Brooklyn Food & Drink Round-Up

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Tedone Latticini
No Sign, a.k.a. The Mozzarella Lady; 597 Metropolitan Avenue, between Lorimer and Leonard; (718) 387-5830
Thanks to the second installment of NYC Food Guy’s Williamsburg Sandwich Tour, we get to feast our eyes on this sausage, pepper, and fresh mozzarella sandwich, which was made by “91-year-old Georgi, who has been preparing handmade, melt-in-your-mouth fresh mozzarella that according to her ‘puts you in your own world.’”

6 Restaurant Openings
Olga’s, a health-conscious restaurant with vegetarian and kosher specialties, has opened at 407 Smith between 4th and 5th Streets in Carroll Gardens, says Pardon Me For Asking. Watty & Meg, serving “items such as crispy-skinned salmon with quinoa, kale and juniper-berry sauce,” is opening this week at 248 Court Street at Kane Street in Cobble Hill, says Time Out New York. And Eater reports that “the giant bar/restaurant/music venue/roof deck Berry Park on 4 Berry Street in Williamsburg is slowly chugging along”… Anella should be opening in the old Queen’s Hideaway space in Greenpoint on Thursday… Bed-Stuy is about to get a new speakeasy called Sarah James at 305 Throop Street… And the old 360 space in Red Hook will soon be opening as Italian spot O Barone.

A Restaurant for the Edge
“Williamsburg’s massive waterfront development the Edge is still looking for a restaurateur to take on its restaurant space by winter, according to a broker for the project. The space may fall to a chain because of the high rent, but the developer is trying to secure one that’s not too offensive to indie types,” Grub Street reports. Apparently Heartland Brewery and Shake Shack were considered but are now out of the running.

After the jump: A big-time barbecue cookbook from a Fort Greene writer, news on Lobo and Anselmo’s, and a closer look at O’Keefe’s Bar & Grill

Get Ready to Grill with Serious Barbecue
Fort Greene resident (and our friend) JJ Goode co-authored the just-released cookbook, Serious Barbecue: Smoke, Char, Baste, and Brush Your Way to Great Outdoor Cooking, with Adam Perry Lang of Daisy May’s BBQ. Featuring recipes for burgers with the “perfect fat-meat ratio,” killer chicken wings, and bacon-wrapped turkey breasts, it’s got plenty of inspiration for backyard barbecues. (You can get all the details when the book is featured on Oprah this Friday.)

Lobo Reopens and Anselmo’s Gets Reviewed
A Brooklyn Life reports that the reopened Lobo (218 Court Street at Warren Street in Cobble Hill) doesn’t seem wildly improved: “The recent renovations to Lobo seem to have yielded a rather similar looking Lobo.” The local blogger also shares some thoughts on Anselmo’s at 354 Van Brunt in Red Hook: “Here’s the good news: It’s not crowded, it’s cheap, the waitstaff and pizza man himself, Anselmo Garcia, are super nice, and the ingredients are quality. Here’s the slightly less good news: This is no Lucali, no Di Fara. It’s good pizza, but it’s not great pizza.”

A Closer Look at O’Keefe’s
And finally, Robert Simonson “takes a peek inside Gotham’s more anonymous watering holes, one by one,” for Eater: “There may be better taverns in New York than O’Keefe’s Bar & Grill on Court Street in downtown Brooklyn, but few have better signs. The large red neon ‘Bar’ and ‘Grill’ above the entrance possesses a powerfully anonymous urban iconography rarely seen outside of film… O’Keefe’s is an outlet for myriad neighborhood needs. It also has a small reputation for buffalo wings, which can be had for the low price of 40 cents per on Mondays.”

By Kara |