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“The Grocery”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Brooklyn	Moderate	Great

aron were greeting guests, explaining specials and serving dinner on small fluted Tiffany-blue plates. It’s a sweet touch that makes you feel as though you’re dining in their home.
Indeed, they served our first courses. We’d decided on fried artichokes with the help of a table next to us who were raving about them. They were right to rave. A plate of beautiful fried artichokes ($14), quartered and gently breaded forming a light crust, are spritzed with lemon and served on top of a salad of shredded greens dressed in a bright vinaigrette.

With the artichokes we had that night’s special—a white wine risotto ($11) stocked with generous hunks of duck confit and plump sweet spring peas. This risotto was perfectly cooked—loose, soupy and almost running off the plate, yet creamy enough from the starch of the rice, no cheating with cream. While three appetizers were a lot, we couldn’t resist a grilled calamari, so we didn’t. We shared it as a mid-course. Thin, wonderfully chewy and charred ringlets are tossed with sweet and hot long peppers, roasted and pickled cauliflower, and giant cannellini beans (so lustrous they almost looked like little poached eggs) from Rancho Gordo in a dill and tarragon dressing. Dill is one of my favorite herbs, and here it was unexpected. But it was a welcome surprise, somehow softening the edges of all the flavors, helping the dish reach harmony.

The room was now filled, and Diana was looking around, smiling. “Brooklyn people are so cute,” she said, sweeping a piece of soft crusty bread through the last of the dill dressing. I laughed. “I guess we are,” I said, taking in the room. A sweet young couple was seated next to us—he, bookish in glasses and a polo shirt, she, petite and thin, with pale freckles and a mop of curly amber hair. Another couple sat on our other side, he speaking loudly on a cell phone, she smiling apologetically at all those eyes on him. A group of women, seemingly mother and daughters were catching up at a large table along the far wall. Two men in tight t-shirts showing off their great pecs, shared a salad (what Charlie and Sharon call “Teenage Greens.”) More and more tables of two came into the small grass-colored room, inquiring about tables for dinner. There were none free. The woman next to us commented to her husband who was now off the phone: “Looks like the sidewalk will be crowded aga ... [more, click below]

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Posted: April 20, 2008

Other restaurants in Brooklyn :
+ Chickenbone Cafe-- Closed   + Pier 116-- Closed   + Chestnut   + Lunch at Peter Luger's   + 360   + Palo Santo   + The Good Fork   + Porchetta-- Closed Now   + Bocca Lupo   + Flatbush Farm   + DuMont Burger   + Dressler   + Farm on Adderley   + The Grocery   + Saul   + Black Mountain Wine House   + The General Greene   + Char No. 4   + James   + Chestnut   + No. 7   + Vinegar Hill House   + Motorino   + Buttermilk Channel   + Buttermilk Channel   + Vutera   + Watty & Meg    + Prime Meats   + Aqualis Grill   + Jack the Horse Tavern   + Roman's   + Fatty 'Cue   + Thistle Hill Tavern   + Broken English   + Trix, by Dara Pollak   + An Ode to New Orleans in Williamsburg: Maison Premiere, By Dara Pollak   + Brooklyn Wok Shop by Dara Pollak   + Arthur on Smith   + La Vara   + Gran Electrica   + Pok Pok Ny   + Ganso    + Reynard   

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