Cool or Not Cool: Parkwanus

Every so often, man comes up with a wholly brilliant idea. While I'm wholly not brilliant & wholly not a man, last week I wrote a lil' sumpin about the opening of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que & at the end of it, I tossed in a phrase referring to Dino's locale on Union St west of 4th Ave as part of "the just-now-invented nabe of Parkwanus." As I sat alone in my apartment blogging in my boxers, I actually LOL'd a bit, just like the tweens do. A few of you chimed in in the comments, calling bullshit on my bullshit nabe name, as you should have. I mean, I made that crap up on the fly.

I'm certain there are people in Bushwick who have been all panty-bunched for the last decade about more & more of their hood becoming "East Williamsburg." Personally, I was slightly offended when I rented a place in "Greenwood Heights" a few years back. I'm pretty sure people are calling that area "South Slope" these days anyhow. In the end, we all just get on with our lives & call nabes what the fuck we want to call them & realize that there are more important things going on in the world...more important things like the abortion battle in Texas or the triumphant DOMA death or Kim Kardashian's ploy to trap her friends by sending them fake pics of her new bebe & seeing which of them leak the pics to the tabloids.

READ MORE

Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Gets All Jurassic Park Up in This Piece

Jeff Goldblum is welcome at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. The T-Rex is NOT.

YEEZUS CHRIST, PARK SLOPE. One word: T-Rex...& if I may, please allow me to use a poorly-though-out dinosaur metaphor to tell you...

Early Tuesday night, after an exciting day of drone work, I made my way back to Brooklyn & more specifically, Union St. to fill my face with BBQ & beer. The reason: The Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Premiere Party. That's right, jerks. For one night, I was part of some exclusive club who got to experience the seventh Dinosaur BBQ locale a full twenty-three hours before it opened to the general public on Wednesday.

READ MORE

Nets 2013-2014: We're Totally Kidding

HELLO BROOKLYN 2.0...AMIRITE? Y'know what’s cool about the just-finished first Brooklyn Nets season, in retrospect? Please allow me to tell you with eloquent words...

Almost a decade removed from Jason Kidd leading the NJ Nets to the Finals two years in a row (01'-02' & 02'-03'), the Nets franchise was seriously aching for a reboot. They sucked for a looooong ass time. Regardless of how much success they had, the seven-foot shadows of Sam Bowie & Chris Dudley & Keith Van Horn kept blocking out the achievements of Kenny Anderson & Mookie Blaylock & Jason Kidd.

Then came the 2012-2013 season. BROOKLYN 1.0. New arena. New uniforms. Lots of new players. New attitude. Fairly new owners. D-Will at the point. Jay-Z as the face. EARLY PANIC. Head coach Avery Johnson is fired. PJ Carlesimo steps in as coach. BROOKLYN 1.5! Kris Humphries tries not to fuck too many lame celebrities. Overall, the season goes OK enough for a while & the Nets end up with the 4th best record in the Eastern Conference. Then they get bounced by Chicago in the first round of the playoffs. PJ & his beard are shaved, just weeks after Jay-Z left the Nets franchise to become the hip-hoppiest sports agent EVA (other than Scott Boras). I hope HOVA's short investment turned out OK!

READ MORE

[What You Should Order At...] Fort Reno Provisions

WHAT YOU SHOULD ORDER AT... is a recurring column designed in kind for your opinionated asses and our lazy asses. When the mood strikes, we pick one Park Slope resto and recommend our favorite dish. Are we right? Are we wrong? YOU KNOW YOU WANNA WEIGH IN.

Over the last few years, Park Slope has gone from a nabe with zero legit BBQ joints to one with a few respectable spots sprinkled around the Park Slope/Gowanus border...& NO, Pork Slope does not count as a place to get legit BBQ, no matter how many times people refer to it as one. Sorry, LJ. It just isn’t.

Before Fletchers & (soon to be) Dinosaur BBQ, there was Fort Reno Provisions, the place owned by a group including Jacques Gautier of Palo Santo. Since opening back in January of last year, the tiny restaurant on Union just above 4th Ave has gone through a number of menu tweaks & while it hasn't earned the same acclaim as Fletchers & probably isn't worthy of it, it's continued to pump out pretty solid BBQ. For most of this time, they've offered up a dish called the "Hot Mess." While one might hope that a dish with such a name would have clumps of LiLo's, er...Amanda Bynes' hair in it, that's unfortunately not the case.

READ MORE

Who Gives a Shit: Waiting on Line For the Latest Craze

Photo via Dominique Ansel's Twitter

Growing up, I remember being all like "WOAH" when I heard tales of peeps in the USSR waiting in lines for HOURS just to get a sack of potatoes or a pair of jeans or a roll of toilet paper. Some thirty years later, I'm all like "WHOA," as here in NYC, we've long since destroyed them commies & moved on to create our own early-morn queues for fanciful, five dollar, Frankenstein pastries known as cronuts.

Since the cronut's introduction at Dominique Ansel Bakery about a month ago, the hybrid croissant-donut has garnered so much buzz that sheep start lining up around sunrise for a chance to be one of the lucky folks who get their hands on a couple of that day's 200-or-so cronuts. People have scalped them on Craigslist for up to $200 for five. It's f'n ridiculous. Shit...I can get ten beamers for that price on Craigslist. As such, the treat's developed backlash at a pace that makes The Strokes look like a long-beloved band.

READ MORE