For your gossiping pleasure: Prime Meats gets plagiarized, Pier 6 gets haute dogs, and tomato sauce rocks out with its *&#@ out. Dig in!
Menu mayhem: We know Manhattan can’t help but be jealous of Brooklyn’s restaurant swagger, but this is ridiculous. The soon-to-be opened East Village Brewery and Beer Shop posted a “proposed” menu in their window, and as Eater pointed out, it’s a word-for-word replica of the offerings at Carroll Garden’s staple Prime Meats. Everything from beet salad with bitter greens and pine nut brittle to the Alpine tasting board with house-cured bacon and pastrami calves tongue has been fastidiously copycatted. Scandalous! This week, the brewery put out a statement saying that the menu was merely a placeholder — an “aspirational reference,” if you will — until the restaurant gets local approval. That’s kinda like how we put “Pulitzer Prize winner” on our resumes — you know, just as an “aspirational reference”!
New day for Sixpoint: Since forming six years ago, the Red Hook brewery Sixpoint was only available on draft. This week, though, it started nano-kegging its craft beer, so you can take home 16-ounce tall boys of its Bengali Tiger and Crisp as we speak, Sweet Action by the weekend and Righteous Ale starting next week at retailers including Stinky Bklyn in Cobble Hill, Park Slope’s Bierkraft, and Fairway in Red Hook. All we have to say is, finally!
Faan-fare: After 10 years on Smith Street, the Asian-fusion restaurant Faan has closed due to rising rents and decreased patronage, according to Pardon Me For Asking. The neighborhood mourns not just the passing of Faan’s Kung Po Spaghetti and Shrimp Pad Thai — but the shuttering of their subterranean (and vaguely creepy) after-hours spot, Bar Below.
For the seafood lover in you: Lobsterfest is every Wednesday from now until the end of the summer (and no, we’re not talking about a Red Lobster pop-up). Melt restaurant on Bergen Street in Park Slope will be serving the crustaceans every which way — whole with drawn butter, in tacos, or as part of a curry lobster roll.
I wanna be tomate-d: Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you Marky Ramone, punk-rock drummer extraordinaire, dyed-in-the-wool Brooklyn boy and … red sauce spokesman? Say it ain’t so! Brooklyn Fare is just one place to find Brooklyn’s Own Pasta sauce “from the kitchen of Marky Ramone, a
recipe so flavorful, it beats the rest.” (Beats, get it?) Ramone designed the label for the bottle, too. Now that’s hardcore!
Hot stuff: Pier 6 at Brooklyn Bridge Park is going to be the place to eat this summer (besides, of course, the much-touted Smorgasburg). The New York Times reports that Bark will open a stand on May 28 from which to peddle their elevated hot dogs, before moving to a 200-seat terrace café on the pier, which will also sell wine and Sixpoint Craft Ale. Makes ballpark beer and brats truly pale in comparison.
Working for the weekend: The New York Times also had the first look at Nights and Weekends in Williamsburg, a new Bedford Avenue restaurant from the owners of Five Leaves café and bar. The laid-back tropical joint is bound to draw crowds for its outdoorsy feel, with three galvanized metal doors and fold-out windows that open up almost entirely onto the street. “It’s like a permanent Caribbean taco truck,” said owner Jud Mongell. We likey.
A Bistro awakens: Even though A Bistro — Fort Greene’s Senegalese café — was slated to expand into the Cellars space at Vanderbilt and DeKalb Avenues months ago, action had been at a standstill until very recently. Brownstoner just caught sight of a pending liquor license application for the restaurant, however, meaning locals just may be able to tuck into West African spicy chicken salad or moules with ginger-lemongrass broth before summers end.
He had sole: When Brian Mangan — owner of Chef with Sole in Bay Ridge — passed away from leukemia, the neighborhood truly felt the loss. Feelings are mixed over the new Mexican restaurant preparing to take over the vacated Third Ave. storefront — although you can win a lot of hearts with mojitos and margaritas, Mangan’s BYOB policy, slammin’ fish and chips, and of course, vibrant personality — will be hard to replace.
