vip in the city

Le brunch in Bay Ridge

With warm weather just around the corner, we found ourselves back in Bay Ridge for brunch.

LC suggested Saint Germain, a très French bistro on Third Avenue, which had received some good word of mouth from the locals. The location has been home to a series of French bistros, beginning in 1999 with Le ZaZou, to Provence en Boite (which relocated to Smith Street in Carroll Gardens) before hitting upon its current incarnation. The cozy restaurant is a popular brunch spot — no wonder: the prix fixe is an excellent value, offering choice of entrée, coffee or tea, plus orange juice or Lorina sparkling pink lemonade, and a fancy dessert, all for $16.95. Our party of four waited about twenty minutes for a table, which gave us plenty of time to consider the myriad pastry options in the glass display case up front, and to ponder what exactly goes into Saint Germain’s specialty “Brigitte Bardot” cocktail. (Answer: lemon vodka, triple sec, and that sparkling pink lemonade. What, no St-Germain?)

For better or worse, our experience felt truly Parisian: beyond leisurely, the service ranged from benignly neglectful to maddeningly slow. After making our selections from the brunch menu (the usual egg dishes, croque monsieur, crêpes, French toast, croissanwiches), we waited another twenty minutes for someone to take our order. The entrées, when they came, were quite good, though I would have enjoyed my Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict more with the cup of coffee I ordered… which did not come despite two requests. (Each time we asked for our drinks, the waitress would cheerily respond, “Sure!” and continue merrily along, unfazed.)

When at last we got our coffees and teas with dessert (pictured below, my apple pastry and HH’s chocolate mousse dome), they came poured into too-hot-to-handle glass tumblers. No explanation or apology given, but we deduced that the kitchen must have run out of their usual white cups, though I noticed about half a dozen used ones sitting on yet-to-be-cleared tables around us.

On the bright side, the slow service gave us plenty of time to catch up. Back on the sunny streets after our two hour brunch, we noticed an inordinate amount of bright green gear on the livelier than usual crowds spilling out of the Irish pubs. When we passed a group of kilted bagpipers, we knew something was up.

It seems we’d just missed the Bay Ridge St. Patrick’s Day Parade, a procession which began at St. Patrick’s R.C. Church (not Cathedral) and proceeded along (Brooklyn’s) Fifth Avenue to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica. Beleaguered Kings County DA Charles “Joe” Hynes served as Grand Marshal for the post-St. Patrick’s Day tradition, which began in 1994.

Next up: Bay Ridge’s 17th of May Norwegian Day Parade, which will be held this year on Sunday, May 18.

Back at DK’s home, after reruns of “Mythbusters” and the “Hawaii” episode of the Travel Channel’s 1,000 Places To See Before You Die, we amused ourselves with a spontaneous digital cable version of “Name That Tune.” The years may pass, but some songs are just seared in our memories.

Elsewhere in BK… Flickr preview: Greenpoint weekend (April 12-13, 2008)

Tags: Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, brunch, French, parade

Noodle Pudding

After work, CF and I headed into Brooklyn Heights for dinner at one of her favorite neighborhood spots. Just one stop from Wall Street, up the unreliable elevators and north along Henry Street, we came upon a signless storefront with a wrought-iron picture window, near pretty Cranberry Street.

The name of the restaurant is Noodle Pudding — and it’s no secret to Brooklyn Heights residents, who pack the place regularly. Contrary to what the name might suggest, it is not a Jewish deli, but a trattoria. The dimly lit dining room was warmly appointed with mahogany accents, glowing chandeliers, artwork-laden ocher and exposed brick walls. Solid, inexpensive Italian fare with pastas in the $9-13 range, meat entrées topping out around $22 for the Osso Buco. In 2006, the New Yorker deemed Noodle Pudding “the epitome of a decent neighborhood restaurant.”

According to CF, who dines here on a near-weekly basis, the restaurant’s specials are consistently good. Her favorite among them is the pasta with wild boar ragù (also a specialty of The Violent Femmes’ Brian Ritchie as I recall) — this endorsement coming from a vegetarian. That particular dish wasn’t on the menu tonight, so I was not tempted to break Lent. (Five more days until Easter…!) I can, however, recommend my Strozza Preti Alla Sicilian (pasta with eggplant, tomato and ricotta), which was fresh and simply prepared, accompanied by a very reasonably priced glass of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo — my favorite everyday wine of late. (Pair it with pizza!)

About that confounding name: according to The Rough Guide to New York City Restaurants, Noodle Pudding is so called because the proprietor, Antonio Migliaccio, is known to his Jewish friends as “Mr. Kugel,” which is the rough Italian-to-Yiddish translation of his surname. So many of Migliaccio’s friends ribbed him over his choice of restaurant name that he decided to forgo a sign in front. ”Honestly,” he said, ”I got embarrassed.“

The dessert offerings included a bread pudding ($5), but oddly enough, not a single noodle pudding.

Tile mural inside the Clark Street subway station via the entrance of the Hotel St. George, once the largest hotel in New York City:

Tags: Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights, Italian, Noodle Pudding, trattorias

Boldly going to Macbeth

At the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater tonight for Rupert Goold’s justly celebrated production of Macbeth. The show makes its way to New York City for a (sold-out) five week run from England’s Chichester Festival Theatre and a sold-out West End run that earned Evening Standard Theatre Awards for the director and lead actor Patrick Stewart.

Anticipation has been high for the stateside transfer after the lavish praised heaped upon this production by the usually reticent British critics: The Evening Standard‘s Nicholas de Jongh pronounced it the “Macbeth of a lifetime“; The Daily Telegraph’s Charles Spencer called it the “best Macbeth” he had ever seen – this from a man who presumably has seen a lot of Shakespeare.

What could I possibly add to all the rave reviews? Anthony Ward’s stark, grey-washed set generates a fitting level of eerie foreboding throughout as it multi-purposes as war hospital, a kitchen and a morgue. The visual projections on the back walls ranged from documentary footage of Stalin’s marching armies to dark, dripping blood, adding to the unsettling atmosphere. There were so many moments and performances to admire: Kate Fleetwood’s fiercely sexy take on Lady Macbeth… the innovative staging of Act III’s banquet scene: first as viewed through the guilt-crazed eyes of Macbeth, and then replayed after intermission from the perspective of his guests… the “weyard sisters” making their first appearance as preternatural field nurses, rap-chanting their “Double, double toil and trouble” spell amid zapping lights and booms of thunder (well, that may have been a little gimmicky)… the unbearably drawn-out, horror-stricken silence that follows when exiled future king Macduff (Michael Feast) is told the news of his butchered wife and children…

And of course, it hardly needs to be said that Stewart was sublime as Macbeth, making even the simple act of making and eating a sandwich completely menacing. And yet, for all his unchecked ambition and grand, brutal scheming, when he delivers the famous “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow” soliloquy in Act V, it is with the world-weariness of a soldier ready to head home.

This production deserves a wide audience, which it may get if speculation of a Broadway transfer proves true. If that happens, I would make but one suggestion: pipe in Alexander Courage‘s Star Trek fight theme music during the final Macduff-Macbeth showdown. Hey, it worked brilliantly in The Cable Guy.

Tags: BAM, Brooklyn, Jean Luc Picard, Macbeth, Shakespeare, theatre