Wednesday Food & Drink Round-Up

Photo by NYC Food Guy

Ballfields Vendors Return! (With Some Serious Debt)
The Brooklyn Paper reports: “The beloved Latino food stalls of Red Hook Park announced they will return to their traditional haunt this weekend — and the grand re-opening couldn’t come a moment too soon for vendors, who have racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debt to comply with tightened city regulations… ‘The losses are major,’ said Marcos Lainez, who operates a Salvadoran papusa cart. ‘It’s going to take at least two and a half years to recover all the money we have lost.'” It’s unclear whether or not prices will be higher than previous years — better bring some extra cash just in case.

New Tenant Grabs 360 Space
360 Van Brunt, Red Hook
Lost City chats with the landlord and dishes the details on the new tenant: “The new eatery, ‘another fancy sit-down place,’ will arrive in September. It will be Italian, and run by an Italian, whose name I didn’t get, but who runs a restaurant outside Italy, and has put in time at Patois on Smith Street. (Perhaps with that information, the foodies out there may have an idea who the guy is.) The place may be a ‘family affair,’ run by the chef and his clan, and the landlord said the man was committed to the place.”

25 Bucks Buys Food, Booze, and Boobs
“Sixpoint Craft Ales is teaming with Clinton Hill’s Brown Betty Cafe to cook up a—beat this—$25 four-course meal with beer pairings and burlesque show on Thursday 17 at Prospect Heights’ pastie-twirling watering hole Barrette. Highlights include watercress and grilled-peach salad with Righteous Rye ale, shrimp-and-corn bisque with Sweet Action Ale (one of the 100 Best Things we tasted last year) and a performance from Naughtia Nice… R.S.V.P. to 917-378-2454.” [Time Out New York]

After the jump: Brooklyn Flipsters, Miranda, Zenkichi, the Prospect Heights dining scene, cheap eats in Brighton Beach, dining out in a Carroll Gardens brownstone, and fish tacos at Brooklyn Bridge Park…

Now Open: Brooklyn Flipsters
444 9th Street, Park Slope
Blondie and Brownie reports: “Turns out Brooklyn Burger Bar, formerly Bar Minnow, is now Brooklyn Flipsters. According to the guy in the chef’s coat who I spoke to outside, the place has a new owner and an all new menu and was scheduled to open Saturday, July 12th.” Has anyone checked it out yet?

Miranda: The Marriage of Mexican and Italian Cuisine
80 Berry Street, Williamsburg
“It’s interesting to see how naturally the ingredients of those two cuisines can be wedded. Instead of risotto, there’s Mexican rice, as wonderfully glutinous but flavored with tomato and cumin… You order the garganelli, and out comes a dish that looks like baked ziti. It’s every bit as fulfilling but a hundred times better. What makes the difference is tangy chunks of longaniza sausage. Or take the arancini. You expect it to be made with ground veal or beef, but instead it’s studded with spheres of chorizo and served over a garlicky tomato fonduta.” [NYDN]

Quick Bites
“Zenkichi in Wiliamsburg is offering a $35 omakase every Wednesday and Thursday through the end of July,” says Zagat…The NY Times hits up all their favorite Prospect Heights dining spots… Metromix seeks out dollar grub deals in Brighton Beach… Bergen Carroll says that the chefs behind Tall Order are hosting a 4-course “Brownstone dinner” on Saturday, July 26 in Carroll Gardens… Brooklyn Based visits “Pier 1, the urban oasis at Brooklyn Bridge Park,” and they like what they see: “Wine, beer, and affordable fare like fish tacos in a still-quiet, waterfront public park, with a patch of grass and sand overlooking Manhattan and Olafur Eliasson’s industrial waterworks. Open till Labor Day.”