Summer Question: Which Stroller Mafia Reigns Supreme

As I was combing the building's group board - and of course, if I wasn't such a lazy bastard and got out of the building I'll notice the insane amount of young children. It's entirely possible that due to the handing over of wardrobes in this building, a shirt could have passed through several children's closets before getting thrown up on or dirty beyond repair. Word.

Which brings me to a really pertinent question: when it comes to the Stroller Mafia, does Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens best out Park Slope? To consider, there are lots of strollers per square block however, Park Slope as you move up the hill has larger sidewalks which may diminish the actual inconvenience.

I guess it's not really a burning question - I just wonder if in any sort of arbitrary ranking, does Cobble Hill or even Boerum Hill have what it takes (what it lacks in size) to compete, cliche to cliche, to the Slope. It's like asking who is nicer in showbiz, Henry Winkler or Brendan Fraser.

Ah one of Sandler's better efforts is on FX, Zohan. It's surprisingly enjoyable.

Time to hit Brooklyn Fare to avoid the crowd - but who am I kidding, it's holiday weekend. I was surprisingly surprised to see a lot of local businesses closed for the weekend. I should know better.

if you look up "stroller mafia" on Youtube this is the second video that pops up so obviously you should keep it top of mind when you see a stroller in the next day or so:

Dekalb Market - As If There's Not Enough Going On

Good golly miss Molly there's been a drought of posts here. Sorry you 30 readers of this miniscule blog!

Dekalb Market, somehow sandwiched along Flatbush between Willoughby and Fulton, will be opening July 23rd. What is it you ask? Shipping containers. It's full-sized Legos. With stuff inside.

As City Point is starting to finally move along and Willoughby Park at Albee Square shows signs of life with blinding colors and labor protests that have died down since a few weeks ago - Dekalb Market is looking to bring a stable of food, retail, and more to the area. Just in a really odd way. From the minds of Urban Space - it's another market that Brooklyn seems to be really enamored with these days. At least they'll have pickles right?

In other news, Brownstoner reports that a Gap....outlet will be coming to the Fulton Mall. The only Gap I like is a Gap outlet. You know why? Wanna guess? The gap in prices that's what. I wonder if the Gap was like, "Fulton Mall, let's go there and start small...with an outlet".

Shake Shack is finally getting started - the gut renovation of the pizza joint on the corner visibly began this week - and if it's anything like the Times Square one - this thing is going to be nasty flashy. I wonder if Wendy's and Burger King are going to fall on tough times. Not that I think Shake Shack is that great....

All the ellipses are due to it being the morning...random thoughts float by...

Speaking of Gaps:

Where's the Beef? Burger Joints Running Wild in Downtown Brooklyn/Cobble Hill

Today was the 5th Ave Park Slope street fare filled with the typical attitudes including beer, sterling silver jewelry, calzones, crepes, and stroller mania. Blue Ribbon was doing sushi outdoors which was uber tempting.

I had a wonderful smoked brisket sandwich with some chipotle cream sauce, greasy good. As we ended our loopy walk, we passed by the new Five Guys location right in the Metrotech. It seems like they've realized that this is becoming a residential area as it's open on the weekend and doing good business it seems. To me it's really exciting to have food options north of the Fulton Mall; not that there aren't any (fried fish and souvlaki are available on Saturday) but especially on lazy Sundays it's a welcome change for me (I can still do without the Aeropostale and the idea of redoing the mall, but the Arby's was a good try, everybody loves food).

Of course, with the new Five Guys in Cobble Hill, it's like a Five Guys party since there's one on Montague. I have a feeling this is overload, but Metrotech could use an established franchise that's good.

However, it's not just Five Guys. We have the new Shake Shack coming to Fulton Mall. Moo Burger opened up on Court. There's another burger joint on Atlantic by the Brazen Head that's getting going. Heading into Carroll Gardens you have Dubuque and I'm pretty sure there's even another new restaurant specializing in bun/patty/bun on Court or Smith. I can smell it. Atlantic's also got Jake's Way Back burgers and I just really can't wrap my head around it right now. Oh and all this about Smash Burger opening up multiple locations in Brooklyn. When has Denver been highly anticipated in Brooklyn?

Checkers across the street from the Court Street United Artists. JB Burger I think opened up not that long ago right on Smith. Am I saying this is the pinnacle of burger heaven such as the highly respected 67 Burger in Fort Greene? No, but the choices of stuffing your face with ground meat is getting beyond tempting.

Maybe this summer we'll have to see who has the best fries in the neighborhood as well; if there was only a place that did Belgian-style fries on the regular...

Photo from the Brooklyn Paper...Five Guys has a littany of toppings, unlike Shake Shack. And they overload on the fries. It's too good.

Brooklyn Flea Coming To Williamsburg, Hipster Orgy Will Ensue

I wonder how this would work; with the Brooklyn Brownstoner Flea coming to Williamsburg AND staying in Fort Greene, does that mean that the hipsters will stay in the burg and strollers will continue to crowd the FT?

I did purchase some cool cuff links made from typewriter keys from a wonderful father/daughter (or what appeared to be that) team. I also purchase a woodprint from a dude who is always there at the flea but I never managed to get around to really examining his stuff.

My better half was pushed around by a red-headed lady, a la the Red-Headed League, one of the wonderful stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his eccentric hero Sherlock Holmes. The flea needs more agitation, a little fight here and there would liven things up. I just can't really stand the amount of earth tones and navy, so I am more resolute to do the flea once or twice a year, because you definitely can find some cool stuff. I'm more partial to the outdoors version probably.

So it's been a while since I've taken the time to post, as the new job has been both stimulating, busy, great, and the whatnot. I figure since winter is taking a while to just end, I'll take a while to post again. I did miss Irish Haven this year for St. Patrick's Day unfortunately due to great conversation at another bar but I'm sure the corned beef was scarfed just fine.

A new fast Chinese food hybrid opened up on Willoughby which I will soon be calling upon for some interesting combinations; according to the pictures posted to the window, they sell waffles in addition to the regular menu. It's called Chang Heng on 54 Willoughby, and I hope it stays around for a while like other businesses; we need consistency on Willoughby considering the lack of volume on the street until City Point opens up in a year or two. It's also one of those places where the kids of the people who run the place have to hang around and that moves me, the dedication to supervision even during work hours.

I also just noticed one of the current Willoughby Windows art pieces was a monkey-looking cartoon pooping a rainbow.

I ran outside with my girl this past week and it was hard; I've never actually gone for a long run, long walks every week but jogging felt good. Certainly tough and I commend anyone who can pace themselves without a treadmill doing it for them and actually push to go as far as they need to.

The be @ Schermerhorn has a sick atrium and really nice lounge. If there's any way to transport the Belltel's lounge up somehow from the basement, in whatever alternate reality that could happen, that would be amazing. New posters went up regarding the retail space (or were they old and I just never really looked at them), not sure how they are carved out considering there's only one real additional entrance.

I now have plenty to work with from my old job in terms of choice of alcoholic beverages and maybe I'll put the old Waverly @ IFC Center cocktail menu to the test again to see if I can make it as good as I used to.

At our house growing up we used to have either swinging doorway garbage cans (or whatever you call them, similar to ones at McDonald's or other fast food chains or cafeterias) and one larger step-to-open-hatch one. Now we have 3 step-to-open-hatch ones, and it certainly contains any smells but you lose the fun or tossing stuff into the garbage quickly. I was never good at basketball but one can dream.

Does the aroma of coffee beans ever go stale?

Recent Netflixing: deep-sea documentaries are so awesome because the creatures are just straight up nightmares. Other than that, I tried to start a number of teen TV series to recreate more angst-riddled days when emo wasn't really classified as such, like Roswell. I'll try and stick it out but I was teetering on boredom. MI-5 has really picked up and it's a pretty solid show, lacking a bit of depth of character but it moves at a fast clip. Cyborg 2 so far with Angelina Jolie when she was like 19 is also surprisingly fast but really doesn't make any sense, although the first one is a complete masterpiece of tomfoolery and terrible BeBop/Rocksteady fashion (by the way, shame on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for making villains out of two storied music genres, although I'll of course take rocksteady ten out of ten just because of my aversion to certain types of jazz).

The Netflix recommendations for "Brooklyn, NY" are very intellectual and probably out of my league in terms of fun Friday night viewing. I can only imagine the Fleasters who hone in every weekend to Fort Greene or 1 Hanson Place are cramping Brooklyn's style of what really would be most appealing to Brooklynites.

Coffee & Sympathy

The Victory on State and Hoyt is closed. I'm wondering if the block is cursed since Kili shut down recently too. Sarcastic signs on the door window is trying to drive traffic to Building on Bond, that is taking on the V staff.

You can still get coffee at the Little Sweet Cafe on the block (truly miniature), but V was pretty fun and I'll be sure to have a coffee for the Victory....at...eh ra...the Little Sweet.

Elsewhere, I got to stop by the Best Buy in the Atlantic Center and it feels sort of damp in a way. It has pretty hilarious reading reviews on BestBuy.com ("they should call this 'worst buy') but it's not quite as heinous as the slander. However, the selection isn't quite as expansive.

Brooklyn Fare is finally finishing up their expansion; yesterday I was full-on glory walking around the now double-the-size market: more meat, more brands, more selection, this is a serious supermarket now and ready to be the shit in an area that competes with the generic (Pathmark, which is awesome no digs at that, then Key Foods, Gristedes, Concord), the chic (Trader Joe's), and the upscale (Garden of Eden). Very stoked about this, all around amazing.

Photo courtesy of the NY Times, continuing their run of sympathy for the Brooklyn.

In honor, and become I'm lazy, here's The Living End:

The Living End - Prisoner of Society
Uploaded by WBRNewMedia. - Explore more music videos.

Jets-Less Super Bowl: Now I Can Rest Easy, and Bar Spotlight: MikNic Lounge

I really dislike the Steelers. But for those who know me, I dislike the Jets even more. Sitting at the Berman Bothers household watching this unfold with a tallboy of Joose, basically a knock off Four Loko, I at least was content with the 24-19 result, even if I wasn't thrilled with the Green Apple artificial flavors...

Cold weather aside, our fair borough was particularly pleasant with some Apt. 138'ing on the holiday this week and Hana Cafe'ing for weekly sushi (apparently the Tuna Lover special wasn't all it was cracked up to be but man that spicy sauce on regular rolls is intensely good).

Brooklyn Fare's expansion is starting to show a little more; they are starting to stock the additional space with goods and the lines are getting longer and longer; they should figure out a way to create real lines so people don't end up fighting over who was first to purchase the 6.99 organic lentil chips (you'd think yuppies wouldn't yell at each other as much but it certainly happens there, it's almost more fun than going to Pathmark). Flank steak was on sale again which was great.

Getting rid of potato "eyes" while prepping meals is kinda gross for some reason; it's like a mini-cactus bug that grows out of the potato. It makes my hands stiffen up.

I need to eat in Fort Greene more often; somehow Flatbush acts as a larger divide than it really is and there's plenty of great food across the way, the most I've gotten out of it was Black Iris but definitely want to partake of the small soul food joint about a block or two east of Flatbush.

MikNic Lounge (misspelled MikNik by Gothamist) is opening up next week on Columbia to give some additional watering hole options slightly closer to Atlantic without having to usher all the way down to Moonshine. Singer/songwriters rejoice: live music and a backyard could make for a relaxing summer spot. The west side is certainly an area that could use some additional burst as people look for the next bustling area in Brooklyn to latch onto. It looks cute and true to that part of the neighborhood and we'll see what kind of vibe will inherit the space. Here's a sneak peek from their Facebook page below. I really dig Columbia and hope that more traffic will come around, there's a few staples like Alma but this might seem more like a Last Exit.

The MTA this week just didn't have it's shit together at all. I say that with utmost prejudice due to the fact that all of the things that required speed and or convenience of the subway this week were not supported by timely and consistent service. There's nothing more defeating about New York public transportation than seeing three B trains come through one station before you finally see a Q train, which is what you want. The look on people's faces are so volatile, the head shakes so terse and violent that you're afraid that they might have not gotten enough neck stretches earlier in the morning to warrant such movement. Couple that with the MTA dude on the front end at Dekalb who just belts out incoming trains as if he's on a radio show and proceeding to yell out the synopsis of The Kids Are Alright, and you have a recipe for putting on the iPodz.

Digital Dumbo is coming up, can't wait! 2nd anniversary of canoodling and rubbing elbows with all kinds of agency types. I might want to try to meet more than 2 people this time...

Or I could just creep:

Keep it on the down low.

2011's All About Being 2011 - Weekend Recappin'

Walking to Atomic Wings on Smith was a bitter cold experience today but drenched in hot sauce not 25 minutes later I could call it a success. I know I haven't been writing so frequently as of late, but I have brand spankin' new employment and I'm putting as much effort as I can into setting up this year for even more greatness.

My better half did a run to Ikea with cohorts from the neighborhood and we built a cabinet together to house equal parts beach towels, extra sheets, and assorted papers (I can never bring myself to throw away my favorite college papers or studies). I realized that we live close enough to Ikea that it's not as much a chore to go there, although it's puzzling how tired I get after walking through the assortment of questionable wood and showrooms (the best has to be the 275 foot studio space, it's so awesome and incorporates the loft bed I bought used to provide my college roommate somewhere to sleep while we were living in Manhattan).

Jimmy Jazz is having a huge clearance sale and I may need to do a quick run; it looks so tempting.

Over the weekend a nightcap in Williamsburg at Hotel Dumond(?) was par for the course as was a donation run to the Salvation Army, where a group of young ladies who looked like the two older daughters in Dan in Real Life were giggling and doing a more serious shop there. Lots of good stuff and a long line for sure.

Brooklyn Fare's expansion is starting to show and it's really going to be sizable and comparable to the larger markets in the area; definitely a big deal as the one thing they could use is a little more variety of both produce and brands. Very exciting stuff though.

I also noticed that Dismemberment Plan is playing on January 30th at Webster Hall, and opening is Jukebox the Ghost. To round out the musical experience this weekend was some Lil Wayne on the radio.