Brunch at Radegast Beer Hall

A friend of mine recently had her birthday brunch at the Radegast Beer Hall in Wlliamsburg. Upon hearing about this, I thought it was a really great idea: what could be better after a night of dancing and drinking in Manhattan than a filling, satisfying beer and a sausage? Despite driving the wrong way down one of Greenpoint's sudden and pointless one way streets and almost being killed by the B43, we arrived in high spirits.

As soon as we sat down, our waitress--who by the way was totally, miraculously pulling off the biermaid outfit--informed us that the brunch menu over which we had been drooling was not really available because they were slammed by a wedding party. She said that the wait would be 40 minutes for anything off the menu, but we could go up and order from the sausage bar right away. We ordered cucumber bloody marys, beer, coffee and a water (for our wrong way driver) from her and began to deliberate on whether we wanted sausage bar or menu.

There were a number of things on the menu that we wanted to order, by which I mean basically everything except "Crispy Dumpling Cubes" which appear on that link, but I don't remember being there, because surely I would have made fun of them for being from the future or something (run-on!). Anyway, because we were super hungry we decided to share a few things from the sausage bar now and then share the menu items whenever they arrived. Beers and bloody marys (and, yes, that is the correct pluralization--I googled it) appeared with only moderate delay. No coffees or water though. Our waitress was gone before we could either ask about the missing beverages or order Gypsy Toast.

Well, we had booze anyway. Four sausages were procured from the grill--two bratwursts and two kielbasas--each coming with sauerkraut and fries. This little snack came to $35, or $8.75 a piece, which I thought was a little steep but more knowledgeable friends tell me is pretty much on par for similar establishments in Germany. I wasn't too crazy about the brat--it was a little dry, but the kielbasa was good and I discovered that fries soaked in sauerkraut is the new cheese fries with gravy/disco fries/poutin. For realz. I loved it. We started to look around for our waitress to either ask about the still AWOL coffees or about ordering from the menu (at this point, it had already been 40 minutes...so...uh...I guess we could have ordered off the menu). When what do we see behind us, but our waitress outside kissing and then walking off with her boyfriend!!! It was just like Grease!!! OMMGGG!! Wait. Where is my coffee?

Perhaps noticing our prolonged distress, another waitress came over and asked if we needed any more drinks. We ordered another round of whatever and FINALLY two Gypsy Toasts (half for the name alone, obviously) since we weren't really hungry enough anymore to each have a full German brunch. ($35 well spent then?). We also mentioned that we had been waiting for coffee, to which she replied, crankily, "Yeah, we're working on it." Ok...what kind of coffee takes 45 minutes? Must be really good.

She came back with more beer and no coffee but with an orange juice. Huh? Apparently orange juice is water in Germany. At this point I was losing interest in getting caffeinated, but still wanted coffee on principle. Anyway, I'll put you out of your misery. Yes, after AN HOUR a totally different waitress arrived with our coffee. And it was INSTANT. Not even drinkable instant. Not even with sugar and milk. Not by anyone. For christ's sake, I used to drink coffee in Ireland. I know about bad (but drinkable) coffee. This was not drinkable. I don't know how these people made their instant coffee taste so bad, or what took them an hour, but after all that fuss, no one even touched their coffee. I'm sure that pissed off waitress number three, but who cares. We were beginning to realize that the only way to deal with the situation was to laugh.

The Gypsy toast arrived, thankfully without stealing anyone's wallet or murdering any farmers. Apparently Gypsy just means...French? Who knew. It was actually very good--though by then I was way too full of beer and Kraut Fries to care. We actually had a pretty good brunch overall, perhaps because the only thing the waitresses seemed to be capable of paying attention to was the levels of our beer, but that's fine for a bier hall, I guess. All the food I tasted was really good (other than the dry brat) and the space had a really nice communal atmosphere. However, I took umbrage at the automatic 18% gratuity added on to our bill (we were 7 people). Now, I usually NEVER complain about that. Having been a waitress I know how much brunch sucks, and how often big groups of people will screw you over. I am totally in favor of this practice. This was the first time I would have considered leaving less than 18%. We were waited on by three different people, none of who seemed to give a crap how our meal was going, and no one apologized for the coffee taking an hour. There were always glasses all over the place, since we seemed to be seated in some sort of black hole of neglect. Seriously: if the service had been even moderately acceptable I would be back there every Sunday for brunch (with maybe some toast already in my belly to tide me over), but the service was so mind-numbingly awful that I just cannot recommend it to anyone or knowingly subject myself to that again. Sorry, Radegast.

Motorino

Last Friday some friends and I visited newly-liquor-licensed pizza place Motorino in Williamsburg. I had been meaning to give it a shot for a while, and the combined factors of finally being able to get a beer and a mini-review by, as Eater sometimes calls him, Frank the Tank Bruni, finally gave me the push I needed.

I was terrified that there was going to be a long wait, not only because of the recent review, but also because usually you have to wait for anything good in Billysburg. Magically, there wasn't, and we were seated promptly right next to a giant ad hoc air conditioner. Although I am usually complaining about restaurants being too cold, this thing was a blessing. The decor was nice: a giant brick oven in the back and cool (in temperature) marble tables throughout the dining room. There was also a tiny cup of moss on every table, which we thought was a nice touch.


via Nick Sherman on Flickr

Billie ordered the Prosciutto de Parma pizza which I just spent ages trying to find a picture of (no luck)because you will not believe how generous they were with the toppings. This stuff was falling off the edges--amazing.

I had an anchovy pizza because I knew that since they're personally sized I could indulge in this gross liking of mine. It also made me remember a time when my mom and a waitress ganged up on poor anemic vegetarian me and made me eat an anchovy. I remember being horrified, but somewhere along the lines I picked up a liking for these guys. They just taste like salt. I love salt.

Anyway, the pizza was really wonderful. Not soggy at all and the crust had that wonderful Neapolitan crackle without turning into a cracker. I know I should be sophisticated and like that sort of crunchy pizza, but I just don't. I love pizza crust, and this stuff delivered. (Ha! Get it! Motorino does deliver, btw.) All the toppings tasted fresh and wonderful and the sauce was a perfect consistency of thick enough to keep your toppings in place without tasting like tomato paste.


via Jeffrey Allen on Flickr

Kate had a seasonal pizza, of which there were a few. The brussels sprouts and speck pie was tempting, but ultimately she went with the "basil, garlic, some kind of meat, and some other weird thing i don't remember the name of
and red onion" Pizza. Later conversation revealed the meat to probably be mortadella. Anyway, it was good.

All three of us polished off our pizzas, only offering bites--not slices--to our table-mates. Our waitress was friendly and more attentive than almost any other waiter I've had in Brooklyn. Unfortunately for her, the people at the table next to us were a little obnoxious. The guy was complaining that there was no cheese on his pizza and sent it back, urging her to give it to someone else "so that it doesn't go to waste." Dear Sir, no one wants your rejected pizza. Also, read the menu before you order. This isn't Pizza Hut (or Slut, as we called it in high school), and your pizza doesn't automatically come with half a pound of processed cheese product.

To conclude: Motorino: go there. Oh and P.S. They're opening one in Manhattan.

Motorino
319 Graham Ave.
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
http://www.motorinopizza.com/

Restaurant Review: Brookvin

OK, I wrote this for another site, but they never ended up posting it and then I moved out of that neighborhood anyway. Whatevs.
Brookvin: A Drunken Review

I finally had a chance to stop by new South Slope hot spot Brookvin this weekend. It only took me so long because I live in North Slope and am lazy, not because I’ve been busy with anything else except Netflix. So anyway, Saturday night I corralled some friends and took the bus (the bus!) over to seventh and twelfth. One friend had already arrived and had put our name on the list for what was supposed to be a 20 minute wait. We settled in and bought a bottle of wine (Syrah, if you must know) at the bar for the five of us and began to wait for one of the three larger tables to free up.

After about thirty minutes, we had finished off the bottle, my one friend had apparently scolded the hostess (unnecessarily, in my eyes—it’s difficult for a hostess to gauge how long people will linger over cheese plates!), and we moved down to the other end of the bar to wait some more and avoid the hostess. At this point we dove into the cocktail menu, assisted by our lovely bartender, who I think was either part owner or at least largely responsible for the drink menu. He was extremely helpful and poured us a generous taste of their house-infused bacon bourbon. Now, bacon and bourbon are two of my favorite things, so, naturally, I was excited about what was in that glass, and it certainly did not disappoint. Some maple syrup added to the infusion (which, I was informed, is actually just bacon fat and not any of the meat itself) nicely balances the saltiness of the bacon (fat) and the fiery quality of the bourbon. The whiskey sours were quite popular with the friends, as was the cucumber martini (vodka, muddled cucumber). I was steered away from the raspberry? Lemonade, as it is apparently quite sweet (but maybe you’re into that).

After eagerly downing our delicious whiskey sours, etc., things got a little fuzzy. We were seated at a comfy booth next to the bar (at least 40 minutes after we had arrived) and were attended to by a really great, enthusiastic server (not creepily enthused though—she just wasn’t too cool to remember our order unlike a certain growing class of servers who wear their sunglasses at night—I think you know who I mean). Anyway, she was great, we ordered all three cheese plates—a goat, a sheep, and a cow—all came with accompaniments of some sort of jam-like substance and a good amount of crusty (sometimes a little too crusty/toasted) bread. I was really into the rose petal(?) jam that came with the sheep’s(?) milk cheese—it was sweet and gooey but not cloying at all, and didn’t overpower the cheese.

We also ordered a plate of proscuitto and two tartines—onion jam, tallegio and radicchio (which was good the first round, but the radicchio took over a little too much on the second round, making it bitter) and house-cured bacon with something else gooey and nice.



I think there was another round of whiskey sours at some point—maybe a red wine? Dessert, my friends, is really blurry:

me: do you remember what that dessert was at brookvin?

either one?

Friend: oooh

we had the caremelized apple bread pudding

with salted caramel sauce

and then, um... malted something?

i don't know, i was pretty drunk

me: was the apple bread pudding the thing that was really good?

or was that a chocolate malted something pudding?

Friend: BOTH

it was a custard thing with... chocolate stuff on top

cocoa powder?

i have no idea

we were all dying over the custard, but i personally was really into the apple thing because it was lighter

So….yeah….desserts were great. Order both of them; let me know what they are. Here’s a blurry phone picture of what the chocolate malted something pudding looked like before I devoured it:



I really enjoyed my dinner/small plates/whatever and will certainly go back. I’d like to explore the wine list a little more—it looked like there were some great selections by both the glass, bottle and even half bottle (who needs that?), with helpful descriptions—always a plus. I kind of hope they start offering some options beyond the small plates. There is obviously someone with an interesting palate behind the line, and I’d love to see what else they can do! Brookvin is, however, probably not the best place to go in a group of five on a Saturday—there are only a few tables big enough to accommodate you, the place is pretty busy, and you’ll probably be wasted by the time they seat you.