BLOCK-OFF! 5th Ave [btwn Union & Sackett/Berkeley] vs. 5th Ave [btwn 6th & 5th]

Since 5th Ave beat out 7th Ave in last week’s Block-Off! and since it’s been a slightly-warmer than usual Sunday & I want to drink instead of buy baby clothes, I’ve decided to ignore 7th Ave this week & wage an epic war between two of my favorite drinking blocks on 5th Ave in this week’s Block-Off!

That means that this week, 5th Ave from Union to Sackett/Berkeley is bellying up to the bar against 5th Ave from 6th St to 5th St. It’s my goal that by the end, one block will remain intoxicated but still standing & victorious and the other will have passed out face down on the bar in a pool of saliva & despair. My secondary goal is to make it home in time for the Grammys. Let the drunken judging begin!

5th Avenue from 6th St to 5th St:
The first business on the left-hand side of 5th Ave between 6th & 5th is Brooklyn Bread Cafe. If you’re looking to sop up the alcohol that is still coursing through your veins from the night before, I hear bread is great for that, so you probably have use for this place. If you’re on The Atkins Diet or only eat fruits & vegetables or something insane like that, you have no use for this place.

Next to that is Fitness Together, which reminds me...I really need to get off my ass & cut down on my carbs if I ever want to maintain a gettin-laid belly. Due to global warming, summer is now only 18 days away so I have to get cracking ASAP! On a related note, the end of days is now just over 1400 days away. Do you have your bikini picked out yet?

Speaking of the end of days, there’s Universal Botanica next door, which sells religious paraphernalia & plants & whatnot—stuff that might come in handy during the rapture. Are you prepared?

After that is Pollio. Um. Pollio. So wait. This place is called "Pollio?" Does this place sell chickens infected with Polio? Hold on. Didn't we eradicate that? FDR and Jonas Salk are going to be so pissed when they hear about this place.

I’m always a bit leery of places that have names with a last name followed by the word “center.” They make me think of cults. It turns out that the next business on the block, Feldenkrais Center of Park Slope, has nothing to do with cults at all.

Instead, it’s a place that teaches people how to live better, pain-free lives, all through a better understanding of their movement. To be honest, I don’t really get it, but the web site of the New York Region of the Feldenkrais Guild claims that Dr. J and Whoopi Goldberg have benefited from the Feldenkrais method, so it must work (they’re famous celebrities and one of them is a doctor).

Zu Zu's Petals is next to the Feldenkrais Center. As I mentioned last week, with V.D. only days away, I’m currently single, so flowers don’t really excite me all that much, but I’m thinking I might have to stop by Zu Zu's early Saturday & pick something up so I can surprise myself by showing up unexpected that night at my front door with a tulip or something. If history is any indicator, I’d better do so if I want to have any chance of scoring.

A few weekends back, a friend & I wandered into the store next to Zu Zu's —Brooklyn Superhero Supply—because I’m all hip to McSweeneys & have read Dave Eggers & know what’s up. There’s a girl who works there who half showed us particularly heroic items & half berated us for ten minutes about the fact that we were just browsing & not buying any actual superhero supplies & wouldn't even try out their cape tester. Since he loves punishment, my friend instantly fell in love with her & her sharp wit, even though she told him that he should probably invest in a can of magnetism.

The proceeds from the superhero merchandise benefit 826NYC, a tutoring & creative writing center for youths, which means, as the sharp-witted girl in the store pointed out, that these kids have written their own books, which is more than either I or my friend have done. I left there feeling like I just accidentally walked into Don Rickles' living room.

After that is Get Fresh, a place that specializes in fresh, healthy, somewhat economically reasonable locally produced & grown foods & meals. Dude, seriously. I want to eat everything at this place & the fact that by doing so, I probably won’t kill any minors or Venezuelans or minor Venezuelans, makes it all the more tempting.

Sometimes I’m slow. Case in point—the next shop on the block, PS Coffee Tea & Spices. It was only, well, yesterday, after years of walking past it, that I figured out what the PS stood for. I had just assumed that it was like, “P.S. Coffee, Tea & Spices,” like “We have these things. Shh. It’ll be our little secret.” I also just figured out that Ryan Seacrest was gay, so yeah. I’m a bit behind.

The last business on this side of the block is Belleville, a French bistro that I will probably never ever set foot in. It’s nothing personal. I took French in high school & college, but was never able to embrace French culture and when I think of French food I think of baguettes tearing open the roof of my mouth…plus the French didn't support our cowboy invasion into a sovereign nation, so I think I’m supposed to not like them. Isn't that right, Senator Ney? Oh wait, do I still call you “Senator,” after the whole Abramoff ties & prison sentence thing?

On the corner of 6th on the right-hand side of the street there are three businesses in the first space—MRS Renovations, Matthew L Kaplin, Architect and Aladdin Plumbing & Heating. If you can think of anything funny to say about these three lines of business, please let me know.

The next business after these is Bar Reis, which is currently in the running for my most-frequented bar in Park Slope. I ended up my Sunday drinking here & have ended up a lot of nights here. I guess one of the things that draws me here is the fact that I can either sit upstairs at the bar & people watch the 5th Ave crowd or I can sit out back on the patio & throw marbly things at my friends or I can shoot pool or sit in a dark corner in the downstairs area. It’s like three bars in one!

Plus, the bartender was nice to/tolerated a group of us one night when we were the only ones in the bar & insisted on turning up the speakers downstairs to silly volumes because that’s what Ween required on that night, so you don’t forget good gestures like that.

If I’m ever able to break free from the chains of Supercuts, I suppose I’ll start going to a place like the place next door, Mario’s Unisex Haircutting. It seems like the sort of non-corporate no-nonsense haircutting place that I could probably benefit from patronizing…& if I could grow substantial facial hair, I feel like I might be able to get them to give me one of those fancy barber shaves like TV politicians get all the time.

On Sunday, after leaving Bar Reis, I stopped into Mura and picked up a peanut avocado roll (my new sweet-tasting sushi addiction) to snack on during The Grammys. A word of advice that’s not exactly isolated to Mura but to be heeded nonetheless—ordering just one sushi roll confuses the hell out of people. It’s like there’s some sort of minimum or something, like ordering one roll isn’t even worth it.

I sometimes do the same thing and order a single hamburger at the convenient & sparkly Times Square McDonalds located at the foot of my office building and that’s it, simply because I don’t want to eat 1000 calories of shit. Sorry that it confuses you that I’d much rather just have 250 calories of shit. That’s like 1/4th of the shit.

After an EMPTY STOREFRONT, there’s Perch, which has become one of those neighborhood institutions, with a nice-looking interior, all sorts of tasty foods and a penchant for carriages & hip baby mamas. That last part is because they’re super kid-friendly there. Kids get to eat for free there every Monday & Thursday night. Lucky freeloading kids.

Next to Perch is Ginger’s Bar. I lived in Fort Lauderdale for a brief period near the end of the 90s and 90% of my friends there were lesbians & as a result, a good portion of my Florida social life played out in lesbian bars. Park Slope is a different story though. A lot of the time, the lesbians here are serious business, so I’m irrationally scared of visiting Ginger’s.

Luckily I haven’t had to visit the Chiropractic Center of Park Slope which is next to Ginger’s, but if my spine starts acting up, I guess I’d go here. I’d be even more inclined to go here if I wasn’t losing my health insurance.

The last business on the block is Bill Vreeland Income Tax Preparation. I have no home & no kids & no taxable worldly possessions & am wicked good at basic adding & subtracting, so I’ve never had to use a tax prep service. You might be more of an actual adult than me, so you might have more of a use for Mr. Bill’s services.

Left-hand side:
Brooklyn Bread, 382 5th Ave, 718-403-0234
Fitness Together, 382 5th Ave, 718-369-0707
Universal Botanica, 376 5th Ave, 718-499-0041
Pollio, 376 5th Ave, 718-768-6887
Feldenkrais Center of Park Slope, 374 5th Ave, 718-499-5238
Zu Zu's Petals, 374 5th Ave, 718-638-0918
Brooklyn Superhero Supply, 372 5th Ave, 718-499-9884
Get Fresh, 370 5th Ave
PS Coffee Tea & Spices, 368 5th Ave, 718-768-5561
Belleville, 366 5th Ave, 718-832-9777

Right-hand side:
MRS Renovations, 377 5th Ave
Matthew L Kaplin Architect, 377 5th Ave
Aladdin Plumbing & Heating, 377 5th Ave
Bar Reis, 375 5th Ave, 718-832-5716
Mario’s Unisex Haircutting, 371 5th Ave, 718-788-1795
Mura, 369 5th Ave, 718-965-1288
EMPTY STOREFRONT, 367 5th Ave
Perch, 365 5th Ave, 718-788-2830
Ginger’s Bar, 363 5th Ave, 718-788-0924
Chiropractic Center of Park Slope, 361 5th Ave, 718-965-2100
Bill Vreeland Income Tax Preparation, 359 5th Ave, 718-768-1525

Scoring
Bonuses – One Superhero Store, One Good-practice Food Joint, One Awesome Three-in-One Bar, One Hip Mom Joint
Shames – One Formerly-eradicated Disease, Two Businesses of No Use to Me, One Empty Storefront

5th Avenue from Union St to Sackett St/Berkeley Pl:
This block begins ominously with another Brooklyn Industries. Devoted followers know that last week’s Block-Off! featured a block with the other Park Slope Brooklyn Industries on it. Park Slope OBVIOUSLY needs to have two Brooklyn Industries locales, so thank god for this second location on 5th Ave. Like, say that I need a hip hoodie or another orange messenger bag & I’m too damn lazy to walk over to 7th Ave…no worries. The walk east is eliminated.

There’s a Laundromat next to Brooklyn Industries, so after you buy your dirty Brooklyn Industries hoodie, you can bring it next door & wash the shame away.

After that is 200 Fifth, but between it & the laundromat is an EMPTY STOREFRONT. Yes, 200 Fifth is large & already has a disgusting amount of flat-screen TVs for sports-watching, but I’m thinking that they should knock down some walls, co-opt the place next door & up that disgusting amount of TVs to ludicrous.

That aside, if I was the kind of guy who went to bars to watch sporting events instead of the kind that picks up a six-pack to watch the game at home, where I can do other ADD activities while I “watch,” I’d probably go to 200 Fifth a lot. It sort of reminds me of a particular sports bar in Watertown, MA that I frequented for the bi-weekly karaoke, so I probably should hang out there some time…but I don’t.

This Sunday, Long Tan was the first place I hit up on my quick pre-Grammy jaunt through the neighborhood. A few friends & I had a few pints & some at-the-bar $5 Pad Thai. I spoke with the bartender for a little bit to get her low down on the block. She said the dudes next door at 200 Fifth were good people, which means there’s some neighborhood camaraderie there, which is cool.

I’ve always like Long Tan. A few years back, I was working for NY Press & we organized a 5th Ave bar crawl that started at Long Tan. There were three of us charged with leading the some twenty people who showed up to four other bars down 5th Ave. The life lesson learned from this experience? When you’re leading a bar crawl, it’s best not to get all wasted. Chaos will inevitably reign by the end.

Next to Long Tan is Petticoat Lane, which is fairly new to the hood & has six locations throughout the tri-state area (five if you don’t choose to acknowledge Connecticut’s existence), featuring women’s handbags & lots of stuff for the ladies. Rumor has it that they also have free bra consultations, so if you’re a perverted Park Slope male, there’s something here for you too.

The last business on this side of the block is Cog & Pearl, featuring all sorts of cool-looking handmade jewelry & accessories & such. According to the website, the store was “born in the back of a cab late one evening in 2002,” which I can only assume was both very messy & very beautiful at the same time.

Have some checks you need cashed? The best place on the block to get them cashed is this place on the right-hand corner of Union & 5th—Checks Cashed. In fact, I can’t think of a better place on this block to cash a check. Well-named.

Um…So since their gate’s been down for quite some time now, I’m going to assume that Fifth Ave Pizzeria is done for. Shuttered. Finit. It looks like you’ll just have to get your pizza fix at one of the other thousand pizza joints in Park Slope.

Heading north on 5th, Tamari is next to the space formerly known as Fifth Avenue Pizzeria. It’s pretty much your standard Japanese place & I can’t say that I’ve ever had bad sushi from here, but I also couldn’t tell you about any of the times that I’ve eaten here either. It’s sushi, y’know?

After that is Jany’s Meat Market, which I hear is currently in the running with Excelsior for Park Slope’s top meat market.

A few months back, I went through a phase where I was eating a lot of Chinese food. Currently I’m off the stuff. Since Sun Luck Restaurant is approximately the 23rd closest Chinese food place to my apartment, I haven’t had a chance to check it out, but Yelpers love this place & when have they ever been wrong?

Extraordinary, a home décor-type store is right next to Sun Luck. The stuff in there looks like it’s pretty good quality. I don’t know if “extraordinary” is the word I’d use though. When I think “extraordinary,” I think of Michael Phelps winning all those Gold medals. I think of The Hindenburg crashing in a field in Jersey. I don’t think of home décor per se…they do have a Monkey Tray though. Monkeys are pretty awesome.

Then there’s Press 195, who can fulfill your every tasty-but-smashed sandwich fantasy. It looked a bit closed though when I went by this weekend. Is this renovations or are they closed? Hopefully it’s the former & not the latter.

If you’re a beer snob like me & can stand smelly gourmet cheeses, the place next door, Bierkraft, is pretty much the best place ever. After leaving Long Tan on Sunday, I stopped in & picked up a big bottle of Smuttynose Scotch Ale (NH represent!) for Grammy consumption. I liked it, but the label says it’s supposed to make me think of plates of haggis. Unless I am eating dinner in Scotland & haggis is being served & it’s in my best interest to be polite, NOTHING should ever remind me of a plate of haggis.

This side of the block ends with an EMPTY STOREFRONT and Lee Cleaners. Yawn.

Left-hand side:
Brooklyn Industries – 206 5th Ave, 718-789-2764
Laundromat – 204 5th Ave
EMPTY STOREFRONT – 202 5th Ave
200 Fifth – 200 5th Ave, 718-638-0023
Long Tan – 194-6 5th Ave, 718-622-8444
Petticoat Lane – 192 5th Ave, 718-399-6400
Cog & Pearl – 190 5th Ave, 718-623-8200

Right-hand side:
Checks Cashed – 205 5th Ave, 718-638-8500
Fifth Ave Pizzeria – 203 5th Ave, 718-789-0886
Tamari – 201 5th Ave, 718-230-5636
Jany’s Meat Market – 199 5th Ave, 718-398-8195
Sun Luck Restaurant – 197 5th Ave, 718-789-4439
Extraordinary – 195 5th Ave, 718-230-9503
Press 195 – 195 5th Ave, 718-857-1950
Bierkraft – 191 5th Ave, 718-230-7600
EMPTY STOREFRONT – 189 5th Ave
Lee Cleaners – 187 5th Ave, 718-789-9735

Scoring
Bonuses – One Five-Star Beer Store, One Bar/Restaurant with Memories, One Business Born in a Cab
Shames – One Unnecessary Hipster Store, Two Empty Storefronts, Two Currently-Shuttered Businesses, One Obviously-named Business



BEST DAMN SLOPE BLOCK ON THE BLOCK WINNER: 5TH AVENUE FROM 6TH STREET TO 5TH STREET


Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.blogspot.com