It’s been a booming fortnight in the foodie world. Here’s the latest gossip and news from our gourmet desk:
Longer ‘Mile’: The instantly insanely popular smoked meat delicatessen Mile End tells us that it will expand to full dinner service this month, once a bigger warehouse is arranged to store the tons of meat the shop goes through every day.
• Bahn mi for Clinton Hill: Brooklyn is getting yet another Vietnamese sandwich joint — though the bahn mi at Tigerlily, coming soon to the corner of Greene and Classon Avenues in Clinton Hill, may not be your average sandwich. The owner, a Vietnamese-American Pratt graduate, plans to include influences from her Texas upbringing. Vietnamese-Tex-Mex, anyone?
• Heating up in Bed-Stuy: Craig Samuel and Ben Grossman bring us yet another hit — the pair recently opened Peaches HotHouse in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a similar, but more casual approach to southern fare as Bushwick’s Peaches. Expect rare southern favorites like deep-fried Nashville-style hot chicken and creamy rice balls made with heirloom rice.
• Flea food: The folks at the Brooklyn Flea have finally taken the hint — coming this month, a much-expanded line of food vendors. Among the most promising new additions: Porchetta, Montreal-style bagels and lox from Mile End, and Stroopwafels from Good Batch.
• Border beer: The desert that is the Gowanus-Park Slope border just may be Brooklyn’s new craft beer destination — on Friday, Mission Dolores, the highly anticipated craft beer garden from the folks at Bar Great Harry, opens on Fourth Avenue and Carroll Street. The bar joins Lowlands, a bar that opened last week on 14th Street and Third Avenue by the crew at Abilene in Carroll Garden, not to mention craft beer havens Draft Barn and The Bell House.
• The shutter: Park Slope said good-bye to teeny sandwiches (and late-night snacking) with the closing of Reis 100, the miniature sandwich factory attached to Fifth Avenue’s Bar Reis. Fret not, the bar still stands — you’ll just have to stumble elsewhere for your drunken munchies.
• New neighbors: The long-shuttered OTB on the corner of Court and Sackett has a whole new set of plywood — and Internet buzz suggests there just might be an oyster bar in the works. Department of Buildings permits are issued to James McGown, the owner of PJ Hanley’s. Could the Brooklyn pizza man be ditching pizza for shellfish?
• Now this is kosher: You’ll have a tough time getting a Friday night reservation at Basil, Crown Height’s new wood-oven pizzeria — the pizzeria and wine bar closes to observe the Sabbath. But good news for pizza loving Jews: Basil is the first kosher wood-oven pizzeria in Brooklyn.
• The Foodification of Bushwick: Bushwick is well on it’s way to becoming Brooklyn’s new “it” culinary destination with the a new sushi spot slated for May from the people at Williamsburg sushi favorite Bozu. The restaurant, Momo Sushi Shack, bares no relation to the David Chang franchise, but expect at least some confusion when Chang moves his Momofuku Milk bakery operation to Williamsburg.
• Keller for Brooklyn?: Last week, iconic Per Se chef Thomas Keller told Feast that a Bouchon Brooklyn may be in the cards. Plans for a branch of the celebrated bakery across the river are by no means finalized, but we’re sure the move would make for a lot of very happy Brooklynites.
