south slope (part 2.5)

spent the weekend upstate in tivoli, ny. after a longish drive back to the city, we decided to check out the new italian restaurant that opened on 7th avenue at 10th street.



scalino took the place of a noodle house-- that had taken the place of a sushi place, which incidentally, was where i ate my first meal in brooklyn. there was a fairly good crowd as we walked in, made up of mostly families and even though it was warm outside, it was warmer inside (and did i mention that the place was full of kids.) we decided to site outside, which promptly filled up as well. the waiter gave us a bit of a jokingly hard sell on a pasta special with a cream sauce and then took off to tend to another table, leaving us to ponder the menu. the thing that i immediately liked about the place was that the menu was short-- five or six appetizers, three salads, a handful of pastas and a couple of mains. we decided upon a bufala mozzarella salad with arugula, grilled baby artichokes, an endive salad with golden beets and a bresaola platter with arugula. they were out of the bufala, and after some further prompting he admitted that he was also out of the artichokes. if there is one this that i dislike about eating out, it's a lack of full disclosure about menu availability. we ended up with the bresaola and beets as starters and splitting a spinach and ricotta ravioli (which to their credit, they split in the kitchen.) the salads were fine, not revelatory but not bad, and at roughly $7 a piece - a decent size. the ravioli portion was large and finished with an olive oil and sage sauce - which was pretty flavorless and imho, would have been greatly improved upon had they gone the brown butter route instead.

all in all, scalino is not bad and with a byob policy, quite affordable. i would give it another try in a couple of months and see how the food changes with seasonal availability.

bikes lanes and another visit to quarter after the expansion.




walking back, i noticed that the 9th street bike lanes have been painted.



lastly, stopped by quarter again on the way home. robin had a rather delicious drink called a "plantation" which was muddled basil with gin and lime, i had a six points ipa, which was also delicious.

we sat in the back yard, which had undergone some nice landscaping since the last visit. additionally, it seems that they now serve snacks as well, as a couple sitting next to us had ordered a (rather large) cheese plate.

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south slope (part 2)

there is never a dull day in the south slope. usually that's because of the raccoons that plague the neighborhood . or possibly because of the stray cats that live in the backyard or maybe it's the seemingly never ending construction. however, today is a particularly exciting day. a tipster reports that a union market is opening a location next to the bagel hole on 7th avenue between 12th and 13th streets. no longer will the neighborhood gourmets have to trek all the way to union to purchase their d'artagnan wild boar roasts.



apparently, there was also a story in the brooklyn paper several weeks ago about this.

some information on sidecar, kitchen bar: pizza bar and quarter -- as well as a totally unofficial review of nick after the expansion.



a friend reports that sidecar (5th ave. btw 15+16) is going to soft open (for friends and family) this weekend. they also report that the second business partner is an owner of o'connors. i'm excited to hear their thoughts on this much anticipated restaurant.



speaking of anticipated restaurants, kitchen bar is supposedly opening up an outpost across the street from their current location (6th and 20th). Currently, it's an empty lot - so it seems to have a long way to go before they fire up any ovens down the street on the corner of 21st . i can only hope for my sake, that by the time they open, they'll have figured out that the trick to running a good restaurant is to pick several things that you do very well and stick with that formula instead of attempting to be everything for everyone.



quarter is a new bar that recently opened on 5th ave between 20th and 21st. a few of us popped in there late last weekend, the place had a nice ambiance and the staff seemed friendly. will stop in again for a better review when it's not so late.



nick is the new thai delivery spot that opened where brawta used to be on 7th ave and 15th. it seems like the last thing 7th ave needs is another thai restaurant, i think that we already have 4 or 5 and none of them are that great. a friend had the lunch delivery and the report was not great. overly sweet pad thai with a tasty curry puff.

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