[What You Should Order At...] Giovanni's

Listen kiddies, I come from a super hard core Italian family. "Guinea" is a term of affection amongst my brood. Predictably, we loves to eat... all the time. It's how we celebrate love, it's how we suffer grief, show anger and work out all other complex emotions. Our Christmases could feed whole countries for weeks.  And like my forebears, I spend most of my Sundays standing over my stove stirring a pot of gravy/sauce (term may vary depending on where you're from). I'm saying all this because I NEVER recommend Italian food to anybody. I usually just cook it myself.

Now I'm going to quickly eat those words and highly recommend Giovanni's eggplant parm. Strike "highly." I will stand from a mountaintop and proclaim my love for this sweet, sweet eggplant parm until someone finally takes the damn frozen garbage from my curb. That's how much I love it. 

When Giovanni's Brooklyn Eats opened two years ago on Prospect and 8th Ave, I had gone for their cheap brunch, had some great baked eggs and went back again for another cheap brunch both times feeling satisfied. The price was super reasonable and the food was tasty. Good enough for me. Then a few months ago a good friend of mine, also from a hard core Italian family, said she brought her mother and brother there for dinner and it was literally the ONLY restaurant they ever wanted to eat at when they came to BK. So I figured I'd try it.

My test of any down home Italian restaurant is their eggplant parm. Why, you ask (don't care)? Because eggplant parm is one of the few Italian dishes I just can't don't make. It's a pain in the ass. Cutting the eggplant thin enough so it stays firm when you finally fry it up. Blah blah blah, dip it in egg, blah blah blah bread it, stick in the oven for like two hours. It's a real hassle and it's very hard to cook eggplant just right so it doesn't double as something you'd wash your dishes with. 

Giovanni's eggplant is cut so thin, it's like paper. They must have a magic mandolin in their kitchen because I could never get it so consistently thin. Then it's breaded perfectly, meaning not too much, and their sauce, which is ample, is almost better than mine... almost. The portion is huge so you'll definitely have leftovers. My suggestion: slap that puppy in between two slices of bread and you have a lunch fit for "tough guy" kings. And the whole thing is like $10.95. If you don't like eggplant, then I can't help you. Well, that's not true. Giovanni's Brooklyn Eats definitely has less pedestrian Italian food than eggplant parm. I've been told by others that pretty much anything you order there is damn good and I'm bound to believe it.

At the very least, it's menu is pretty reasonable and so it's worth taking a stroll to South Slope for some down-home Italian.