamsburg.

Fiorentino’s is a big and bustling place where I wouldn’t miss the mixed salad, or the baked clams, or the sausage and peppers, or anything with tomato sauce. The veal dishes are not the best, but the seafood is consistently wonderful.

At Bamonte’s the veal is better, but the menu is similar. I particularly like their shrimp francese. The attentive hospitality for the third and fourth generation of Bamontes, the old-time atmosphere – they have one of the few old, folding door phone booths left in New York City, not to mention a cigarette machine (now empty) -- and the colorful clientele always makes the whole experience a delight for me.

At Buckley’s, there are daily specials (the pot roast day is mine), and a rib roast special dinner for $24, but it is really for the civilized atmosphere – very Anglo clubby, cozy, and comfortable – as well as for the well-priced cocktails, that I prize it. And take whatever is the house-made dessert of the day.