RePop Celebrates Three Years in Clinton Hill with SALE!

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repop window This weekend, RePop is offering 25% off of all merchandise to celebrate their 3rd anniversary!

Aside from being one of my favorite shops in the neighborhood (and the owners some of my favorite people), I have always had a special affinity for RePop.  They opened up right around the time that I officially started CHB, and we've worked together on many things along the way.

If you haven't been (or of you haven't been in awhile), it's time to go!  The store is lovingly curated with vintage art, furniture and knick-knacks.  Plus, it's locally owned (and great for gift shopping).

Here is the sale info they provided:

It seems like only yesterday a little empty storefront in the middle of the Brooklyn Navy Yard opened it's doors to reveal a green treasure trove for scavengers of the interestingly beautiful. Having appeared everywhere from NY Magazine, 30 Rock, Toni On! NY and most importantly: the homes of her patrons, RePOP 95% Recycled is proud to be celebrating three years of business in the incomparable Fort Greene / Clinton Hill neighborhood.

In honor of her birthday, RePOP is offering a store wide sale this weekend to all of the loyal fans who helped her keep the dream of offering affordable, gorgeous designer artifacts alive.

This weekend recipients of this notice please enjoy a 25% discount storewide. It is our pleasure to continue offering you the finest that history has to offer.

RePop 68 Washington Ave (bt Park and Flushing) www.repopny.com

Happy Birthday, from CHB!

Lunchtime with Tillie: Graziella's

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Vegetables: They do a body good. And if you happen to throw in a chicken parmesan hero on the side, what’s the harm, right?

Hello out there again, neighborhood! This week’s Lunchtime With Tillie found Baby T and me at Italian eatery Graziella’s , located on Vanderbilt between DeKalb and Willoughby. The main reason we went there was because a friend of mine and I just consumed a festival of fried food the night before—French fries, onion rings, chicken tenders…you name it, we ate it. So when it came to lunch the next day, I figured I better put something good in my body!

I’m not the type to just eat a whole salad for lunch, but I remembered Graziella’s has a real nice side salad they serve with their sandwiches and paninis at lunch. And for this trip, I loaded up some snacks for Tillie to eat as well—some Cheerios and blueberries cut in half. All that, as well as a bottle of formula, would definitely keep her satisfied (at least that’s what I told myself)!

We got there and the place appeared to be pretty busy, but we were immediately seated. When I take Tillie to a restaurant during the day, I usually just let her sit in her stroller, but since I had the finger food for her, I thought she’d be better suited for the high chair. I put some Cheerios on the table for her and took a glance at the menu. My main priority as far as my food went was the salad to assuage my guilt about the night before, so I went from there and decided on the chicken parmesan hero. It was tough because they have pasta and entrée specials, as well.

graziellasfood

While I was deciding that, I noticed Tillie’s Cheerios-to-mouth ratio was way off with only about one in three being eaten, so I switched to the blueberries and that wasn’t going much better. I think I picked up way more than she actually ate! Then, I asked the waitress for a basket of bread and tore her off some tiny pieces, but those just ended up stuck to her hand without making it to her mouth. In other words, my little snack plan wasn’t working out like I thought it would.

Soon after, my lunch came out: that salad with the chicken parmesan sandwich, just what the doctor ordered. All those greens, carrots and tomatoes with a nice vinaigrette dressing—yum! The crunch, the freshness … OK, wait, I can’t do this anymore. I really wasn’t there for the salad; I’m just trying to make myself feel less guilty about the night before, especially if Tillie’s mom reads this! The salad was really good, but this sandwich--whew!

This is no exaggeration: Graziella’s actually makes the best chicken parm hero I’ve ever eaten. I ate it once before and was very pleasantly surprised. The bread, perfectly prepared to give it the right crunch; the chicken, nicely breaded and plenty of it; and the sauce, rich and not too much of it, all make for a winning combination. But you know what makes it really incredible to me? The cheese. They use fresh mozzarella on it, which, I don’t know, call me a Philistine or something, but I had never had before on a chicken parm wedge. Amazing!

Anyway, my food was sitting there, but Tillie was totally distracted by the people walking in and out and zipping by our table, and wasn’t really focusing on my carefully planned Cheerios and blueberry snack feast I prepared. She started staring at a couple of guys next to us who were on their lunch break and they gave her some attention. I asked the guys if they could play with her about 20 minutes or so, it would be appreciated! Surprisingly, they weren’t down with that but I did manage to establish a foothold in my sandwich and salad, which tasted as great as I imagined.

Since my little snack plan for Tillie wasn’t working quite like I planned, I had to go into my old-school bag of tricks. You guessed it: the old water from the straw! Plus, I had the basket my bread came in (which she managed to knock to the floor earlier while bread was still in it) and she played with that a while. Tillie did manage to get down some of the cereal and fruit before it was all said and done, and we polished off the excursion with the formula I brought along. I finished up and asked for the check, which was $11 for the salad, sandwich and a soda. While I was waiting for it to come, I did a little cleanup of the baby treats that made their way to the floor. I paid up and we headed off. On our way out, we said bye to our table neighbors and I thanked them for letting me get that all-too-crucial first bite in!

Graziella’s is spacious enough for strollers (there was another guy in there with a double model parked in place) and I’m telling you—you have to try this sandwich! Maybe I should’ve given Tillie some of it instead of the Cheerios!

graziellastillie

Rain = Good for Hydrangeas

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The weather finally seems to have cleared up now that July is here, and this past weekend was the perfect opportunity to walk around the neighborhood!  As I was marveling at all of the breathtaking hydrangeas around town, a neighbor told me that all the rain was extremely beneficial for the flowering bushes.  At least something good came out of June's rain! A house on DeKalb just west of Mike's Coffee Shop has the most breathtaking blue hydrangeas:

lafayette and washington

These next shots were taken on Lafayette at Washington, right near the G stop.  My favorite selection of hydrangeas thus far, this house offers a rainbow of colors, ranging from deep pink to almost white, surrounding the house:

lafayette and washington

lafayette and washington

Oso Industries

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Taking a walk on Sunday morning down Myrtle into Bed-Stuy, I passed a curious door. oso industries

I assumed that, like many businesses on that particular block (near Skillman), it was a long lost business from yesteryear.  For the heck of it, I Googled it to find that it's acually a custom concrete furniture design company! Too bad there isn't an obvious showroom - it might be an interesting spot open to the public.

Fresh Fruit on Kent Ave.

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fruit shack on kent In a most unlikely place for a fresh fruit stand, a small building on Kent Ave just south of Myrtle has been painted bright orange and transformed into a makeshift produce shop.

I stopped in to check it out and as promised, prices were good.  And I mean GOOD.  A selection:

potatoes: 35 cents / lb red onions: 49 cents / lb garlic bulbs: 5/$1

produce

The folks running the place, who said they'd been open for four weeks now, were very friendly.  If you live nearby, it' definitely worth stopping by.

CHB Interviews: Sarah Peck of Ortine

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Sarah Peck Clinton Hill resident Sarah Peck opened Ortine, a restaurant in Prospect Heights, last year.   The restaurant now has its own vegetable garden, and will be using harvests for restaurant dishes.  CHB asked Sarah about her business and what she likes best about living in Clinton Hill.

ortine-pics-belgian-waffle-0452

ortine-pics-interior-1

ortine-pics-facade

1. How long have you lived in the neighborhood?  What brought you here? Since 2004.  All of our friends were moving here.  Needed more space after we got married. 2. Tell us about Ortine, your new-ish restaurant in Prospect Heights. It's a european style cafe (open for pastry, coffee, breakfast, sandwiches and a few hot entrees all day) with a seasonal, local & homemade emphasis.

3. How did you pick PS as the place to open Ortine?  Why not Clinton Hill? Limited commercial space in Clinton Hill.  Feels like the same neighborhood.  We live in 5 blocks away.

4. You worked as a GM for restaurants for the last decade.  What led you to open your own place?  What lessons did you bring with you from the other places you've worked? Liked working in a restaurant but wanted to couple it with my own ideas about eating locally and sustainably.

5.  Any advice for aspiring new business owners? Make sure you have enough money!

6. Ortine offers a lot of intriguing menu items.  Tell us about some of them. Everything is very handmade.  We work hard to prepare ingredients ahead of time and then assemble them for service in a very small, all electric kitchen.

7. Ortine now has its own garden.  What kinds of vegetables are grown there? So far many greens, tomatoes, beans, watermelon & an herb garden are planted.  Still some time yet for harvest.

8. What's your favorite area restaurant (aside from your own, of course)? A few favs are:  Franny's, Bonita, Geido...

9. What's the best part of living in Clinton Hill? Great infrastructure; big wide streets & huge old trees

10. If you were a flavor of ice cream, what would you be and why? Rhubarb - sweet & tart!

Ortine 622 Washington Ave (@ Pacific) http://www.ortine.com/

Great Wall of Brooklyn Public Meeting

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The folks behind the very cool Great Wall of Brooklyn on Myrtle Ave. are holding a public meeting on Tuesday to let people decide what the next installation will be.  Info: Tuesday July 7th – Community Meeting

Fort Greene residents - Vote for Art In Your Hood!

@ Great Wall of Brooklyn 387 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 11205

Please join us on Tuesday July 7th from 7:00 - 8:00 pm to select the next artist who will present their fabulous art on the Great Wall of Brooklyn in Fall 2009.

Artists have sent us their proposals and the review panelists, Charlotta Janssen, Chanika Svetvilas and Derrick Adams, have selected three proposals to take to the next round.  But, now it’s your turn to vote for the best art proposal!  Come see the works of: *    Allistar D. Peters & Lucia Jeesun Lee *    Hidemi Takagi *    Alev Ozkaynak

Please join us at the Great Wall of Brooklyn to meet the short-listed artists & the Great Wall of Brooklyn team.  We will have a short presentation by each artist, followed by a voting session open to community members. Voting will continue at this location until Friday July 10th.

The Great Wall of Brooklyn is an independent artist-run public art organization that launched in the historic Fort Greene neighbourhood on May 9, 2009. It features the work of Brooklyn-based and international artists. Located on the side of a four-story building at the corner of Myrtle and Vanderbilt Avenues, The Great Wall introduces large-scale art made in Brooklyn to the community each quarter.

Kelso Brewery Hot Dog Cookoff

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cookoff

The season of grilled meats is now fully upon us, and on July 18, Kelso of Brooklyn is sponsoring a hot dog cookoff to benefit City Harvest!

$25 gets you a ticket for all-day hot dogs and all-you-can-drink beer.  And, it's right here in the neighborhood!  Yum.

Think you make the best hot dog in the Hill?  Enter as a participant chef (or sign up on the day of the event to be on the official taste test committee).

To buy tickets or sign up as a chef, visit http://thegreathotdogcookoff.com/.

Last year's event featured hot dog sushi, so think creatively:

sushidog

Kelso of Brooklyn 529 Waverly Ave Brooklyn, NY 11238

Pratt Access: Restricted?

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From a reader: In the last few days I've see notices on the Pratt campus saying that access to campus by non faculty and students would be prohibited until further notice, due to ongoing construction.  I wonder if this is a temporary change or, as I've heard rumored, as the fist step in barring the general public from entering campus ground.

This struck me as worrisome, since I've been a visitor to the campus grounds for ten years now, and use it as a pleasant walk to Myrtle, as a convenient Bicycle cut-through, to use the Sovereign bank ATM back before there were other ATM locations in the neighborhood, and most recently, as a lush spot to take my 11-month-old daughter.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the Union Carpenters protesting at the Dekalb Ave gates, or if this is the first step towards a new access policy.

What has the all-knowing all-seeing neighborhood blog heard?

Sadly, the all-knowing all-see blog has not heard a peep, but I do deeply hope this is construction-related.  I can't imagine the school would want to restrict their well-loved sculpture garden from the neighborhood at large and I am a firm believer of campuses and their student and faculty communities being well-integrated into the neighborhoods they inhabit.  I can understand security concerns in the evening, but it would be a real shame to close the gates all day.

Has the campus always been accessible to the community? pratt sculprure garden

Former Epoca Spot to Open as Aqualis Grill This Week

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0618091701 Aqualis Grill, a Mediterranean seafood restaurant, will be opening sometime during the week of June 29th, at 773 Fulton Street, the former home of Epoca.

I just had the pleasure of meeting Gorian Papa, Aqualis’s owner, and John Tsakinis, the restaurant’s chef. It’s no accident that the restaurant is Mediterranean: Papa was born in Albania; Tsakinis is first generation Greek, his family hailing from the island of Kos, in southern Greece. Kos’s cuisine is known for its seafood and grains; the cuisine also has a Turkish influence given its proximity to Turkey. You may have heard of Kos – it was home to Hippocrates.

Tsakinis has a lot of experience in Greek/Mediterranean kitchens -- first and foremost, his Mother’s -- but also in Manhattan’s Avra, Kellari Taverna and Kellari’s Parea, where he was Chef de Cuisine.

Papa and Tsakinis were finalizing the menu when I stopped by. Here’s an idea of what we can look forward to: several whole fish dishes, fillets, shrimp, scallops, farmer’s market salads, and Mediterranean-inspired appetizers, including spreads with pita.

I can’t wait to stop in for my first meal!

Aqualis Grill

Opening:  Week of June 29th, exact day TBD

Hours:  Tuesday – Friday dinner will be served from 4pm -Midnight

Saturday and Sunday the restaurant will be open for brunch, lunch and dinner

Address:  773 Fulton St.

From the Other Local Blogs

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No need to repeat info when it's been covered in other places already - let's see what else is going on in the hood:

Grocery Store for Wallabout

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The long-empty space at the ground level of the Chocolate Factory rental building is finally being filled! freshfanatic

The store, which will take up both the front retail space and the side space where Kiki's doggie day care and boarding used to be, appears to be a grocery store.

They also have a very basic website set up.

I wonder what the prices will be like.  It would still be a hike for many of us, but still closer than a trip to Fairway.  I bet the building tenants are psyched.

Fresh Fanatic corner of Washington and Park

Obama Comes to Clinton Hill

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A few readers sent in photos of a new deli opening on Myrtle between Vanderbilt and Clinton named after the leader of our country: obama

I wonder how many places like this have opened up around the country (and world), and if Obama feels weird seeing them.  At least it'll be open 24 hours!  (More than I can say for most places in the neighborhood.)  No word on whether Hope will be available.

In related news, I shook President Clinton's hand last week at a conference where I was speaking.  I have long been a fan of Bill, and I was thrilled to have the experience.  However, I couldn't help but think that it would have been much cooler to shake Obama's hand. OMG PRESIDENT CLINTON!

CHB Twitter Account: RIP

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I noticed recently that I could not log in to the CHB Twitter account from my phone, and assumed I was just using a crappy app.  However, it seems that our account was suspended due to "suspicious activity."  Twitter has not responded to my query yet (which I submitted a week ago) - the status is "in process."  Apologies! Did anyone see ay funny spam posts on it that might signal a suspension?

Lunchtime with Tillie: Kinara's

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If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s around, will it make a sound? Why is the sky blue?

Why did the chicken really cross the road?

Great mysteries and thought-provoking questions, all. Well, I’d like to add another one to the list:

Why is Indian food restaurant Kinara’s practically a ghost town at lunch?

Hey again, everyone, it’s Van and Tillie of Lunchtime With Tillie fame, here to reflect on another one of our daytime dining excursions, this time to Kinara’s on Myrtle Avenue.

On this day, in particular, Tillie and I had been sitting inside all morning napping and playing, but kind of hesitant to go out because it was one of those weird is-it-or-isn’t-it-going-to-rain days we’ve been having lately. And something about me is that I’m not really one of those throw-caution-to-the-wind kind of dads when it comes down to the weather. I guess that comes from being told as a kid that if you go outside and get caught in the rain without an umbrella or with your hair wet, you can catch pneumonia. My beliefs aren’t that extreme any more, but I still try to be careful!

Anyway, we caught a break with the sun coming out right around lunchtime, so I decided to pack Tillie up and head down Myrtle to one of my favorite Indian food spots, Kinara’s. Aside from the food there, which I personally love, the restaurant has another very appealing aspect to me, especially in the nonworking era:

Everything on the menu is 50 percent off from noon to 4! Yes, you read that right: Everything!

I remember when the restaurant first came to the neighborhood by way of Park Slope. I had eaten at the original there with friends and enjoyed it. When one opened here, there was a chalkboard announcing the half-off-the-menu deal, which I thought was going to just be a grand-opening special. But here we are, a couple of years later, and it’s still going strong!

When Tillie and I got there this day, there was only one other couple in the place that looked to be wrapping things up. Tillie and I rolled up to our usual spot, I took my seat and was promptly handed a menu, which I promptly handed to Tillie! I had no need for it since I get the same thing every time: lamb rogan josh (lamb chunks and tomatoes cooked in a cardamom sauce) and nan. Sometimes, I throw in samosas for an appetizer, but I didn’t feel extra-gluttonous that day! The menu was put to better use by Tillie, and since we’ve been there a couple of times, the waiter knew she liked to play with it and didn’t bother trying to get it back.

tilliekinara's

There was only so much Tillie could do on her own with the menu while I waited for my food, so I grabbed it and played a little peek-a-boo with her, which she got a kick out of as evidenced by her shrieks of excitement. I get a little worried about that sometimes — you know, possibly disturbing others — but really, when that couple left we had the whole place to ourselves, so it was party time in Kinara’s!

My food arrived — the rogan josh, nan and a bowl of jasmine rice — but what about Tillie? She ate before we left, so I knew she was good there, but I couldn’t leave her to her own devices, while I wolfed down my personal feast. So I managed to still keep the peek-a-boo game going and also give her water from a straw, which is something her mom does with her when we’re all out. It’s just as it sounds, water from a straw, but she really gets a kick out of it, and who am I to judge what makes an 8-month-old happy?

In between games and enjoying my dish (with the lamb practically melting in my mouth, it was so tender), we got to bill time. My tab for all the food I ate, plus a coke, was $9 without the tip. It was worth every penny, even if it would’ve been full-priced!

kinara'sfood

Now, I know Indian food might be kind of heavy for some in the day, but you don’t have to eat like I do. The appetizer selection is pretty big and you can grab a couple of those, if you’d like. Or, here’s an idea: Go out there with a couple of other parents and kids, and get a few tiny dishes to share. There’s plenty of space in the restaurant. Plus, I hear curry-flavored food can help a child develop a palate for different spices, which is next on the agenda for Tillie. I think she’s ready to move past the water and straw!