Red Hook a Destination for Eating, Exploring

On a nice day, there is nothing more pleasant than poking around Red Hook’s odd corners. A unique mix of seaside village and industrial waterfront, the neighborhood is one we make a point of visiting at least once a year instead of, say, Cape Cod, which is too far away and expensive. New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells likes it too, and recommends checking it out now that almost all of its eating and drinking venues have reopened post-Sandy:

But for variety, charm, oddity and rugged urban beauty, there is nothing in the city like eating and drinking your way across this Brooklyn neighborhood…Instead of destination dining, Red Hook offers an impressive variety of tastes: dizzying lobster bisque, marshmallows you want to hide from your children, crunchy and spicy Korean pancakes, wines and liqueurs that are fascinatingly far from ordinary, and a potato-and-egg sandwich that should be on the curriculum of every Brooklyn public school…Most impressively, Red Hook is a true community in a city where that notion is becoming more abstract all the time…As New York’s dining scene has come to be dominated by empire builders, Red Hook has stitched together a bunch of little ideas that add up to something big, something that’s become hard to find in other places.

He highlights a dozen food and drink places to try, starting with the food vendors at the Red Hook Ball Fields and ending with Defonte’s Sandwich Shop. What are your picks for a day in Red Hook?
Treasures on Every Block of Red Hook [NY Times]