For your fast-breaking needs, Brooklyn has it all.
On the day of atonement — Yom Kippur — Jews fast for 24 hours in expiation for sins accumulated the past year.
But the best part is the meal after the solemn holiday, a carbs-heavy, typically diary-centric, supper featuring the best Semetic foods that 4,000 years of diasporic tradition has to offer.
That meal is set for seconds after sundown on Saturday, Sept. 18.
To host the perfect break-fast in the comfort of your own home, pick up some bagels, lox, or prepared noshes from these fine establishments located all over our fine borough. And may you be inscribed in the book of life for another year — now let’s eat.
The staples
Pomegranate, the Midwood supermarket, has been a veritable Mecca of kosher prepared foods since August, 2008. Browse through the 20,000 square feet of aisles for Shabbat candles, frozen dinners and the widest selection of Israeli food products in the city. Pick up some stuffed cabbage, corned beef cured in brine on site or a loaf of olive bread for something a little different this season of repentance.
Pomegranate, [1507 Coney Island Ave. at Avenue L, Midwood. (718) 951-7112]
Fishing around
If you’re leaning towards inviting friends over for a smoked fish spread, go straight to the source. Every Friday morning, on Gem Street near N. 15th Street in Greenpoint, the great Acme Fish smokehouse opens as a retail market. Customers can choose from cold smoked salmon and its saltier cousin, lox, to hot-smoked fish such as whitefish, sable, black cod, and even tuna, all of which are kosher. Acme fish products are available in a number of grocery and specialty stores, as is its tasty Williamsburg-based rival, Service Smoked Fish, under the label Brooklyn’s Best. Don’t be a chub, buy some fish for your friends (or better yet, buy some chub, a smoked fish variety).
Acme Fish [30 Gem St. at N. 15th Street, Greenpoint. (718) 383-8585]. Fridays only.
Holey matters
Lox and bagels are the blessed combination that means that this exhausting holy day is finally over. Narrowing down the best place to buy a bagel in Brooklyn is like trying to win a definitive argument with a Talmudic scholar. It just leads to more questions. And more bagels. We’ve picked three of our favorites: Bagel Hole in Park Slope, which keeps its bagels tasty, crisp and small; the efficient La Bagel Delight, which feeds the Court Street breakfast and lunch crowd; and The Bagel Store in Williamsburg which bakes 1,700 a day.
Bagel Hole [400 Seventh Ave. between 12th and 13 streets in Park Slope, (718) 788-4014]; The Bagel Store [247 Bedford Ave. at N. Third Street in Williamsburg, (718) 218-7244]; La Bagel Delight [90 Court St. in Brooklyn Heights (718) 522-4495].
Let Jay and Lloyd do it
If all that standing and praying has you pooped, head over to Jay and Lloyd’s Kosher Deli on Avenue U at E. 27th Street in Sheepshead Bay for a respite. For 17 years, Lloyd Lederman has been serving sandwiches, latkes and pickles to hungry customers of several generations. Everyone comes for the pastrami on rye, though the brisket and onions and chopped liver sandwiches are good bets for beefing up after your long fast.
Jay and Lloyd’s Kosher Deli and Family Restaurant [2718 Avenue U at 27th Street, Sheepshead Bay. (718) 891-5298]
Montreal Jews
Brooklyn’s newest Jewish-inspired restaurant, Mile End features Montreal-style smoked meat that will likely become a holiday tradition. Owner Noah Bernamoff has been smoking his own meat since January to the delight of foodies in and beyond Cobble Hill. The smoked meat sandwich, filled with gloriously fatty, thick-cut pastrami is a showstopper, but the Ruth Wilensky (salami on an onion roll), and the poulet shaud (pan-roasted half-chicken with homemade challah) are also excellent. There may be few places better to break the fast Saturday night — if you aren’t get tempted to sneak over there right after shul for a naughty lunch break.
Mile End Delicatessen [97 Hoyt St. between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street in Boerum Hill, (718) 852-7510].