Restaurants Face Report Cards

Nester via Flickr

mcbrooklyn recently pored through the Health Department’s new letter grading system and posted this handy summary. It’s worth checking out, but I’ll also summarize the summary after the jump.

Not all restaurants have received a letter grade yet but the Health Department is steadily rolling them out—Fascati’s, for example, got an A. Teresa’s needs to clean up its act to maybe get a C; and along with chicken tenders and cheesecake, Junior’s dining experience features live rats.

Other reports include stellar performances from the Clark St. Restaurant and Iris Cafe; and evidence of mice and roaches at Lassen & Hennings.

For more information, check out the Restaurant Inspection Guide from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The Times also has an article on the new grading system, featuring two opposing viewpoints.

At the Queens workshop, Anna Nikopoulos, owner of Pete’s Cafe in Bayside, complained that “they are trying to implement too much here in a recession.”

But Sarvjit Singh, owner of the Sohna Punjab restaurant in Bellerose, said he had no worries about maintaining a clean restaurant. “I tell my chef he should be cooking as if he were eating that food,” he said.

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  • AEB

    Just checked out La Grenouille, which got 14 violation points–a B!

    Well, I’ll certainly never go THERE again! (Unless I have enough $.)

  • http://libraloves.blogspot.com DM

    Both my friend and I got sick from dinner at Juniors… not sure if it was the fried chicken, or something else – but never went back! Plus they are super rude on the phone in the bakery dept so I’m boycotting their cheesecake also.

  • Jen

    I’m glad Fascati’s is clean, but their pizza has gone downhill noticeably in the past year or so. Are the original Italian guys no longer there? Does anyone else think the pizza’s not as good as it used to be?

  • brooklynheightzer

    Interestingly, WATCHTOWER/JW feeding their people good food – I would not expect anything else from them…

  • tb

    Oddly enough my husband and I thought Fascatis got a little better. Who knows…nothing beats Front Streets Taco pizza in my book.

  • http://www.bestmugshotever.com Judge

    I still enjoy Fascati’s pizza but I learned my lesson about eating anything else there. I ordered baked ziti once and it was like Ragu cemented with Elmer’s glue.

  • brooklynheightzer

    In addition to pizza being so bad at Grimaldi’s (as I said in my early post http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/20654) the place is also dirty. I am always amazed by block long lines of mostly tourists waiting to get in no matter what the weather is – scorching heat or freezing wind.

  • EHinBH

    I agree — Fascati’s is not as good as it used to be. The dough is thicker now and the sauce more sweet.

  • Ben

    What ever came of all of the trouble at Monty’s? The place owned by the Lassen & Hennings people that had all kinds of violations?

  • Obama?

    I’m surprised at Teresa’s having 39 points against them! It always looks so clean inside.

  • brooklynheightzer

    It looks sort of clean inside Teresa probably because the lights are dim there. But the kitchen must be pretty bad. Once a long time ago (that was my only time at Teresa’s ) I ordered fish (so stupid of me) and spent the rest of the day in the bathroom…

  • my2cents

    Nice to see that Fascati got an A. I think their pizza is pretty consistent overall, and the guys there take a lot of pride in their kitchen. Every night you can watch them go through their cleanup routine like firemen cleaning the engine!

  • Heightsman

    The father at Fascati’s sadly passed away a year or so ago. I told the sons that it wasn’t same pizza without him. I have worked around the issue by ordering it with a little extra cheese (which I pay for). I tell them to add extra cheese but not too much…..suprise, suprise that’s the Fascati’s pizza I have lived on for 10+ years. Give it a try.

  • nabeguy

    As a devotee of Fascati’s since they first opened, I was disappointed the other day to see them make a pizza from scratch and noticed that you could see the sauce through the cheese. Sal would never have put a pie like that in the oven. In this economy of rising prices, they can either toe the line and do the same by raising the price of a slice, use an inferior and less costly brand of mozzerella, or, as the case seems to be, skimp a bit on the amount of cheese. The first option might hurt the business, the other two will do harm to the intergrity of what makes their pizza so popular. None are really great options.

  • John

    I agree with Nabeguy 100%

  • BHer

    If you haven’t tried Ignazio’s, check it out. Delish, but pricey. I will give a shout out to Fascati’s though. Besides a great pie, they happily hosted the 1st graders at PS8 when they studied bread last year – as did Tut Cafe. Nice to see the community supporting the school.

  • AEB

    Don’t mean to offend, but skimping on sauce or cheese is, in my opinion, the least of Fascati’s pizza problems.

    Let’s start with the over-thick, over-proofed crust then move on to the quality of the sauce, which I’ll wager is ready-bought, and cheese.

    Frascati’s offers a decent, need-some-pizza-now slice–no more.

  • AEB

    (Hey! No more icons, Homer?)

  • AEB

    (…I mean avatars….)

  • http://www.dishonestapparel.com Tarek

    Somehow White Castle only managed 2 violation points. I can’t tell you how many rats I’ve seen camped out in front…

    …but maybe that’s why their camped out in front and not inside!

  • http://www.dishonestapparel.com Tarek

    * their to they’re

  • Mickey

    About a year ago, Fascati’s stopped making sausage rolls, spinach rolls, & chicken rolls. That’s when I stopped going. I always thought their pizza was mediocre at best and agree that it has gone downhill from there lately. There is no good pizza in Brooklyn Heights; and since Fascati’s charges Manhattan prices for the crap they serve anyway, I’d rather cross the river and get a good slice.

  • bklyn20

    I found a hair (no, NOT mine) in a salad at Theresa’s a few years ago.

  • John Wentling

    No need to cross the river for incredible pizza (seriously, Manhattan??) – Luna Rossa on Court Street, you won’t be disappointed. Push comes to shove, Vinny’s on Court is a bit closer and puts out a really good traditional pie.

  • zburch

    I think My Little Pizzaria on Court makes a pretty decent pie. The best is the ricotta pie at Sam’s. You can wait for ever, the service is surly in a charming kind of way and I have definitely had a few roaches crawl across the table, but sometimes a good home-made pie is just worth it.

  • Monty

    My new favorite pizza is actually Tutt Cafe on Hicks St. It’s middle eastern, but they will put sauce and cheese on a fresh pita and it’s actually really good. It has 12 violations which is pretty decent. Also, I am glad to hear about Clark. That place is always tip top.

  • brooklynheightzer

    bklyn20,
    I hope the hair came from his/her head…sometimes it comes from other places. Talking about hair, I once found a long thick hair wrapped around a sushi roll I was about to swallow at Iron Chef’s on Clark street – do not go there anymore.

  • Hicks St guy

    Fascati’s is average, very average. the head guy is rude, very rude. glad they’re gone for a month, hope they never return. Ignazio’s is fine place, owner a gentleman, and hope they succeed wildly. Grimaldi’s is okay, not worth the wait. Franny’s is the best in Bklyn.

  • Nancy

    If Fascati’s got an A, they must be paying off the inspectors they way they pay off the cops for not giving them tickets for parking all day at the meters in front of their store. I like Clarks, but remember eating there one morning and watching a roach just crawling up the wall. Hey, what can you do; they are all still better than Bon Gusto

  • nabeguy

    Funny you mention rudeness, HSG. I used to think that the original owners were rude as well until I realized that really didn’t speak English. Their offspring, however, cannot maintain that excuse for their behavior, which can be boorish.