Park Slope: Crispy Tater Tot Nachos at Pork Slope

T and I stopped into Pork Slope for a snack on a recent Saturday as we were running errands in the Park Slope neighborhood.  We weren't that hungry so we just ordered the Irish Nachos appetizer, which consisted of chili, jalapenos, cheddar, tomatoes, onions, and tater tots instead of tortilla chips.  This dish is comforty goodness.  It had a rich, spicy, meaty flavor and the tater tots stayed remarkably crispy.  An excellent snack or appetizer.

Irish Nachos
★★★★☆

Gowanus: Tender and Moist Fried Chicken at Seersucker

T and I went out for dinner recently at Seersucker, a restaurant in Gowanus that specializes in southern food

We started out with the Biscuit Box.  These were very tasty.  The biscuits are soft and warm.  The molasses butter is really nice, like peanut butter but thinner and not as sweet.  The jams were great too.  I preferred the peach which was not as sweet as the blueberry, but both were good.

Biscuit Box ★★★★☆

T ordered the Country Fried Steak as her main entree.  The sauce, a tomato pesto cream gravy, was pretty good but unfortunately, the steak was overcooked and tough.

Country Fried Steak ★★★☆☆

T's entree also came with a side of Mac 'n' Cheese, which was pretty good.  It was creamy, soft and truly comforting.  The crust is nice and crisp, and the shells were soft and gooey, due to the super hot cheese.

Mac 'n' Cheese ★★★★☆

For my entree, I ordered the Fried Chicken, which came with baby carrots, yukon potato puree, and a sweet onion-bourbon gravy.  The Fried Chicken is Seersucker's signature dish and they do it really well.  The chicken was delicious.  I was a little surprised that it was boneless.  But the crust was well-seasoned and the meat was so tender and moist.  The gravy was also really tasty.  The sweetness of the gravy went particularly well with the potato puree.

Fried Chicken ★★★★★

Overall, Seersucker has some pretty good food, especially if you're in the mood for fried chicken.

Flatbush: Delicious Filipino Desserts at Purple Yam

T and I went to a Filipino place for dinner recently that is right around the corner from us.  It is called Purple Yam and some of my Filipino friends from New Jersey said that they travel all the way out to Brooklyn to eat there.

These are the dishes we ate:

Lumpia Shanghai.  Purple Yam's Lumpia Shanghai are deep-fried spring rolls stuffed with pork, mushrooms, carrots, and jicama and served with a sweet-sour pineapple dipping sauce.  There was a nice meatiness to these spring rolls.  The sourness of the pineapple sauce was a bit of a shock but the sauce, combined with the fresh carrots and daikon, made the dish quite distinctive and rather refreshing for a fried spring roll.

Lumpia Shanghai ★★★★☆

Tocino Sliders.  This was a great blend of meat, fruit, vegetables and bread.  The sugar-achuete cured pork blended was tender and meaty.  The sweetness of the cantaloupe and the crunchiness of the cucumber and jicama made the sliders surprisingly fresh, and the sweet, soft bread just added to the contrasting textures and flavors.  A nice appetizer.
 

Tocino Sliders ★★★★☆

Chicken Adobo.  Purple Yam's Chicken Adobo is delicious.  The chicken was soft and tender but it was the sauce that really makes the dish distinctive.  At first, the sourness of the sauce is shocking, but we could not stop pouring it on our rice.  The sauce is actually pretty simple, just vinegar, soy sauce and garlic.  But by the end, we had smothered as much sauce as we could on the rice and devoured it.  Yum!

Chicken Adobo ★★★★☆

Halo Halo.  Purple Yam's halo halo is an ice dessert with sweet beans, palm seed, cocogel, agar agar, coconut sport, jackfruit topped with flan and purple yam ice cream.  This is absolutely the best dessert I have had all summer!  This halo halo was so unbelievably refreshing.  The combination of ice, fruit, and sweet, gummy jelly things was a nice blend of textures of flavors.  But it was the ice cream that set this dessert apart.  Purple Yam makes its own ice creams and their purple yam flavor is fantastic.  It's creamy, earthy, sweet, but not too sweet, and blends so well with all of the other parts of the dessert.  It's a must have every time we go to Purple Yam.

Halo Halo ★★★★★

8/19/13 UPDATE:

Went back to Purple Yam for Sunday brunch with T and a friend from Boston.  This is what we ate:

Beef Tapa with Garlic Fried Rice and Eggs.  Beef tapa is air-dried beef.  It has an interesting texture. A little drier than stir-fried beef, Purple Yam's version was sweet and chewy.  It was pretty tasty and with the eggs and rice, made for a nice brunch dish.

Beef Tapa with Garlic Fried Rice and Eggs ★★★★☆

Pan-Fried Beet and Corn Wontons.  Never had beet and corn wontons before.  These were slightly sweet with a soft, mushy interior.  Couldn't really taste the corn.  A creative wonton, but not terribly tasty.

Pan-Fried Beet and Corn Wontons ★★★☆☆

Buko Pie with Macapuno Ice Cream.  Buko Pie is made with young coconut.  It is similar to a coconut cream pie but made with young coconut that is tougher and firmer.  The filling is also not as creamy since there is no cream in it.  Purple Yam's Buko Pie was warm, soft and tasty.  The coconut pieces were bigger than I expected and didn't add that much.  The Macapuno Ice Cream though is a type of coconut ice cream and complemented the pie nicely.  A nice dessert. 

Buko Pie with Macapuno Ice Cream ★★★★☆

Mango Tart with Mango Ice Cream.  Fantastic! This was not what I expected when I ordered the Mango Tart but this was totally awesome.  The filling is warm, soft delicious mango.  The pastry is thin and soft but topped with a layer of crisp, caramelized sugar.  The ice cream, which is homemade, was also really good.  Everything about this dessert was perfect!

Mango Tart with Mango Ice Cream ★★★★★

 Purple Yam's food is fun, original and tasty.  Good food overall, with delicious desserts.

Williamsburg: Sweet and Savory Ribs at Traif

T and I recently decided to go out for a nice dinner in Williamsburg.  We decided to try Traif, a place that gets great reviews on Yelp.  The dishes at Traif are small, kind of like Tapas, but with American food.

Here are the dishes we ate:

Cheese Platter.  This was just okay.  The blue cheese was good but the two soft cheeses didn't have much flavor.

Cheese Platter ★★★☆☆

Strawberry-Cinnamon Glazed Berkshire Baby Back Ribs.  This was the best thing we ate.  The sauce on the ribs is great.  You can pick the meat right off the bone.  The meat has a slight crispness on the outside but is really tender on the inside.

Strawberry-Cinnamon Glazed Berkshire Baby Back Ribs ★★★★★

Seared Dayboat Scallops, Snap & English Pea Risotto, Caper-Tomato-Lemon Brown Butter.  The scallops were nicely seared, the risotto complemented the scallops nicely and the caper-tomato-lemon brown butter gave the dish a refreshing hint of sourness.

Scallops ★★★★☆

Tomatoes and Creamed Corn.  This dish was a really nice blend of sour and sweet, hot and cold, and with a slight hint of sourness.

Tomateos and Creamed Corn ★★★★☆

Sauteed Broccoli Rabe, Portabello Mushrooms, Truffle Toast, Fried Egg, Aged Asiago.   A really good dish.  The toast and the egg make you think of breakfast, the mushrooms were really good, the broccoli rabe gave the dish that nice leafy, slightly bitter flavor and the gravy-like sauce added a touch of creaminess to the dish.  I really enjoyed this dish.

Sauteed Broccoli Rabe, Portabello Mushrooms, Truffle Toast, Fried Egg, Aged Asiago ★★★★☆

BBQ Braised Short Rib Sliders, Sweet Potato Fries, Smoked Paprika Aioli. The short ribs had a nice kick although they were a little mushy.  The sweet potato fries were crispy and delicious and tasted even better when dipped in the creamy paprika aioli.

Short Rib Sliders ★★★★☆

Bacon Doughnuts and Coffee Ice Cream.  The doughnuts themselves were sweet and fluffy.  The bacon crumble topping, on the other hand, was salty and crunchy.  They proved a nice contrast to each other, as did the ice cream, which had a really really strong coffee flavor.  All in all, a really interesting blend of flavors that worked well together.

Bacon Doughnuts and Coffee Ice Cream ★★★★☆

 A meal at Traif is a really fun and tasty experience.  The standout is the Strawberry-Cinnamon Glazed Baby Back Ribs, but Traif has many other tasty and fun dishes too.

Fort Greene: Tasty Cronuts at Le Petit Bakery

I was so looking forward to trying my very first cronut ever.  But there was no way I was waiting in line for hours at Dominique Ansell's bakery in Manhattan.  Luckily, Le Petit Bakery is the first place in Brooklyn to come out with their very own version of the cronut.  So I drove out early on a Saturday morning to get some.  I was so happy that there was no line at all.

On this day, Le Petit Bakery was selling three types of cronuts (they call them Squats): Vanilla Sprinkle, Chocolate Bacon and Lemon Meringue.  I got two of each.

My Box of Squats

Vanilla Sprinkle.  Very tasty.  The cronut is stuffed with vanilla pudding, which is a surprise when you first bite into it.  The pudding is very tasty though and right away gives this treat a distinctive texture and flavor.  The pudding flavor kind of bursts in your mouth.  The only problem though is that the cronut is way too greasy, enough that it might turn off some folks.

 

Vanilla Sprinkle Squat ★★★★☆

Chocolate Bacon.  Like the Vanilla Sprinkle, the Chocolate Bacon filling tastes like pudding.  But this is certainly outstanding chocolate pudding!  The chocolate flavor just bursts into your mouth!  It is both creamy and refreshing.  The crunchy bacon topping and sweet icing contrast nicely with the creamy chocolate filling.  Again, the cronut is way too greasy but this is still an excellent treat.

Chocolate Bacon Squat ★★★★☆

Lemon Meringue.  This cronut is quite different from the other two.  The filling is just like the filling in a lemon meringue pie.  What I really like about this cronut is that Le Petit Bakery didn't hold back on the sour.  The filling is really tart and delicious and is a nice alternative to the other cronuts on the menu, which tend to be on the sweeter side.

Lemon Meringue Squat ★★★★☆

Overall, the cronuts at Le Petit Bakery are really tasty and full of flavor.  The only thing I would suggest is to try to make them less greasy.

Park Slope: Inventive Ice Cream and Sorbet at SkyIce

Recently, we stumbled upon a small place in Park Slope that serves a few Thai dishes, ice cream and sorbets.  The ice creams and sorbets looked particularly good, and there were a variety of unique flavors, so we opted just for dessert.

SkyIce offers ice cream sampler platters, which is perfect if you want to try a lot of different flavors.  T and I decided to each get a sampler.  Mine consisted of:  Mangosteen, Cucumber Lime,
Watermelon, Thai Tea, and Lychee Rose.  The Mangosteen sorbet was only okay.  It was very light and not too flavorful.  The Cucumber Lime sorbet was very good.  The cucumber gives it a surprising freshness.  The Watermelon sorbet was also really good.  I was surprised at what an authentic watermelon flavor it had.  The two standouts though were the Lychee Rose sorbet and the Thai Tea ice cream.  Both were delicious.  The Lychee Rose is very sweet and has a remarkably strong lychee flavor.  The Thai Tea is an ice cream that is simply fantastic.  The ice cream captured the flavor of Thai Iced Tea so perfectly that I just had to buy a pint to take home with me.

Left to Right:
Mangosteen ★★★☆☆
Watermelon ★★★★☆
Cucumber Lime ★★★★☆
Lychee Rose ★★★★★
Thai Tea ★★★★★

T's platter consisted of: Rasberry Cilantro, Roasted Thai Coconut, Lychee Rose, Black Sesame Seaweed and Durian.  The Rasberry Cilantro was okay, but the cilantro flavor was too strong.  Similarly, I didn't care for the seaweed flavor in the Black Sesame Seaweed.  The Roasted Thai Coconut  was better, with a really nice coconut flavor.  I didn't taste the Durian because I hate Durian, but T said that it was delicious and really tasted like Durian.
 

Left to Right:
Rasberry Cilantro ★★★☆☆
Lychee Rose ★★★★★
Black Sesame Seaweed ★★★☆☆
Roasted Thai Coconut ★★★★☆
Durian ★★★★★

All in all, SkyIce has some real gems like the Thai Tea and Lychee and, if you like Durian, T says this is the best Durian Ice Cream she has had.  We are definitely coming back.

Prospect Heights: Surprisingly Burnt Pizza at Franny's

One of the most talked about pizzas in Brooklyn is Franny's clam pizza.  I love clam pizza, ever since I had it at a place in Boston called Fig's.  So for my birthday, T and I decided to see what all the buzz was about.

Franny's has a bunch of eclectic appetizers and we decided to start off with two of them before diving into the pizza.  First, we ordered the Buffalo Mozzarella with Peas, Mint and Pine Nuts.  This app was excellent.  The olive oil is really good and the peas and pine nuts add nice flavor to the extremely soft and tender mozzarella.

Buffalo Mozzarella with Peas, Mint and Pine Nuts ★★★★☆

The second appetizer we ordered was the Wood Roasted Sunchokes with Almonds and Pecorino Ginepro.  This was also an excellent app.  The dish was lemony, with a nice mix of textures.  The crunchy sunchokes mix nicely with the soft roasted potatoes, little bits of cheese, crunchy almonds and crispy spring onions.

Wood Roasted Sunchokes with Almonds and Pecorino Ginepro ★★★★☆

Unfortunately, the apps were the best part of the meal.  T and I decided to split the Clam Pie.  We expected it to be great but unfortunately it was just bad.  First, it was burnt.  Normally, I don't mind if my pizza is a little burnt, but this one was just too much.  You could taste the burntness in every bite, which really ruined the pizza for us.  Second, the flavor of the pie just wasn't that good.  The clam sauce that is on the pie had kind of a funny taste and was mostly dried out from overcooking.  Third, the pizza was really small and I felt like I was done after a few bites.  All in all, thoroughly disappointing.

Pizza with Clams, Chilies and Parsley ★★☆☆☆