Brooklyn Food & Drink Round-Up

New in Brooklyn Heights: River Deli
We already mentioned that a new Italian restaurant was in the works for Brooklyn Heights, and now Time Out New York reports that a pair of Sardinia natives have successfully converted the deli on the corner of Joralemon Street and Columbia Place into a “quaint, sunlight-bathed restaurant, specializing in authentic dishes from the Italian island. Expect malloredus sardi alla campidanese, a traditional short pasta with a tomato-and-sausage sauce, and a charcuterie-and-cheese sampler served on taglieri—imported handmade wooden trays.”

Today’s NY Times Dining Highlights
Sam Sifton gives Williamsburg’s Fatty Cue one star and says it “looks like a biker bar for the kind of bikers who don’t ride Harleys in leathers and boots, but stripped-down Schwinns in boat shoes and skinny jeans… The food is incredibly good. Fatty ‘Cue is a restaurant worth traveling to visit.” … Ligaya Mishan’s $25 and Under column hits up two Prospect Heights spots, finding The Vanderbilt “slightly calculated… The menu is almost too ecumenical, as if it had been focus-grouped.” Kaz an Nou gets a warmer review: “They make earthy, comforting food: rich pheasant pâté enveloped in puff pastry ($7); smoky jerk chicken ($13); lamb lasagna with a hint of nutmeg ($13).”

Exploring Brooklyn’s Chinatown
Once the rain clears and the weather warms up, it’ll be prime time for sampling new foods around the borough. CHOW’s Outer Borough Digest sets a starting point for a Chinese food crawl: “There’s a wok master in residence at Zheng Yuan Bao Gourmet. Jim Leff describes beautifully stir-fried chow rice noodles, balanced and deeply satisfying, from this tiny Fujianese-run spot in Sunset Park’s Chinatown. Another knockout dish pairs perfectly cooked squid with slightly charred ‘Chinese New Year’ rice cakes.”

After the jump: $10 coffee in Crown Heights, new spot in Pomme de Terre space, and more…

Crown Heights Coffee Madness
Eater reports that as of today, “six month-old Franklin Ave. coffee shop The Pulp & The Bean will start serving a 16 ounce $10 cup of coffee. That’s right: $10 coffee in Crown Heights. Sounds insane (really insane), but the shop’s owner Tony Fisher tells Eater that he predicts it not only will do well with his customers—it will also draw coffee geeks out to the neighborhood.” Anybody gonna try a cup?

Quick Bites
Ditmas Park Blog posts the menu for Junction 538, set to open in the old Pomme de Terre space… Brooklyn Laundry, a Clinton Hill supper club, will be serving a six-course tasting menu for $100 on Saturday, May 22. Tickets are available here… On this Saturday, May 15, Brooklyn Based will host The Total Franklin Street Immersion, “a block party, scavenger hunt, flash sale, and pub crawl into one.”