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KINGS’ BOUNTY

Food Network turns camera on Brooklyn’s ethnic foods

By Beverley Wang
The Brooklyn Paper
The Brooklyn Papers / Greg Mango
Lights, camera, calories: M&I International Foods owner Sophia Vinokurov offers Food Network's Jill Cordes her Russian specialties, while Brighton Beach BID executive director Yelena Makhnin looks on.

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A Food Network television crew dropped into Brooklyn last month, taping segments of their "The Best of ..." program to let America know what we take for granted: that the borough is delicious, diverse and definitely on the rise.

On March 17, "Best of ..." co-host Jill Cordes and her crew visited Brighton Beach, the largest Russian-speaking community in the city, to tape a four-minute segment on "Ethnic Eateries," their first stop of a weeklong Brooklyn shoot.

With the elevated Q train squealing overhead, Cordes, a former Midwest TV reporter, gamely worked the ’hood with Yelena Makhnin of the Brighton Beach Business Improvement District as her enthusiastic guide.

"Brooklyn has become extremely hip, especially Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens," said Cordes, who wore a bright pink blouse and black, cropped trousers. "Then you have places like Brighton Beach, which are just as good, but maybe a little lesser known."

In its sixth season, the magazine-style show, co-hosted by Baltimore-based Marc Silverstein, centers on a different theme each episode. The peripatetic duo showcases five locales across the country in every half-hour slot. The Brooklyn segments are tentatively set to air in early fall, said executive producer Kathleen Quaid-Weisz.

"We’ve done Manhattan. Brooklyn is a borough we should cover more," said the perky blonde, who claimed she would eventually like to take the show to all five boroughs.

Cordes said Monday’s shoot was just the show’s third foray into the Borough of Kings. "The Best of..." has also produced segments on Williamsburg’s famous Peter Luger steakhouse and the Baci Italian restaurant in Bay Ridge.

At M&I International Foods, a huge, brightly lit emporium equipped with a deli, bakery, cafe and candy counter on Brighton Beach Avenue at Brighton Second Street, a grizzled reporter from The Russian Advertiser, a Russian-language publication, grabbed a jar of Peter the Great pickled mushrooms and twisted it open for Cordes to try, on camera, touting it as an authentic Russian snack.

"Ooh, its vinegary," said Cordes.

A closer look at the jar’s label revealed the truth: "Product of Germany."

Later, M&I co-owner Sofia Vinokurov laid out a feast of potato and meat pierogies, hot coffee and a myriad of sweet and savory pastries. Vinokurov proudly pointed out that the pastries are preservative-free and made fresh daily on premises.

M&I is the place to find anything Russian, from baby food to beer. Vinokurov, a cheery woman in black leggings who wore her blonde hair in a tight bun, said the deli used to carry Stalinska kielbasa until customers complained about carrying a sausage named after the brutal Russian dictator.

"We had to take [it] out and put [it] in [the] garbage," said Vinokurov, shrugging her shoulders at the thought of it. Czar Nikolai bread is available, however.

Following the feast at M&I, Makhnin, a 10-year emigre from Ukraine, led the way down Brighton Beach Avenue, past a line of women in babushkas waiting to buy bread, to Cafe Gina (Brighton Beach Avenue at Brighton Fourth Street), where Cordes tried their signature smoked salmon and red caviar salad. Cafe owner Gina Sharon, also from Ukraine, hoped the publicity would bring in more customers and encourage other Brighton Beach cafe owners to "change concepts."

With its servers in pressed cobalt shirts and Sharon resplendent in a chic black suit, Cafe Gina would more than hold its own in any other cafe-loving Brooklyn neighborhood.

Then it was on to Cafe Glechik, at Coney Island and Oceanview avenues, where chefs prepared "Odessa Stew," a traditional beef dish, for the camera.

After eating three meals in four hours, it’s a wonder that the pint-sized Cordes, who retains the perkiness of her former post as a wake-up show anchor, can keep her tiny frame trim.

Luckily, Cordes now lives near Prospect Park, where she can run off the slightest threat of a job-incurred love handle. Cordes and her husband, Phil Johnston, a graduate student in Columbia University’s film program, recently joined the onslaught of Manhattanites fleeing to Brooklyn. The couple are newly minted Park Slopers, having just moved from the Upper West Side to Seventh Avenue and 12th Street last month.

"We love it," said Cordes. She threw shout-outs to 12th Street Bar and Grill: "incredible"; Fifth Avenue: "really cool"; as well as Dizzy’s on Ninth Street and Johnny Mack’s on Eighth Avenue.

"I am so excited we’re doing Dizzy’s," said Cordes. Dizzy’s is on the show’s list of "Neighborhood Nifties."

"The Best of ..." also shot segments at Spumoni Gardens, on 86th Street at West 11th Street; Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, on Old Fulton Street at Front Street; and the venerable River Cafe, at Water Street and Old Fulton Street.


"The Best of ..." airs daily on the Food Network: Monday through Thursday, at 1 pm, 10:30 pm and 1:30 am; Friday at 1:30 pm; Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm.

To take a self-guided "The Best of ..." tour of Brooklyn, visit these eateries:

M&I International Foods, 249 Brighton Beach Ave. at Brighton Second Street, (718) 615-1011.

Gina’s Cafe, 409 Brighton Beach Ave. at Brighton Fourth Street, (718) 646-6297.

Cafe Glechik, 3159 Coney Island Ave. at Oceanview Avenue, (718) 616-0766.

Spumoni Gardens, 2725 86th St. at W. 11th Street, (718) 449-6921.

Dizzy’s, 511 Ninth St. at Eighth Avenue, (718) 499-1966.

Grimaldi’s Pizzeria, 19 Old Fulton St. at Front Street, (718) 858-4300

River Cafe, 1 Water St. at Old Fulton Street, (718) 522-5200.

©2003 Community Newspaper Group


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