(LITERAL) Cool or Not Cool?...Serving Good Beer in Frosty Mugs

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So wait...did I ever mention that I like the craft beer?

Tis true. In my dozen years in Brooklyn, I've had myself delicious craft beers in pretty much every bar in Park Slope, forgoing the beloved Buds & Yuenglings & Heinekens of the masses. Down with the proletariat! Give me something hoppy. Give me something flavorful. Give me something that’s been brewed in the tradition of the Mayans.

"Great taste, less filling" be damned.

It wasn't always this way, but it got better over time. After a teenage existence where I didn't have a single drink until post-graduation, in college I cut my teeth on bottles of Red Dog & Sam Adams (which, c'mon Sam Adams...other than your specialty beers, you kinda suck). I carried around six-packs of Newcastle in my hippie backpack at frat parties. When I went home for the holidays, my dad always had a few frosty mugs waiting in the freezer so I could pour myself a glass of Nutfield or whatever NH craft beer was available at the moment.

Eventually, after around my 5,000th craft beer, it dawned on me...FROSTY MUGS KILL THE FLAVOR OF A GOOD BEER.

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Brunch is Now Terroir-fied or Whatever

Terroir Terroir Terroir. Since around the time they opened up in the former Great Lakes space back in September of 2012, I've been by once every month or two. I was there in November for my 38th birthday and took a "Wine 101" class in February of this year. As a result, over time I've become relatively chummy with a few of the folks there.

Then, late last week when I was wondering what the fuck I was going to do on Sunday for my 39th birthday, I got an email from Terroir. They were letting me know that, starting on Sunday, they'd be doing brunch again and going forward they'd be doing so on both Saturdays and Sundays (11am-3pm). In addition to a new brunch menu, they're also now rocking a full liquor license. In short, if I was free on Sunday, I should totally come by to check it out.

The moral: Planning birthday stuff is stupid. Just let it come to you. Wu wei or some shit.

On Sunday, the lady friend and I arrived right around 2pm to a space that was relaxed but pretty much empty, not the typical Terroir setting. Apparently the place had been hopping til 1pm approached and people took off to watch the Jets lose again. I was still a bit fatigued from the previous evening’s festivities so I, for one, welcomed the relaxed atmosphere, where we were able to just chill at the bar. Thank god for football, I guess.

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I Hope Nothing's Fishy With This Pickle, Dog.

Once upon a time, in a mystical, magical land called Park Slope, craft beer was kinda Yeti-like. There was The Gate. There was Bierkraft. There was...well...pretty much nothing else. These days in the area around the Slope, there are plenty of places to grab a craft beer or two or six. That's great and all, but when it comes to bars, it's often the same beers over and over again: A Sixpoint on tap. A Brooklyn Brewery beer on tap. Perhaps a Founders or a Victory. MAYBE one unique beer...not usually though...

...and at the same time, throughout the NYC’s twee-est borough, the artisanal food & drink movement has been booming. Just ask The NY Times...and ask them again...and then ask them one more time, because they really have a lot to say on the subject.

Did you hear that pickles are in? It's true! I'm not jus' talkin' bout yer annual LES Pickle Fest. I'm not jus' talkin' about Gus's or even Brooklyn's own The Pickle Guys. I'm talking pickle-producing, up-and-coming whippersnappers. Brooklyn's McClure's Pickles has been making a name for themselves for a few years now. Thirty-something Shamus Jones, of Brooklyn Brine, has gone from making pickles and selling them in dark alleys to making pickles and selling them out of a Parkwanus storefront.

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Food is Art: Saul at The Brooklyn Museum

Food is life. Food is politics. Food is love. Food is the new rock. Food is food is food is food is food.

Andy Warhol had his bananas & soup cans. Food is art. MOMA has Warhols. MOMA also has The Modern, the restaurant from Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group that opened back in 2004 and is helmed (for now) by Gabriel Kreuther. Over the years, they've received a Michelin star and two and three star reviews from The New York Times.

Not to be outdone by its Manhattan counterpart, today The Brooklyn Museum opens Saul, the newest incarnation of the Michelin-starred restaurant that held court on Smith St. for the last fourteen years before closing down in July and upgrading to new digs just off the museum lobby, where the Museum Cafe once stood.

It's the next in a continuing tradition of improvements for Saul. Pete Wells, in his 2009 two-star review of the restaurant, described Saul's then ten-year journey as one where Saul and Lisa Bolton were "(l)ike couples in a starter apartment, they dressed the place up as money came in." Ten years later, where there were once "thick plates from Fishs Eddy," there was now "white Bernadaud china." Since then, Saul Bolton has gone on to open The Vanderbilt and Red Gravy in Prospect Heights. Now Saul's come to join them in the 'hood.

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Pork Slope & The Magical Night of Bar Food Reinventions

Whether you like it or not (and I know a lot of you opinionated mofos fall on the side of NOT), since opening a little over a year ago, Pork Slope has solidly established itself as one of the busier bars along 5th Ave. Whether it's a boar naming contest, or the MMA matches on the TV, or the usually-lively crowd, or the special events, or the occasional late-night drunken appearance of the triumvirate of owners, there are a host of reasons to either really like hanging out there, or to really want to stay the fuck away.

Having a bar with character and interesting events is all well and good but it makes me think back to last spring, before Pork Slope had even opened, when I spoke with the guys behind the place and they made it clear that what they'd be serving would not be "Dale's reinvention of a bar snack." Their mission was for a bar with food, not "a restaurant with a cocktail and beer program."

Flash forward seventeen months and Pork Slope announces their first ever "Bar Food Blowout" event, an evening put on by Finger on the Pulse, where a guest chef comes in and takes over the kitchen for the night, offering up unique takes on the bar snack. Technically, it's a one night event and technically it's not Dale putting together the menu, but still...

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