What a great goodbye.
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That was a grand final column.
Created separate topic for this notable event.
So now we have 3 locations… here, @mig’s thread after that, and now yours 
On the first evening of our 30-day stay in Crown Heights, my wife Toni and I ate at a nearby local American restaurant that had recently opened. We went there because it was close, we were tired, and there was one good TikTok video review.
The people were exceptionally nice. But the food was not memorable, the place was empty, and the A/C wasn’t working. It was clear this is their first restaurant venture and I wish them all the best. I won’t name the place because it is unlikely anyone here is going to wander into it and, as I said, they were extremely nice people and I hope they figure things out.
Our second meal was much better. Izzy’s Brooklyn Smokehouse, in the Seven-Seventy section of Crown Heights, has been on my watch list for some time. Back in 2017, Izzy’s won a tasting contest for best brisket in NYC, which was judged by a panel that included Aaron Franklin of the famous Franklin’s Barbecue in Austin, Texas and Daniel Vaughn, the Barbecue Editor of the Texas Monthly, who has undoubtedly eaten in more barbecue places than anyone else on the planet. And, a couple of years ago, Eater’s Robert Sietsema included Izzy’s on his list of 30 best barbecue places in NYC, although the recommendation seemed to be for the branch on the Upper East Side, and not necessarily for the Crown Heights original.
This was a first for us, a kosher barbecue place. If you look closely, you can see the glatt kosher certification right under the horn of the Texas longhorn skull.
We went with the Izzy’s Pit Sampler – smoked brisket, pulled beef, beef burnt ends, Korean-style fried chicken chunks, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and purple cabbage. Not cheap at $100, but then kosher beef is not cheap either.
The brisket was definitely the highlight of the meal at Izzy’s, although the rest of the meal was delicious as well.
We made an ordering mistake in getting the Korean-style fried chicken, which was good but nothing exceptional. I thought it was going to be some kind of smoked chicken, but it was basically just nuggets. I should have asked.
One big positive of keeping kosher for lactose-intolerant me is that the rules do not permit mixing dairy and meat. So I could eat the wonderful mashed potatoes (presumably made with chicken broth) with no fear, and I didn’t have to worry about them getting innovative and sneaking cheese in somewhere (as more and more barbecue places are doing, especially with sausage). The sides were extremely well done all around, especially the coleslaw (with no risk of them sneaking in sour cream).
And among Izzy’s sauces were two great ideas that other barbecue places should pick up on - deli-style mustard and deli-style horseradish sauce. These are tremendous accompaniments for smoked brisket, and many famous barbecue places would do well to substitute these for the all-too-often cloyingly sweet barbecue sauces that are ubiquitous.
Izzy’s brisket was outstanding, tender but not falling to pieces, with good resistance on the pull test, and a deep smoke ring.
But from a non-religious perspective, there is an obvious drawback to kosher barbecue – no pork. Izzy’s made a valiant effort with the excellent pulled beef and the very good beef burnt ends, but pulled pork and pork burnt ends are just inherently better.
Izzy’s was a very friendly place. A lady passing by noticed me taking a photo of Toni and graciously offered to take a photo of us together.
And one of the pitmasters (who was working the register) noticed that we were pretty serious about barbecue and followed us outside as we left. We talked for about 10 minutes about Izzy’s and barbecue in general. Really nice guy (Puerto Rican-American, does not keep kosher). He strongly recommended Bark BBQ in the TimeOut food hall in Dumbo and Hometown in Red Hook as the only barbecue places in the city that he could highly recommend.
For Izzy’s, there were pluses (especially the brisket, the mashed potatoes, and the sauces) and minuses (e.g., the beef burnt ends and lack of pork generally). But overall, it’s an excellent barbecue place, which I unreservedly recommend. It’s got a place in my Top 100 nationwide.
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In making plans for our summer trip to Brooklyn this year (2024), I was disappointed to discover that Chveni Cafe is no longer in business.
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True (& very unfortunate), but the nearby Mapleton neighborhood (you know, the area that I mentioned a year or so ago) still has Laghman Express HO Lunch at Laghman Express on Tues 4/30 - #12 by ElJefe
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I throw this out there, in case it’s of interest.
There were years when either Ginny or I had tennis games or other events at the W’side Tennis Club in Forest Hills. Some of these were accompanied by meals at Cheburechnaya. Admittedly, I don’t remember anything specific about these meals but there is definitely an absence of negative memory & a general feeling of “I should go back”. I also remember 1 or 2 good Glatt Kosher places in the immediate area, but they were meat heavy, with (obviously) no dairy.
Right. I’m not going, you go!
That was my point
I have a friend who keeps kosher, and once we went to Wolf and Lamb so he could have steak. The prices gave me the vapors, so I just had an arugula salad and THAT was $30. Now we go to vegan restaurants.
We’ve been. But many years ago and it was very tasty chow, especially the plov and the liver and lamb tail skewers. I don’t recall much veg stuff except for the (Korean) carrot salad but they are probably offering some fish
Its unfortunate for sure. I think the current Georgian champion is Mtskheta Cafe, not terribly far
Some more quick hits from the first days of our July in Crown Heights (using the grading scale set out in my Hungry Onion profile).
Royal Bakery - Toni picked up a chicken curry patty, a currant roll, and a coconut roll from Royal Bakery, a local Crown Heights Trini place, mostly takeout. I questioned Toni about getting a patty from a Trinidadian place, since I think of that as more of a Jamaican specialty, but Toni doesn’t really like doubles that much. I thought this place was very good, but Toni liked it much more and thought it was excellent. Later in the week, we had a chicken curry patty and a jerk chicken patty from another local Trini place, Puff’s Patty. We both thought these were slightly lesser than Royal Bakery’s patties, but were still very good.
Uotora, a Japanese/sushi restaurant, is one of the few nice sit-down restaurants within easy walking distance of where we were staying. This was a satisfying meal in a quiet relaxing environment. We had a soft-shell crab salad, a sampling of nicely done sushi and sashimi, and a delicious dessert that was new to us – ichigo daifuku, which is fresh strawberry and sweetened red bean paste wrapped in mochi.
Uotora is an excellent restaurant, which I’d recommend to anyone who happens to be in the Crown Heights neighborhood. It’s also relatively inexpensive for high quality sushi and sashimi.
Crabby Shack, a counter service seafood place on Franklin Street, got a pretty respectable review from the Infatuation. We had a quick “beachy” lunch of chicken strips, collards, mac and cheese, a crab roll, and a shrimp taco. We both thought Crabby Shack was good, but maybe a little overrated by the Infatuation, and not somewhere we’d likely go out of our way for in the future.
On the Fourth, we wanted to get in some world-class people watching by walking the Brooklyn Bridge, which I’d never done before. The plan was to first stop by Bark Barbecue in the TimeOut Market to see if the critical praise was merited.
But that was a bad plan. As we should have expected, on the holiday the line for Bark was impossibly long and seemingly not moving. So we settled for hamburger sliders, a hot dog, and fries from Pat La Frieda Meats, and ate it crammed onto benches with dozens of our new tourist friends. Despite the surroundings, I thought this was very good Fourth of July food, especially the fries, which seemed to be double-fried. Toni was a vehement dissenter, calling this meal just “okay.”
The people watching on the Brooklyn Bridge was outstanding, better, I think, than the people watching at other great people-watching spots like the White House and the Eiffel Tower.
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Sruli is doing a great job. I’m proud of him.
There’s a DTF nyc thread:
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I’ve posted here before, probably more than once, about how much I like the Trad Room, a Japanese restaurant in Bed-Stuy. So I won’t say much about our meal there this year, just that if you do go there, be sure to get the spicy crispy tuna (spicy tuna with black garlic aioli and serrano chili on fried sushi rice).
When we ordered our second round of the dish, the waitress laughed and said, “Whenever anyone orders that, I feel like I should write it down twice, to save time.”
It’s addictive.
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Doug, that looks wonderful! Guessing you didn’t mean to post this in an Upper East Side thread?
