Open Thread Wednesday 4/22/09

By on April 22, 2009 7:07 am in Brooklyn Heights
BHB Photo Club pic by fkuffel via Flickr

BHB Photo Club pic by fkuffel via Flickr

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Matt

    Not sure if anyone else has ever noticed. But come late nights (after 11pm) on Montague Street between Clinton and Henry (on the side where the fire happened in the Laundromat) there are always tons of rats running around.

  • nabeguy

    Look closer…those are the rent-gouging landlords.

    Anybody have advice or recommendations for homeowner’s insurance providers in the Heights ? Allstate just dumped me from their client list.

  • GHB

    Nabeguy, I had a similar problem a couple of years back because we live in a “flood zone.” WTF? Anyway, I’m with Travelers now

  • The Where

    Enough with the Great Wall discussions.

  • Publius

    IMHO, Great Wall is greasy and mediocre. Bottom line is there’s no good Chinese restaurant in BH.

    When I have a hankering, I usually go to Grand Szechuan on 9th Ave and 24th St in the City. Amazing soup dumplings, prawns in garlic sauce and twice cooked pork. mmmmmm.

  • AEB

    mmmre, on the advice from other posters, I tried Great Wall last week.

    One gets into trouble when one criticizes food others have enjoyed, but the things I ordered from GW were no better (nor worse) than one would expect from the set-up.

    Eggplant in garlic sauce had the virtue of eggplant that was cut before my very eyes, but there its virtue ended: no garlic, a little heat, blah.

    Fried jumbo shrimp were armored (lost?) in panko (Japanese breadcrumbs); though non-greasy they were, essentially, snack-food that lost its appeal after shrimp two.

    Etc.

    In the north Heights, Fortune House, such as it is, is probably the Chinese of choice. Which isn’t saying much. But…

  • AEB

    Publius, went to GS last night. A fave of mine, too.

    Had tea-smoked duck (crispy skin, yummy fat), soft-shelled crabs with black beans (yumII), the dumplings you mention plus–and DO try these–wantons in hot oil.

    Blazingly hot and irresistible!

  • alex

    I have a gift certificate to River Cafe that I’m planning to cash in for brunch this weekend. Any suggestions?

  • AEB

    Alex, there’s lots of la-de-dah/serious stuff like wagyu (sp?) steak tartar and duck breast with eggs…most of it is very good, depends on your appetite.

    If you have a sweet tooth, I DO recommend the gianduja pancakes–with milk choc and caramelized hazelnuts.

    Not hard to take.

  • alex

    Thanks AEB!

  • tiredOfNoise

    Does anyone else now hear LOUD music in addition to the banging and sawing coming from the construction on College Place?

  • Clark Street Resident

    Speaking of Chinese Food…it looks like Sea Asian will be moving from it’s current Clark Street location.

  • alex

    Does anyone have any mouse catching tips? I’ve tried glue traps and several different types of snap traps using both cheese and peanut butter. The mouse leaves droppings in the glue and eats up the bait, and continues scurrying about my apartment. Sigh.

    P.S. The apartment next door to mine has been vacant since I moved in six months ago. Could this be making mouse matters worse?

  • Homer Fink

    Alex – you can call GreenEarth Pest Control, they’re friends of BHB: http://www.greenearthpest.com/index.html … ask for Josh.

  • Brooklyn Guy

    MMMRE – Great Wall – best chicken wings1

  • brooklynite

    http://www.cmfgroup.com for homeowners insurance. I believe the go through travelers.

  • joe

    Publius, so funny. You and I order the same thing with the exception of the twice cooked pork. I get usually get a veggie of some sort. Usually water spinach or dried string bean with pork. I love their soup dumplings since its not as big or porky as other places.

    Speaking of rats. There is a huge rat population in the east 50s near the roosevelt tram. I was there one night and it was like a prairie dog colony. A rat was running beside me with a huge stick in his mouth. Not only did I do a double take because he looked like a small tame dog but I was surprised at how embolden the rat was even with a crowd of people on the side walk.

  • gwc fan

    To me, Great Wall is like Susan Boyle. People laugh at it when they walk by, thinking it’s just a cruddy little restaurant. And then they try it and feel pretty stupid. Though it’s not as moving as that YouTube video.

  • gwc fan

    I’m not trying to make too much of the Boyle comparison. I remember someone posted a video of Great Wall, people walking in and out during the afternoon, and it got like 200 hits or so.

  • AEB

    GW is actually not as distressing from inside as it appears without.

    Once in, one no longer sees the panoply of faded transparencies depicting long-deceased food–or so it appears.

    And they do have an, uh, open kitchen….

  • nabeguy

    And how more honest can you get than an open kitchen? If you can see the guy in the back sneezing on your Kung Pao chicken, you’d refuse the order, right? How many other restaurants offer that kind of transparency?

  • AEB

    Absolutely right, nabe! When I was at GW I could see them removing pre-breaded shrimp from the fridge and throwing into oil whose semi-rancidity I was close enough to smell!

    I could also see the guy trying to close the Styrofoam package with my shrimp inside, fail, and staple it closed with a bit of shrimp tail protruding from the package, reopening the package, pushing the tail inside with his thumb and re-stapling the container.

    If only our government worked this way!

  • w

    I’m surprised no one mentioned Vegetarian Ginger on Montague. The quality of the food is amazing, with nice presentation as well. And the prices could hardly be cheaper.

  • my2cents

    this is the funniest thread in a while. bully to all of you!

  • No One Of Consequence

    ok, these Take-a-survey ads that cover over everything for 10-15 seconds without a close or skip option trump the page refresh on the annoying scale.

  • No One Of Consequence

    ok, these Take-a-survey ads that cover over everything for 10-15 seconds without a close or skip option trump the page refresh on the annoying scale.

    Maybe let’s refer to them as the Dock Street ad format.

  • Ethan

    I gotta say that although the Brooklyn Bugle daily emails are convenient for me, I can’t imagine how they are benefitting the web site. I definitely visit the site (and thus your advertisers) easily 80% less, now that I get these emails. And ultimately, what was the point?

  • Ethan

    As for the rats, there are just a lot of restaurants that drag tons amount of garbage out to the curb on garbage day. That smell attracts them. And lets face it, could you just imagine how many uneaten french fries are thrown away every day at 5 guys for the rats to forage for??

  • In the Heights

    There is a yoga class for kids 8-10 being offered at PS 29 on Saturdays from 3-4 if anyone is interested. It starts this Saturday. My daughter is the only one signed up so far (but they ware willing to run the class with one kid). If you are interested, please got to:
    http://www.yogibeans.com/springframe.asp

  • yo

    alex, call great wall to deal with the mouse problem….zing

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