Wednesday Food & Drink Round-Up
Photo by shadowknows555 Closing: Armando’s 143 Montague St, Brooklyn Heights “Armando’s will close on March 16, after 70 years in business. Armando’s owner Peter Byros told GO Brooklyn, ‘I am retiring,’ and said that a Midwestern chain restaurant would be going into the space, although he declined to name the chain. Neighborhood preservationists, along with…
Photo by shadowknows555
Closing: Armando’s
143 Montague St, Brooklyn Heights
“Armando’s will close on March 16, after 70 years in business. Armando’s owner Peter Byros told GO Brooklyn, ‘I am retiring,’ and said that a Midwestern chain restaurant would be going into the space, although he declined to name the chain. Neighborhood preservationists, along with state Senate candidate Daniel Squadron, are currently campaigning to save the neon ‘lobster sign’ that hangs over the door.” [The Brooklyn Paper]
Dine In Brooklyn: Restaurant List Preview
VisitBrooklyn.org has yet to annouce the restaurants that will be participating in Brooklyn’s restaurant week (scheduled for March 24 through 31, 2008), but the line-up, which is listed on the AmEx website, was leaked on Chowhound. The same Chowhounder who posted the AmEx link also asks, “whats really worth it?? i mean i love waterfront ale house for my burger and buffalo calamari, but i dont think it really makes sense to spend $23 for a 3 course meal there.”
Egg: Not Just for Breakfast Anymore
135 North Fifth Street (Bedford Avenue), Williamsburg; (718) 302-5151
“Most of the dinner menu is guileless, direct and plain good eating. A hulking pork shank ($16), braised to a lacquered darkness, comes scattered with a mix of chopped garlic and herbs — like an informal gremolata — atop a mound of yellow Anson Mills grits… The house version of Tater Tots — miniature hash browns that it serves at breakfast — accompany a good grass-fed rib-eye steak topped with blue cheese ($24). Fried nearly black, they are a blast of creamy, buttery pleasure in a crisp potato shell.” [NY Times]
After the jump: TONY rips on Jimmy’s Diner, no love for Driggs pizza, and sNice’s official opening date…
TONY Rips On Jimmy’s Diner
577 Union Ave between North 10th and 11th Sts, Williamsburg; (718-218-7174)
“To some extent, the middling reputation established by owner Josh Cohen at Park Slope’s Biscuit BBQ continues here—fried chicken, touted on the menu as ‘Brooklyn’s best,’ wasn’t. Its oily skin lacked the necessary craggy texture and addictive crunch. The dessert menu exhibits similar false claims, such as a ‘money-back brownie’—a generic square that made us want to reclaim the $2 we’d spent on it.” [Time Out New York]
No Love for Driggs Pizza
558 Driggs Ave (at North 7th Street), Williamsburg; (718) 782-4826
“I’m not sure I can even eat it as a last-resort leftover–it’s truly pizza that bring out the kid in me, as in ‘Mom, I can’t eat this unless you cut the crust off.’ Cardboard would be too vivid a comparison.” [A Brooklyn Life]
‘sNice Brooklyn Opens Friday
“The Park Slope location of what is currently the top-rated restaurant in New York by SuperVegan readers will open this Friday, March 7th at the corner of 5th Avenue and 3rd Street.” [SuperVegan]
5:38 from yesterday back. If you first tried Armando’s on 1982, I tried it then too. I was disappointed then. I kept trying it off and on over the years. I really wanted it to be a great neighborhood place that had the food to match. I probably gave it more chances than I should have. The fact that its going out of business now is not surprising. The food in BH has gotten better over the past 20 years. There are more dining options now (no sniping from you PS lovers about how everything is better there). If Armando’s was just a bar, it would do fine based on all the boozers I see there. But for those looking for a neighborhood place that treats you well and has food that’s compelling enough to eat I’ll take Jack the Horse.
“Armando’s is not about the food”
Quite true.
Armando’s is not a a dive, its a classic neighborhood place. For those of you that hate it so much and are glad to see it gone move back to the burbs. It’s been there some 60 odd years, Peter has owned it almost as long as I’ve been alive, its one of the last bastions of true Brooklyn Heights. We’ll see if this new chain treats its patrons with as much care and personal attention as Peter and his staff have treated me and my family all these years (and if you’re wondering I’m 3rd generation Brooklyn Heights, family first came through Ellis Island 100 years ago to Henry Street).
Had dinner there last night, still love it, will miss it dearly.
isn’t it good for restaurants to come and go?
I mean think of the gunk in the kitchen and on the appliances. Clean it out. Fill many dumpsters, then start new. I actually avoid these old neighborhood dives because they are usually extremely unsanitary.
5:38… I’ve eaten at Armando’s since 1982 or so, as a kid. It’s not perfect, but they do a great veal parm, and a very nice linguine with veg. It’s sad that you’re so pleased that they’re going out of business.
You’re obviously not from Brooklyn.
Too bad s’nice moved to the slope. A neighborhood I don’t like at all. Wish it moved to Ft. Greene. Oh well.
The brownstone that houses Armando’s is very handsome. There is a lovely Renaissance window flanked by little pilasters right behind the sign. A new store or restaurant will need to treat the building a little more respectfully. I don’t think the sign is good enough to be considered a classic and I think it actually detracts from the really classic building from which it hangs.
ps: tonight the “restaurant” part of the sign was blinking in classic HOT L Baltimore fashion.
Armando’s is not about the food — it’s about a true neighborhood place, from a time when Brooklyn Heights was a true neighborhood, as opposed to a real estate wet dream.
What 1:57 said, again. 2:16, if you ever ate at Armando’s you would be the first in line to get in at Bored-agains. At least their food is edible.