What is it about putting food on a stick that always makes it taste better?

These light and fluffy little bundles of dough were from a Chinese bakery in Gravesend.

Bliss Bakery Inc
1412 Avenue U
Brooklyn

Hunter gatherers prized bone marrow for its high calorie content; in the modern world, its more like a form of gluttony.

Marrow has slowly crept towards the territory of latest gastronomic fad appearing on an increasing number of menus. While all bones have marrow, the best for eating tend to be large and thick; even these have little substance to them.

The bone is split and cooked leaving a gelatinas substance that can be eaten with a spoon or spread across toast. Calorie rich, its like eating butter.

Brooklyn Star
593 Lorimer Street
Brooklyn

This is not an empanada, the sign warns.

I was out on the boardwalk at Rockaway Beach with some friends. After a day in the sun, we were looking for some food. The area has been undergoing a virtual gastronomic revolution with new restaurants and offshoots of existing city based restaurants opening in the pavilions along the water. The new offerings are a far cry from the funnel cakes and french fries of a place like Coney Island.

There were a number of options in each of the boardwalk’s pavilions, like a miniature beach oriented food court.

Casa de Camda is offering up these Bolivian pockets filled with savory meat and egg. A vegetarian option is also available. Sliced open and served with a bit of hot sauce, they were a little unexpectedly sweet. While tasty, one alone was not actually all that filling, making it a good snack but a poor meal.

Casa de Camda
Boardwalk pavilion
97th Street
Rockaway Beach, New York

This fish sandwich isn’t a Filet-O-Fish.

This is a piece of fish fried up with an extra crispy outer layer, topped with cheese and lettuce and served on a buttered bun.

I was headed to a concert no a pier in Manhattan– a free summer stage even– and wanted to grab dinner before hand. The cheese fish sandwich was much talked about when Lake Trout, the restaurant, opened. And deservedly so. While the fried fish was good, the cheese fish sandwich is something special.

Lake Trout
160 Havemeyer Street
Brooklyn

Its been a little too hot this summer to really get into baked macaroni and cheese. Luckily, it got cool last week.

Brooklyn Mac serves a variety of recipes of Mac and Cheese. I obviously want to try every single one. The Bed Stuy is hot sauce and chicken with cheddar cheese. The combination was good, but the Bushwick, with Pico De Gallo sauce, was probably better.

The first time I went in here, a friend ordered a medium size. He ended up getting a vegan size. Common mistake? Perhaps. The vegan version of the Greenpoint — Cheddar, broccoli and Kielbasa tasted like a damn good dairy mac and cheese, with the added benefit of not wanting to die after eating.

I really need to try a small. The medium just leaves me asking for death.

Brooklyn Mac
173 Montrose Avenue
Brooklyn

A ball of red bean paste covered in sesame seeds surprised me.

To be perfectly honest, red bean paste ranks up there with bubble tea. But in this case, the layer of sesame seeds kind of made it alright.

We had been walking around a second burgeoning Chinatown in Brooklyn (the other is in Sunset Park) and after eating a lot of lunch, I insisted in some sweets.

Bliss Bakery Inc
1412 Avenue U
Brooklyn

This beat and goat cheese frittata highlighted the vegetable components while leaving plenty of calories for a midmorning donut.

Beats are sweet that always compliments the tang of goat cheese. Eat is a restaurant in Greenpoint focusing on locally source ingredients with a heavy emphasis on vegetarian foods. There was no meat on the menu at the time.

The restaurant is cute little place situated in an old Polish neighborhood; the other breakfast option was a sausage platter from an ethnically Polish diner that had sadly closed. The interior of the restaurant is the mix of modern and rustic. Unfortunately, there is a bit of confusion when it comes to ordering / waitressing / table service. We had to order at the counter, but then seat ourselves and have the food brought to us. Far too much to figure out pre-coffee on a Saturday morning.

Eat
124 Meserole Avenue
Brooklyn

For some reason, this bakery in the west village is open late.

And while everyone ends up eating pizza or tacos or some other greasy deep fried delicacy at midnight, eating a pastry is a completely surreal experience. Instead of having your body inundated with grease, its overwhelmed by sugar.

Also, cookies:

Lafayette French Pastry Bakers
26 Greenwich Avenue
Manhattan

I was out at Brooklyn’s second Chinatown on Avenue U and stopped for lunch.

Identifying interesting dishes can be a challenge the names of the dishes aren’t necessarily translated well. My friend made some bumbling conversation with the wait who spoke about as much English as we spoke Cantonese. This is what we got:

“Salted Chicken” which was salty, but only in the sense that it wasn’t sweet. Large chunks of eggplant floated with small pieces of white meat chicken.

Chicken on the bone, the waiter expressed. Yes, we were okay with that. This was not as good as the first, but still still very good. Lots of onions with dark meat.

Making some awkward banter beforehand paid off when our whole fish arrived. The waiter kindly stripped the flesh from the bones more elegantly than we ever would have.

Yes, that is a fish head. No, we didn’t eat it.

Shing Wong Restauant Inc
1232 Avenue U
Brooklyn

Lake Trout, the restaurant, is Brooklyn’s newest, old townie restaurant.

Lake Trout opened this summer meant to mimmic or mock midwestern eateries serving up fried fish. The fried fish are bathed in a salty batter and served with two slices of potato bread.

I was excited about this place in no small part because of shout outs from New York Magazine and the local blogarati. The fish was good, but there seemed a lot of fuss for place with a simple menu and a lot of kitch.

Lake Trout
160 Havemeyer Street
Brooklyn