Nabe Columnist: Government Bad for Lunch

By on September 29, 2008 8:06 pm in Food

The NY Sun may be gasping its last breath, but that’s not stopping nabe resident/columnist Sandy Ikeda from taking one last swipe at Brooklyn Heights’ infamous restaurant scene:

NY Sun: How Government…: Restaurants in the Heights must cater to the huge lunch-time crowd pouring from those institutions from 1 to 2 p.m. on weekdays because that’s where most of their business comes from. This market demands cheap food served and consumed quickly, not fine meals served expertly and savored slowly. For some reason few places can successfully combine the two. Consequently, few places to get an exceptional dinner.

Thus, on the first block of Montague Street west of the municipal buildings, other than a dozen or so banks, there’s a Chipotle and Eamonn Doran. The former is strictly fast food but the latter is an Irish bar that serves only passable meals at dinnertime. On the next two blocks there’s nothing special: a couple of diners, middling Italian restaurants, and other assorted ethnic places including Turkish, vegetarian Chinese, Thai, two mediocre Japanese restaurants, as well as a Starbucks and a Connecticut Muffin (my “office”). In fact, the only widely acknowledged “nice place” on Montague is Heights Café at the far end of Montague, about as far from Borough Hall as you can get.

Share this Story:

  • E G

    Pretty non controversial and popularly held opinion. I agree minus Heights Cafe.

  • senor salsa

    How about BLT Brooklyn! Or Mexicanna Mamma Montague! Or Craft Heights…?

  • lp

    The Turkish place is really good. Though I’ve only ordered in from them – Montague Street is not a dinner destination, by any stretch of the imagination. (probably the thing I hate most about this ‘hood)

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    Wot, no mention of Henry’s End, JTH, or Petit Marche? Then, again, what can you expect of someone who evidently thinks the Community Reinvestment Act is responsible for the financial market catastrophe?

  • Andrew Porter

    And Theresa’s? No mention at all?

  • Yuppers

    Heights Cafe is nothing to write home about (or is Theresa’s for that matter). Maybe better than some of its competition…and having the outdoor seating is welcome. But I haven’t had a “memorable” meal there in terms of service or food.

    Claude, since the article is about Montague Restaurants, why would it mention Henry’s ENd, JTH, et al?

  • E G

    Yeah, Theresa’s should have been mentioned as it is the best Montague St has to offer.

  • AEB

    Ah, here we go again! Let us leave Montague to its “target audience” and hope (can we do more?) for good restaurants at other Heights locations.

    There are now three vacant stores where once the Busy Chef empire dwelled. Not to mention two other longtime vacant spaces adjacent.

    Here that, ye gods of Good Cooking?

  • JGM

    The author could have cut and pasted any number of postings from this blog for the article…so pretty accurate. 5-Guys burgers and Spicey Pickle were left out though. Perhaps the only insight was that Eamons serves passable dinners.

  • http://www.hillsidedogs.org Matthew Parker

    Thank Heaven the Sun has drawn its final breath. Yet another sign that the era of the neocons is passing. And not a day too soon.

    Isn’t it ironic that America has become one of the biggest Socialist states on the neocon’s watch largely due to their ideology that government is the problem (except when they need their diaper changed)?

    Mission Accomplished.

  • AEB

    Amen, Matthew.

    Now, do you think we an get Congress to “Christmas-ornament” the bailout package to include a BH better-restaurant subsidy?

    Pork for pork?

  • http://www.myspace.com/billyreno Billy Reno

    They can eat at Park Plaza Diner and LIKE IT!

  • anon

    tasty food is bad for you. real wasps never touch the stuff. eat saltines for dinner and be skinny and happy!

  • anon

    Strange and ironic, isn’t it, that a market driven ideology newspaper complains about the personal effect on her by the market-driven forces. Au revoir Le Sun–plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

  • anon

    I liked The Sun. I thought it had dinteresting articles and a different point of view that sort of balanced out the “correct views” of the NY Times.
    I’m not so ideologicaly driven as to rejoice at the silencing of other voices.
    Maybe its time for Karl Marx to make another comeback. Talk about “plus c’est la meme chose”.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    WASP soul food: watercress and mayo on white bread with the crusts cut off.

    I’ll miss the Sun. I was a subscriber, even though I disagreed with about seventy five per cent of its editorial positions. Its arts coverage was superb, and Tim Marchman’s baseball commentary was excellent. Also, I’m grateful to Amity Shlaes for adding “Pigouvian tax” to my vocabulary, and to John McWhorter for many insightful columns.

  • anon

    Claude, please explain “Pigouvian tax”. am dying to hear. I read the Sun too, loved it, but don’t recall that term.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    anon: Thanks for making me look up Amity’s column (fortunately, there’s a link to it in my blog), which reminded me that she spelled it “Pigovian”, although the concept takes its name from the British economist Arthur Cecil Pigou. A “Pigovian tax” is what is sometimes called a “sin tax”; that is, a tax on something (tobacco, for example) that is designed to discourage its consumption as well as to generate revenue. Amity doesn’t like Pigovian taxes, not so much because of their “nanny state” nature as simply because they give the government more money to play with, which she’s sure will be used to take us further down Hayek’s primrose path to serfdom. You can find Amity’s article here. I can’t resist also giving you a link to my blog post which mentions it, .

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    Whoops, somehow my last comment got truncated in transmission. Anyway, the link to my blog post is here/

  • BHMAN

    One last attempt from Sun before they disappear off into the sunset.

    Heights Cafe is not all that anymore. I have been there three times in the past year and the service was not there and the quality of the food was terrible.

  • anon

    For what’s it worth, the now former managing editor of the Sun was a resident of Brooklyn Heights until his relatively recent move to Park Slope.

  • anon

    He will be even more outnumbered in Park Slope, which is if anything even more of a liberal, one-party-fits-all type of place than Brooklyn Heights. I think only Berkeley could possibly outdo Park Slope. He should have looked at houses in a more diverse community, say Darien.

  • stefan

    OK…I admit… I really, really liked The Sun. It wrote about local issues. Things the Times would never pick up. It cared about the neighborhoods. It was a local paper. It had class. I am so, so sad to see it go. I, for one, will miss it.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    For my comments on the Sun, see here.

  • lcd

    And don’t forget Francis Morrone’s excellent “abroad in NY column” that ran weekly in the Sun. Yes, their arts coverage was good.