Pitaz in da Hood

Last night, Mark and I went to see ouor friends The Beets play at Cake Shop on Ludlow, which used to be a record store with a cafe and record shop upstairs and venue downstairs, at least last year, which is the last time I was in there, I think. Now they don't even sell records anymore. They just use the super shitty mildly tounge-in-cheek-schticky covers to decorate the ceiling of their "upstairs lounge" where the vinyl browsing bins used to be. Gee, come to think of it, I should have checked to see if they even sell cake anymore. But I digress...

After the show, which would have been good were it not for the overbearing and frankly unnecessary amounts of reverb going on, we were headed to the subway when I happened to glance up at a sign that said "Best Falafel in New York".

I scoffed, of course, because to Mark and I (and countless others who've been), Oasis in Williamsburg right off the L Train has what I consider to be the best Falafel in all of New York. Hands down, and all for just $3. (It's the pickled cabbage and onions that you just can't beat.)

But that's the claim that Ashkara Falafel makes: their "Urban Pita", as they call it, is the best around. Urban Pita. PITAZ FROM THE GHETTO, BITCHEZ!!! REZPEKT! Sounds so gritty and tough for a bunch of fried vegetable matter in a fluffy whole wheat sleeping bag.


Ashkara - Urban Pita. 189 E Houston St, New York, NY 10002
So I throw on the brakes, realize my stomach is filled to the brim with wine and beer and that, as I sway a little, I haven't eaten any dinner. I prompt Mark for his current hunger status and we decide to venture in. Their menu was fairly large AND, most importantly, filled with things that our vegetarian stomachs could ingest, which is somewhat of a rarity even around the five boroughs. (Whether or not any of this is vegan though, I can't say. Most chain restaurants - this place exudes chain-food-restaurant-style - don't acknowledge the vegan diet and when you ask if it's vegan they usually look at you like you're speaking Russian.)


The choice is yours.

I was a little too drunk to notice their veggie burger (a mushroom burger with soy) or their "Urban Delight" (eggplant, hard boiled egg and hummus), which could either be ridiculously delicious or a textural, mushy taste nightmare.

We settled on the regular small Falafel & hummus sandwich ($4.40...not bad) and then I realized something wonderful: they had their own sandwich fixins bar, filled with pickled goodness and sauces galore.

Oh the glorious freedom of choice

They had carrots, fried cauliflower, cucumbers, pickles, tabouleh, cabbage, lettuce, slaw, tahini sauce (this they had in squirtable containers all over the place like ketchup. What a blessing!), beets (I think)...they had it all. And being the condiment/fixins junky I am, I of course attempted to stuff everything possible into my pita to get my money's worth and test the elasticity of their home-made pita bread, which is an essential element in judging a good pita. Here is where Oasis fails.

Delightfully, my pita was fluffy and stretchy to the max, and even though I mashed as much in there as I could with the aid of a plastic fork, there was zero breakage - even with extra squirts of tahini!


Fluffy and filling

Left: Lemon juice & Olive Oil. Right: Mark approves of this falafel message

I was so overjoyed that I almost wanted another pita after gobbling down the first, but decided to moderate myself (I'm still trying to take it easy on my stomach) and opted instead to eat there anytime I'm in the LES until I make my way through their veggie menu. I of course can't say what their meat dishes are like, but if my little fried balls of chickpea were any indication, they are probably delish.

The place was clean, the staff was friendly, the price was right and the food was fresh and tasty. What more can you possibly ask for, really? Best falafel in New York? They might not be lying. Still, what Oasis lacks in garnish and pita-fluff, it definitely makes up for in surly Mediterranian dudes cooking your shit up right while blaring the Indian VH1 channel in the background. Bonus points for authenticity.

(05.05.09) **UPDATE** I will say that the 2nd time Mark and I went back there for dinner (a couple months ago), the place was a mess. The condiment bar was depleted and what was there was totally room temperature - a major food safety no-no - and totally intermixed with each other, which I guess is only gross if you don't want weird sauteed eggplant topping in your pickled cabbage. (Vom.) The counter tops and floor were littered with food refuse and I refused to go downstairs to use the bathroom, knowing it had to be full of roaches given the unclean state of the dining area. SO, although I still recommend this place because it was totally awesome the first time we gave it a go, be aware that as with all eateries staffed by lazy 19 year old fuck-wads that like house music, sometimes nobody wants to clean.

Beer and Viscious Bacterial Attacks

How somewhat unfortunate that I begin this new blog of mine - a long time coming, no doubt - after suffering through the worst 36-hour period of stomach flu I've had in quite some time. Let me assure you, that my vomitous experiences this last day and a half have no apparent connection to anything I ate, as my partner in crime Mark (also a fellow veg-head) ate everything I did with no side effects whatsoever. Of course, he wasn't stupid enough to let our cat lick something he was eating...and then eat it himself. I one day aspire to his level of common sense.

That disgusting tidbit out of the way, I was inspired to turn this previously antique-lighting-based blog (I work for an antique lighting company in Manhattan) into a food blog by a little place in Gowanus/Park Slope that Mark and I have ridden our bikes past many times in the last two months since its opening.

It's called "Draft Barn", and if you blink twice as your traveling down 3rd Ave. in Brooklyn (bet. 12th & 13th streets) you might miss it, as Mark had several times on our way by. Not so much because its facade blends in mildly with the surrounding industrial landscape, but because you just don't expect to see such a classy-looking establishment in that neck of the woods , a block down from the fast food siamese twin of Dunkin' Donuts/Taco Bell. Well, with the exception of Bar Tano, another one of my faves in that hood, whose website might be lacking but whose inventive mixed drinks are divine.


Draft Barn exterior, courtesy of Daniel P.

Essentially, every time we rode past this intriguing new bier-haus style bar (it seemed, from the outside anyway) I felt pangs of desire emanating from my liver, begging me to stop just for a moment, even if all they served were cans of PBR. From across the street, traveling at 12 miles an hour, it always appeared to be empty, and it thought it would be a shame not to stop in just once on the sad chance it went out of business. As we rode past on our weekly bike jaunt to the new Trader Joe's in downtown Brooklyn, I hollered at Mark, expressing that it was high time we stopped there on our return trip home. He agreed.

We were delighted upon entering (they were so kind as to let us store our bikes under a table inside, as there was nowhere close to lock them up outside) to find that no only do they serve food but they have hands down the largest selection of beers from all over the world that I've ever found in any bar in New York. Most impressive to me were their selection of pricey Meads (which are essentially beer-wine, if you will) and the $400/bottle Sam Adams Utopia, which I'd never even heard of. Our bartender, Yuliy, answered all of our questions at length and even let us sniff the Utopia cap, which probably cost $5 in itself.

Some of Draft Barn's beers, courtesy of Daniel P.
We each ended up downing three beers - Mark toured the IPA region, while I chose the Porters, and shared an amazing plate of their home-made cheese spread with toast and tomatoes. It was insanely good. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, their menu has almost nary a vegetable to be found. But for our carnivorous comrades, it is a specialty sausage-laden gastrointestinal den of desire. Yuliy informed us that they were still working on finalizing their menu and would hopefully have some kind of vegetarian Hungarian dish available in the near future. He was even nice enough to ask the chef if they had the means to make it for us that evening. Totally rad.

Before we left, I went outside to give my mom a call and was raving about the place, but also lamenting the fact that as I'd thought, the joint was empty except for the two of us. Thankfully, a group of three wandered in while I yakked on the street, followed by a couple I managed to persuade inside, after they stopped to peer in and wonder aloud, "Oh...I wonder if this place is any good?" I felt I had done my good deed for the day.

As we began to put our winter bike gear back on to finish the trip home, Mark point out to me that I ought to consider revamping the whole of my blog to reflect my love of food. He recently started an art blog, and has been so enraptured with it, he felt I should give my eats its blogging respect. And so here we are.

Lastly, I discovered this afternoon that I am not at all the only one to have blogged about Draft Barn since it's opening. Apparently the Park Slope venue is actually the second of these beer halls, the first being all the way down on Avenue X in Gravesend. If you'd like to see what others have to say about Draft Barn (because how could I ever know what's hot and what's not...right?) here you go:
Beerlord - Draft Barn
Gowanus Lounge - Draft Barn Now Open (gotta love the whiny, spoiled Park Sloper comments)
the Villiage Voice - the Early Word: Draft Barn

I hope you'll continue to stick around and follow my scrumptious scripts, as I get them together. In the meantime, check out my Flickr Food Set of many images of things I've made and eaten in the last year or so. One of my other goals is to start paying attention to how I make many of the things I cook from scratch so that I might be able to give you recipes to follow here. You know...if you care that much. My friends tell me I'm a good cook. Maybe you should be the judge too.

**UPDATE**: SO, for Mark's birthday back in January, I wrangled our outlaw friends together to hit up the Draft Barn for some good beer and good fun. Turns out, they had their menu almost totally finished, so there was good food involved too. I got the mushroom stroganoff (or goulash or something...I forget exactly what it was called and Draft Barn doesn't have a website with their menu items listed). Point being...it was delicious!!! Click the thumbnail images below to see larger sized versions. Of the food pictured below:


Draft Barn's home-made cheese dip platter, gardenburger (those things will always suck!), mushroom stroganoff, cheeseburger, sausage platter and fried croutons.