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I am bad with secrets. I’ve always been bad with secrets. You shouldn’t tell me any secrets, secret holders, because I will give them away.
Case in point: the brunch you see above. What is it? Where can you get it? Why do I love it so?
If I were a good secret keeper, I’d end the post here. But I am not a good secret keeper and alas you shall know…
Last we spoke about restaurant reviews, I’d sworn them off (see here) with the caveat: “If I go out to eat and have a spectacular meal, of course I’ll tell you about it.” Well a week ago that happened right here in Park Slope at a place called Moim.
In the current food issue of The New Yorker, Calvin Trillin wonders–in another one of his hilarious food essays–if “through some rare genetic oddity, my sense of taste is at full strength only when I’m standing up.” He wonders this because of his deep love for street food. As a participant of the Calvin Trillin walking tour last year, I was lucky enough to eat street food standing up with the man himself. And the best bite of the tour was, by far, the bite you see above.
Brunch, more than any other meal, celebrates abundance. We don’t want one pancake when we go to brunch, we want a stack of glistening, syrup-coated chocolate-stuffed pancakes. Yet one pancake–a solitary, singular pancake–is one of the peculiarities you’ll find on the brunch menu at Flatbush Farm, a lovely neighborhood gastropub in Park Slope.
I love having a February birthday. If I see the light, some day, and I’m born again I hope it’s in February. Having a February birthday means that in the dead of winter, when it’s cruelly cold outside, you have a big happy day to look forward to. Add to that Craig’s birthday, also in February, and Valentine’s Day and you have a month worth celebrating.
Take this pancake, for example:
I ate this pancake on my birthday. Craig and I went to August in the Village, something we wouldn’t ordinarily do but because it was my birthday we had a reason. And it was a good pancake, a mighty good pancake. Craig loved brunching in the sun room at August (it was his first time there) he said he felt like we were in Montreal. I liked how the pancake was cooked in a wood-burning oven, though–I must say–the inside of the middle of the pancake was undercooked (the batter ran out when I cut in). But it was a dynamite pancake (studded with golden raisins, I should add) and we have February to thank for it.
I’ve never been a big fan of flan. For starters, the word “flan” seems to fuse together two words that don’t exactly whet the appetite: flacid and wan. And then there are memories of bad flan in Spanish class in high school. We all had to bring in a dish (Jessica Aronowitz and I made guacamole) and someone brought in flan, which I remember as a gelatinous blob that tasted like chemicals and milk. I think the person who brought it in made it from some kind of box the way you make Jell-O from a box. If I were the teacher, I’d have suspended him.
Luckily, my flan phobia has been remedied by the flan you see above. I joined food writer Dana Bowen at Chiles & Chocolate in Park Slope on Tuesday. The space is wonderfully eclectic and authentic, a paean to the Oaxacan culture that the restaurant pays tribute to. We were tended to by a jovial host/hostesss/waitress/coffee-maker who engaged us at every turn about the food we were eating. Dana (pronounced Dah-na, like banana) had been there once before and steered me through the menu. I thought she was steering like a crazy person when she suggested we share a corn fungus quesadilla. Or, more precisely, a “Huitlacoche” quesadilla.
“Corn fungus?” I protested. “Like…real fungus?”
“It’s really earthy and strange,” promised Dana. “You’ll love it.”
So here it is:
What looks like black beans on the inside is actually the Huitlacoche. Like Dana said, it has a muted, earthy flavor–subtle and strange and not like anything you’ve ever had.
“The French have truffles,” said our waitress. “And the Mexicans have huitalacoche.”
My chicken mole entree was a bit disappointing. Dana had the “mole negro” (which I ordered) a few nights earlier and she was convinced that the mole on my plate wasn’t the mole negro because it was so red. We asked the waitress and she said it was the mole negro so we ultimately believed her, though we both agreed the mole was a bit lackluster and had a bitter aftertaste. (Dana had tamales which she liked.)
The best part of the whole meal, though, was the flan you see at the top. It was fantastic: creamy, rich, sweet but not cloying. Enough to make a flan convert out of anyone, especially me.
“This is the best flan I’ve ever had,” I told Dana.
“Isn’t it great?”
A final bite remained on the plate and I offered it to Dana. She said “No thanks, it’s so rich” so I scarfed it down. And with that final bite I retired my Soul Man status and accepted my new role as Flan Man. I am a man who likes flan.
“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard.” – Dorothy, Wizard of Oz
Good point, Dorothy! And since I live in Park Slope it’s time to stop trekking into Manhattan for my stomach’s desire and time to start searching right here where I live. Especially because it’s snowing. And icy. And cold.
So here’s what I found. I found this awesome pizza at Franny’s:
Franny’s was in my brain like a forgettable cousin, flitting around the Bar Mitzvah of my consciousness, never really getting noticed as I was lifted in my chair to Hava Nagila. I knew Diana went on a date at Franny’s (prognosis: good pizza, bad date). And then I had dinner with Julie, Lauren’s girlfriend, here for work from D.C. and she told me she’d been to Franny’s with her co-workers and she couldn’t believe I’d never been there. Especially because I live a few blocks away. And so I went with Craig to Franny’s.
Let’s write about Al Di La. (That’s what the voice in my head just said as I sat down to do work; I have various projects going, but the voice in my head cares about you, my reader, sitting at your desk desperate to see pictures of food. (How many of you just scroll through the pictures and gaze quickly at the text? I’m guessing most. (It’s ok, I don’t judge you.)))
So Al Di La:
As you can see, the sign says “Al Di La Vino.” That’s because the regular Al Di La was full and the host told us to go around the corner to “Vino” and we’d be seated right away. So we did and we were glad because it’s nice to be seated right away. (This was Sunday night, by the way, where Al Di La is less crowded; on Saturday night, don’t even try–you won’t get close.)
