Archive for December 2007

All of the action and excitement in Brooklyn’s Park Slope happens along its wide avenues, and as the neighborhood has developed, the action has moved steadily West towards the shore. Prospect Park forms a natural Eastern border to the neighborhood, and nearby Seventh and Eighth Avenues dominated the scene up until around the late 90’s. Since then, Fifth Avenue has undergone a radical transformation from one interminable, impoverished strip mall to the new center of the neighborhood. Trendy bistros replaced 99 cent stores, and dilapidated brownstones were whisked away, only to be replaced by construction zones, their wooden fences plastered with idealistic renderings of architecturally-confounding condominiums.

Some of the bars, stores and restaurants on Fifth Avenue predate the Avenue’s ‘hip’ status, however, and The Gate is one of them. It benefits from its prime location at the heart of Park Slope, across from Byrne Park, a popular park and playground surrounded by upscale restaurants and boutiques. Just like nearby Commonwealth, The Gate is a neighborhood joint through and through, a place where the regulars look more like your cool middle-aged college professor than your typical shrieking sorority girl (the staple resident of New York bars). If anything, the walk-in business generated by the street’s newfound popularity has turned off a lot of longtime loyal customers, who liked the place back when they could sit down with a Scotch and work on their novel in relative peace any night of the week, or strike up a lively debate with the bartender and the handful of other locals who haunted the place.

But whether they like it or not, The Gate has acquired a lot of new fans, and during the warmer months, when the bar’s large patio is swarming with after-work tipplers, mingling under clouds of cigarette smoke, the place becomes a great place to chat up cute locals. The bar has become a place for local residents to meet people who are actually interesting and literate and don’t harbor plans to start a hedge fund, and that is a rare thing indeed.

The bartenders at The Gate are great at what they do, and they’ll give you expert opinions on any of their fine selection of beers, both draft and bottle, as well as their carefully chosen Scotches, Whiskies, and whatever else your liver is craving. A constantly rotating selection of beers, focusing on smaller breweries (Rogue, Brooklyn, Blue Point) gives regular customers the chance to try things they might otherwise never taste on tap, if at all. The taps switch over to a new theme every few weeks, whether it’s beers made in the state of New York, Winter-themed brews, or beers that start with the letter A (OK, I made that last one up). Tech-savvy brewhounds can check The Gate’s blog to find out what’s on tap (http://thegatebrooklyn.blogspot.com/).

When married entrepreneurs Liat Cohen and Yaniv Reeis opened their tiny storefront in Park Slope, a neighborhood known for overpriced restaurants and stiff competition for fledgling businesses, the odds were against them. The neighborhood was already home to several successful cafés, including Tea Lounge, Ozzie’s, and Gorilla Coffee. And although nowadays you can’t throw a bagel in this town without hitting a gourmet chocolaterie, a few years ago, the concept of a chocolate bar was a tad alien to most people. Cocoa Bar, with its triple focus on chocolate, wine, and coffee, didn’t seem to fit into a category. Was it a bar? A café? A bakery?

In the end, Cohen and Reeis’ gamble paid off, in the form of a lasting business and brand name, which appears on packaged treats and gifts available for sale in the store. Cocoa Bar’s theme keeps the menu necessarily simple, with hot and cold coffee and chocolate beverages joining a respectable wine list, all of which serves to complement the main event: chocolate. Chocolate is celebrated in all its forms here, from gourmet truffles and bonbons (made specially for Cohen and Reeis by a local chocolatier) to a dizzying variety of decadent baked goods (provided by 9 local bakeries, at last count).

I took one of my girlfriends along on my trip to Cocoa Bar, and the first thing we noticed was the diminutive size of the place. The narrow nature of the brownstone location necessitates two seating areas at either end of the long counter. The back area features comfy couches and a bookshelf full of dog-eared volumes, but as we showed up during the pre-dinner hours, the laptop crowd had already laid dominion over the couches. This is my biggest pet peeve when it comes to cafés. You want to talk and laugh and have a good time, but there’s always some egghead glaring at you over his horn-rimmed glasses as he tries in vain to finish his thesis.

We took a seat by the window and dug into our desserts. The Red Velvet Cake was impossibly moist and cinnamony, and went perfectly with the house Merlot I washed it down with. My friend opted for a mini Chocolate Raspberry Torte, which was rich and satisfying, and paired with the house blend of French Roast coffee, made for a perfect afternoon bite. The owners warn on their website that their offerings release endorphins that make you giddy, and I don’t know if it was the chocolate or the Merlot, but I certainly felt a little lighter coming out of Cocoa Bar than I did coming in.

P.S. Chocoholics who don’t want to make the journey out to Park Slope can get their fix at Cocoa Bar’s new Manhattan location at 21 Clinton Street in the Lower East Side.

Royale is one of my favorite Park Slope bars, but it also stands as a lesson in “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” You see, it once featured exotic, harem-style canopies that half-enclosed round booths in the bar’s large back room, giving the place the unmistakable atmosphere of a desert oasis. In a neighborhood where most bars hang up a beer sign or two and call it a day, people came to Royale for their unique décor, among other things. Despite the popularity of the harem booths, a year or so ago, they inexplicably disappeared, replaced by normal (albeit larger) booths. Things just ain’t been the same since then.

Royale is still a beautiful bar, however, and its stylish color palette and antique decorative touches keep me coming back year after year. I took my drinking buddy, Liz, to the bar the other day after work. Liz is no stranger to the bar herself, and she was as ready as I was to take advantage of what the bar refers to as Royal Happy Hour, which takes place every day between 5pm and 9pm. Wine, well drinks, and selected draft beers are two for one during this special, so Liz and I toasted our Yuenglings, all aglow with the promise of a free second round

Our favorite bartender, Christopher, has excellent taste in movies, and is always playing something awesome when you walk in the bar. This can be treacherous, as I inevitably end up watching the film instead of socializing. On the other hand, there’s something comforting about taking in a screening of “The Big Lebowski” while you down your brews, bonding with the barflies over the wacky antics of Jesus the Bowler.

For those more interested in catching up with their friends, the bar’s refurnished back room offers a bevy of other options. A beer pong table will allow you to get your friends drunk and show off your table tennis skills at the same time, while the permanent DJ booth hosts an ongoing rotation of spin artists who represent a rainbow of genres for all tastes. The bar turns into something of a dance club on the weekends, and that’s when it really sets itself apart from the other bars in the area. The next time you’re in the area on a Saturday night, take your girlfriends to Royale and dance the night away with the hip locals. It’s a good excuse to put the moves on the cute emo guy at the end of the bar, or, failing that, to work off the six beers that got you on the dance floor in the first place.

The south side of Park Slope is changing rapidly. The area was once known mainly for its auto shops and beauty parlors, and unless you had JFK Chicken in mind, you would be sorely disappointed if you chose to stage a night out on the town there. As the rent in Park Slope proper escalates, however, and the bohemian artist types who made the neighborhood what it is are forced out, Park Slope south, with its cheap rents and friendly neighbors, is a natural refuge. And as always seems to happen, as soon as the poor artists are forced into a particular as-yet-ungentrified neighborhood, the businesses soon follow. So nowadays, thanks to the sky-high rates on brownstones in the P Slope, my little neighborhood is becoming home to sushi places, health food stores, upscale cafés, and now, miracle of miracles, a wine bar!

Vin Rouge provides a welcome respite from the slough of nearby hipster bars where the house special is never more than a few clicks from PBR. Its warm, inviting interior beckons passersby through the French doors along the street, which they prop open during the summer, giving the place an open-air atmosphere. Exposed brick and an elegant wooden bar lend a Parisian feel, but the cozy and attractive smoking patio is vintage New York.

The small, knowledgeable staff will charm you with their enthusiasm for wine from the minute you arrive, but it would be difficult to make a misstep here. The menu is comprehensive in terms of types of wine offered, but it is also short, and thankfully, kind on the wallet. No bottle is over $50, and glasses range from about $5-12, so you can afford to try a few different things. Bringing your friends automatically multiplies the number of wines you can taste, and makes the tasting all the more fun, so invite all the wine lovers in your life to really make a night out of it. Such an ambitious tasting requires munchie foods, which Vin Rouge is now serving. Appetizers range from $3-10 and include nuts, olives, and a number of different cheese and meat plates. Bread is provided by the nearby Lopez Bakery, while the gourmet meats and cheeses hail from Bierkraft, a beloved Park Slope haven for beer and upscale deli foods (think Duck Confit, not Boar’s Head).

I have been here several times and have had the good fortune to taste a large number of fantastic wines. I have always been a sucker for Sangiovese, and the one I tried here, the Collelceto Sangiovese, Rosso di Montalcino, 2003 Tuscany ($9) was just lovely. Deliciously dry and poured generously by our bartender, it lasted me a long and pleasant time. My friend Liz ordered a special, the Bogle Petit Syrah ($10), and was equally pleased with her choice, finding it rich and complex in flavor. The Pâté Plate with cornichons, mustard and bread ($7.50) sounded interesting, but we instead opted for the Two Cheese Platter ($10), and while we thoroughly enjoyed the cheeses, we found the crackers provided to be a bit, well, cheap. A nice cheese deserves more than Ritz, that’s all I’m saying.

We soon forgot about the crackers, however, as the wine continued to flow. We opted for a round of dessert wines, always fans of a nice port or sherry. The one I decided to go with, the Casta Diva Muscat, 2005, Alicante, Spain ($9) was incredible, a wine that made me understand the term “nectar of the gods.” The Graham's Port "Six Grapes" NV, Duoro, Portugal ($6), while perhaps not as transcendant as the Casta Diva Muscat, was a formidable dessert wine on its own, and I would certainly recommend it to Port fans like myself.

I regret that I never manage to save room for dessert when I go to Vin Rouge, but I plan on trying their Wine Sorbet ($2/scoop) one day, or perhaps their Assorted Sugar Cookie Plate ($3.50) or the decadent-sounding Brownie with Ice Cream and Vodka Raspberry Sauce ($5). Unfortunately, they don’t yet serve cappuccino drinks (despite the fact that they are an offshoot of Has Beans, the popular café across the street), but they do offer French Press coffee and a variety of teas, which should satisfy your after-dinner caffeine deficiency. In a place with so many incredible bottles of wine on their racks, however, you’d be well advised to forget about the coffee and bone up on your knowledge of Sherry instead. I’ll toast to that!

A good café is hard to find, and now that Starbucks is invading every nook and cranny of the five boroughs, it’s even harder. The little coffee shops that struggled but managed to get by back in the day are now facing escalating rents that the big chains have no problem paying. So it’s a rare treat when you discover a place in your neighborhood that runs circles around Starbucks and can stay open for more than six months. Café Sutra is such a place.

I’ll admit I’m more of a barfly than a beatnik, and that my idea of a wild Saturday night usually doesn’t include unlimited refills of Jamaican Blue Mountain. And although I fancy myself a girl who can hold her liquor, my best friend Liz puts me to shame. So when I took her to Café Sutra after having just discovered it, I was prepared to have another ho-hum latte and get back to the bar. But that’s when I discovered the best part about Café Sutra…they serve booze! Now that’s my kind of coffee shop! A wide variety of beers, including local favorites like Brooklyn Lager, joins an assortment of wines and mostly frozen cocktails to form a decent drink menu, all the better for when you’ve had your fill of caffeine but still want to savor the atmosphere.

And atmosphere there is. The name Café Sutra, in case your mind is in the gutter, relates to the café’s focus on India and the Hindu religion. This cultural inspiration permeates everything from the names of the specialty mocha and tea drinks to the warm and exotic décor. Though under new ownership, the café has kept its Hindi theme, and for that I’m grateful. The new owners have also introduced live music on Friday and Saturday nights, and their happy hour drink specials keep the place buzzing the rest of the week. During the warmer months, the patio is the place to be, for the night air and, for you smokers out there, a chance to evade the long arm of the indoor smoking ban for a few precious hours.

All of the coffee and tea drinks at Café Sutra are delicious, but I usually order the Earl Grey Skies, a tea drink which is made with real bergamot oil. Liz is more of a strong coffee girl, and she highly approved of the house blend here, which is dark and nutty and generally not for the weak of heart (or ulcer). If you like chocolate, be sure to try one of Café Sutra’s specialty lattes, like the decadent Almond Zen, which contains Ghiradelli chocolate, almond, and coconut. Or if the winter blues have got you down, have a summer flashback with a frozen hot chocolate or frozen lemonade, both of which are like candy in a glass. Speaking of candy, the café offers a rotating selection of desserts that tempt you from their pastry case like chocolaty sirens. They’re perfect for sharing, which we all know girls like to do, because somehow they feel like that negates the calories. I don’t bother to squabble over calories – it’s dessert, it’s supposed to give you chest pains. Luckily, Café Sutra seems to agree; none of their desserts could be described as light.

So the next time you’re in Park Slope south, stop in and meditate over a cup of liquid karma. Or, failing that, a frozen sangria.