Saturday Nights are for Eating
It’s been a while since we’ve had a crazy eating evening. Mrs. Robot and I are both fans of Yelp (technically I think we are “Yelpers”) and when not using it to find tacos we are constantly shaking our fists at Peter D. who is a Brooklyn-Yelper and must eat out for every single meal and never go to the same place twice. We also seem to like the same places that he likes so our joke now is that instead of checking Yelp, we are checking Peter D.
“Did Peter D. like it?”
Smith Street
We live in the grand borough (“Borough es Grande!”) of Brooklyn in the “trendy” neighborhood of Cobble Gardens/Carroll Hill.
Holy crap. I’m so tired of Smith Street.
“Oh, you live on Smith Street? How fancy!” people might say.
This is one tired-ass street. Yes, there are some jewels.
The jewels:
Grocery. Saul. Ki Sushi. The pancakes at Café Luluc. Deviled eggs and cocktails at Clover Club. Jake Walk. Pâté and cheese at Stinky. Bar Tabac when it’s not loony crowded.
But for every jewel you have five half-assed no-style crap factories.
Ugh. Tired tired tired tired. As Chris Rock would say.
(amazing photo in that there is no food shown)
Battersby Brooklyn
Hello there. Who are you?
They opened in the old Patois space (awwww) back in October but that last part of the year for us was mad crazy and we totally missed that there was a new place in town. We were on the Yelpernet and the review popped up somehow with crazy high scores – including the coveted Peter D review.
Scooped again (although by about four months).
Saturday night (remember Saturday? It was like minus one hundred degrees celtigradeheit.) we trekked up to Battersby and put our name on the list. We then retired to Jake Walk for a lovely cocktail and some old cheese. For real, it really was lovely.
The charming host texted us that they had some seats at the bar after about 45 minutes so we hightailed it back. Let me say, I’m glad she chose to text us. Otherwise I would have had to go outside in the cold to answer the call. It also allowed me to reply with a cute emoticon thing.
Small space. Very small kitchen with three chefs who somehow weren’t running into each other and/or stabbing each other with knives. We opted for the tasting menu as we were having a hard time deciding. Good choice.
Ordered a bottle of an Alsace Riesling (interesting choice (to carry from Alsace)).
Tasting Menu
Luckily I recorded all of this on the popular SpaceBook website. This is what we had.
→Chicken liver mousse on toast. Mrs. Robot loves chicken liver.
→Duck Pâté. See, I like both those words quite a bit.
→Ricotta with an amazing focaccia (I tried to not “load up on bread” as mom would say).
→Kale. Endive. Anchovies. (way more awesome than I expected)
→Mushrooms. Poached eggs. Spinach. (awesomes awesomes)
→Trigger fish. Swiss chard. (fish excellent. broth spectacular.)
→Sauerkraut. Pork rib. Apples. (the saurkraut - holy moly. for real? how is that saurkraut so good?)
→Fennel. Lemon. Panna cotta
→Olive oil cake. (have mercy)
Sweet Jeebus have mercy
They are really turning out some excellent food here. My one take-away from the dinner was how delicious the various broths and liquid-y things were. We licked many of the plates clean.
Oh, snap. The olive oil cake. Not only was it olive oil cake and all moist and tasty, but it had amaretto in it. Crikey. I love me some boozed up cake.
All of this said, I’d rather you not come and visit this restaurant and make our waits super-long. You have nice restaurants in your neighborhood, right?
Photos
I didn’t really take photos. It was pretty dark in there and I was also having way too good of a time drinking wine and wooing my wife.
Here are some great pics of their dishes on the internets.
