Neighborhood Eats

In my head, I’m still just visiting Brooklyn but I am reclaiming my home bite by bite. Williamsburg’s Alligator Lounge gives out free personal pizza pies with every drink purchase and has long been my compromise of convenience. But the flaked fixings still leave the marinara version lacking. Enter smuggled-in fresh basil.A new local sushi joint, Pacific Ocean House, offers a wide selection of vegetarian rolls– 2 columns worth! Not just your standard avocado or cucumber roll. I tried the Vegetarian Naruto (oshinko, avocado, carrot and lettuce wrapped in thin layers of cucumber) and the sweet potato roll.
After a successful job interview in Cobble Hill, I had to make good on my promise to treat for lunch. Raga on Smith Street has plentiful lunch specials, like many Indian restaurants, but their attention to detail takes the cake! The naan was so soft and pillowy I wanted to take a nap in it.
Counter‘s vegan French toast was so amazing, so perfect in every way, that I won’t call attention to their horribly terrible service. I’d gladly come back again and again to nibble on their banana-flambe topped toast.
Back at home we broke in the new wok, christening it with this favorably stir-fry of tofu, onion, sweet pepper, garlic, spinach and basil. I threw in the crunchy spicy bites I brought back from Thailand. Complete with a comfy bed of raisin and cranberry cous-cous…sweet to compliment the spice.
Then to dessert, I experimented in making fried banana with the leftover rice paper sitting in my cupboard for months. Wrapping quartered ‘nanas sprinkled with turbinado sugar, the wok was now my deep fryer. The end result was scrumptiously gooey and greasy.