I did something last night that I almost never do. In fact I usually do my best to avoid it. What I did is I saw a swarm of Cool Brooklyn Children hovering around what appeared to be a cool new restaurant in a cool part of town, and instead of turning heel and going literally anywhere else, last night I decided to stick my nose into the scrum and—really—stand in line with everyone else.

The place is called Ramirez! (exclamation point included), and is a slick little minimalist box with a cool Bushwicky neon sign (even though it's in Greenpoint), which serves tacos and Coke and Topo Chico (yes New York City is in the midst of a Topo Chico revolution), and nothing else. Part of the reason for the mass of bodies was that, oddly, Ramirez! doesn't do take out. Every order comes on a cut colorful little plastic plate. You're free to take the plate wherever you want—inside, outside, across the street, down to the river, into your car if it's cold I suppose—as long as you bring it back. Thus the crush of people 10 years younger than me hanging out eating tacos on the sidewalk.

It's too exhausting to talk about how annoyed this all made me—because honestly it didn't. It's fine. Despite the popularity of the place, there was nothing outwardly obnoxious happening, and really I was there taking up just as much space as everyone else. And I'm maybe just over being over cool places. Fucking whatever man, let's just enjoy it all. Because ultimately: these were good fucking tacos. Absolutely nothing to complain about. And by "absolutely," I mean "I guess they were a little on the wet side and the tortillas got a bit soggy." But that's it. I had 3, al pastor, suadero, and longaniza, which is a sort of chorizo, the differences between which I won't explain to you because I can't. That one was my fave of the bunch, but they were really all superb. Too small (get 4), but superb.

So. Great tacos. Honestly some of the best I've had in this city. Don't even think about going there on the weekend.

Strangeways is a totally respectable hip-but-not-annoyingly-so modern new-American-ish restaurant in Williamsburg. My review of it is: it would be great if it was better.

Birria tacos are officially a thing in New York. Just like 4 years after they became a thing in southern California.

You may remember my ravings about the first birria place to hit this city, Birria Landia (known at the time as "Beefria Landia"), just a little bit after I moved here. It's a whole long story and I don't want to rehash all of it. The bullet points are: birria tacos start appearing all over my Instagram feed, almost all of which are in and around LA; I look up where I can find some in NYC, and only one place, Birria Landia, existed at that point, and had literally just opened like a week or two before; we take a trip out to some crazy nowhere neighborhood in Queens* and are completely blown away by these tacos.

Anyway now it seems like the rest of the city has caught up. It first started in the direct vicinity of Birria Landia, with every taco shop and truck (and at least one pizza place) on that block advertising birria tacos of their own, seemingly hoping to, I don't know, trick people into thinking they were the real birria place? Meanwhile, a handful of more legitimate places have popped up as well. I imagine the pandemic has made the process a lot slower for these joints, since I would've imagined they all would've appeared about a year and a half ago instead of Summer 2021.

So one of these places is Nene's Deli Taqueria, on pretty regular street deep into Bushwick (but only on the very fringe of the cool part of Bushwick). It's an interesting place; it clearly was and is just a regular old corner deli, that took out all of the deli grill area and put their money all into birria. Because despite being called a taqueria, really birria is the only thing on the menu. In taco form, in quesadilla form, mulita, torta, pizza(!), it's all birria.

And it's great! Tastes great. I have no complaints whatsoever.

The big question of course is: Is it better than Birria Landia? No, I don't think so. It's close! But I tell you, the pure mind-warping pleasure I got from Landia that first time (and subsequent times) is a nearly impossible high to reach. It's no critique that they didn't quite get there. Actually my biggest takeaway from the place was their red salsa that came with the order. It was a peanut based salsa, and it was outstanding.

Anyway if you're in or around Bushwick and want a piece of the birria action, by all means hit up Nene's.

* I now live in this nowhere neighborhood in Queens. The Birria Landia truck is about 3 blocks from here. The only thing that keeps me from eating there every single night is that there is constantly a line down the block to get it; the only times we've eaten there since moving here have been in the middle of snowstorms and rainstorms and single-digit temperatures.

Blue Collar Burger is okay but not great. Next.

Milk Bar has this famous pie called Milk Bar Pie that's extraordinarily popular. Celebrities post selfies with it, people send it across the country for friends' birthdays, every food publication in America has shared their own recipe for it. It's a thing. In fact it used to be called Crack Pie. But then someone decided that's not cool so they changed it to Milk Bar Pie.

Milk Bar Pie is just gooey butter cake. Everyone needs to calm down.

It's been literally a decade that I've wanted to go to Fette Sau. I imagined some secret Williamsburg speakeasy barbecue heaven, taking all the American barbecue dogma and shredding it to bits—wild cuts of meat, experimental smokes, sauces like you've never dreamed about. Some artisanal inversion of your standard smokehouse.

Turns out it's mostly just a barbecue joint.

But! A damn good one! I'm not fully confident of this stance, but I think it might be my favorite of all the barbecue (not much TBH) I've had in the city. The ribs were maybe a hair overdone for my taste, but the flavor was bonkers. And really truly a case where you really don't need the sauce! Really! The rub alone does the heavy lifting.

And less annoying than Hometown. Which, let me tell you I have a whole thing to write about, but I don't think I actually will because who has the time.

I'm not going to bury the lede here. The lede is that this is the best guacamole I've ever had. It had pistachios and hot peppers in it, and was topped with this sort of green spicy dressing I guess you might call it? Like a Mexican balsamic pepper vinegar or something? It was incredible. Worth the trip into Cool Brooklyn on its own.

There's more to my thoughts about Xilonen, but it's all second fiddle to that guac. But what we're talking about here is a fully vegan, crisply designed, modern Mexican restaurant on a hoppin' corner in Greenpoint. It's the kind of thing that I should hate. Well, maybe not hate, but at least strenuously roll my eyes at. But something about Xilonen wins me over. Yes it's over-designed, but it's designed beautifully. Yes it's hard to get down with the idea of vegan Mexican food (one of the least vegan-friendly of all the foods), but everything we had was dang good. Well almost everything. The purple potato taco was a little blah. But the green chorizo! I don't know what was even in it (the menu says smoked pecans, roasted oyster mushrooms, salsa verde, so there ya go), but it was a hit.

But that guacamole. Really.

There were rumors of this place called Win Son in East Williamsburg having the best fried chicken sandwich in town. The place is, of course, cool and Williamsburgy, but not too cool and Williamsburgy, and the sandwich is $20 and comes with nothing else on the plate. So of course it's good.

But not too good. It comes on a sweet bun with a kinda sweet sauce, and that all overwhelmed the rest of the chicken more than I'd like. The thicken itself was quite good though, more of an almost schnitzel-style, flattened breaded cutlet, seasoned with some 5-spice situation. But it needed less sauce, and definitely needed some sort of acidic, pickled garnish to make it fully work. This is me being picky, yeah, but for $20 and no sides, I'm gonna be picky.

Funny enough, we also got an order of their sesame noodles, which was meant to be something like a supplement to the sandwich, but honestly it was the star of the meal. Simple but delicious. I don't think I would've left disappointed with just the sandwich (like I said, it was good, okay?), but the addition of the noodles definitely swung it all in the right direction.

It's been damn near 10 years since I last went to Roberta's. From that time it's gone from a secret hipster foodie paradise to a well-known hipster foodie paradise with a line of frozen pizzas and a second location in LA. Roberta's is a deeply loaded concept at this point, and has gone through a mind-numbing series of hype and de-hype cycles over these years, and I don't feel the least bit interested in trying to unravel what Roberta's means in 2021 right now. Mostly because I have no idea and I don't usually go to that part of Bushwick anyway.

What I do know is that the pizza was real good, and the split pea soup was real good, and the bread that came with the split pea soup was real real good. It also took an hour for them to finish my order, they ran out of two different things I wanted, and then never alerted me that my order was ready so I waited an extra 10 minutes while it sat getting cold—but dang Roberta's is still pretty good u guyz.

A few years ago, before I lived here, I made a visit to a restaurant called Frankie's 457 Spuntino. I wrote about it. Look it up, won't you? Well so about a year ago, Frankie's opened up a slice shop called F&F, right next door (although they also have a pizza restaurant called Frank's, on the same block. It's all very confusing), and I ran into one of those situations where suddenly, out of nowhere, every food-ish type media outlet was casually referring to F&F as one of the best pizza joints in the city. Lucky for me, I happen to get my hair cut at a place right across the street, and stopped by after a pre-pandemic haircut to get a slice. Pepperoni, I believe, because they were out of everything else that evening. It was good, but I wasn't fully moved to declare F&F the best anything.

Fast forward to this year—I dunno, August? (I'm just posting this now because I forgot to back then. It's been a stressful year okay?). I was in the neighborhood again, and thought I'd give it another shot. This time they were fully stocked, and specifically pushing this one particular pie, hot sausage with sage and brown butter. Say no more! And this time around, yes, absolutely ready to declare F&F the best something.

Without going too far, in terms of preparation or presentation or thankfully price, F&F is absolutely dabbling in "elevated" pizza. The dough has a sourdough bite, the sausage and sage are conservatively spread, and it's cooked to just a little more of a browned char than at your average slice place. And it all comes together absolutely beautifully, the cheese and grease and brown butter sage caramelizing together into a rich singular thing, all on a paper plate for about $4.50. Best pizza in the city? Impossible question. But as far as your standard NY style triangle slice joint goes, sure, yes, I don't think I've had better.

The last place that was on my list of food to finally eat before I leave Brooklyn for Queens (because once you move to Queens you're never allowed back into Brooklyn. It's the law.) was David's Brisket, a secret dark-horse competitor in the ongoing debate of What's The Best Jewish Deli in New York.

(It's still Katz's, but lemme keep writing this anyway). You don't hear much about David's Brisket. It's a nearly invisible hole-in-the-wall in the middle of Bed Stuy—not exactly Jewish deli territory—and doesn't visually impress much on either the outside or the inside. You'd barely even consider it a 'Jewish deli' when you're in there. I don't think it serves blintzes or latke or matzah ball soup or any of those other standards, just the basics: brisket, pastrami, corned beef, and maybe smoked turkey, along with some basic potato and macaroni salads. I think the pastrami is perhaps the "right" sandwich to order there, but I decided to go with the brisket. Because it's David's Brisket! It's right there in the name!

And it was great! Tender, succulent, flavorful! And whatever rye bread they used gave juts enough bite on its own, that I wasn't too bummed that they forgot to give me a side of mustard. Walked down, sat on some stranger's iconic Bed Stuy stoop, and enjoyed the hell out of every bite.

I'd love to go back for the pastrami, but I don't think Brooklyn will let me.

Hassan Halal Meat & Grocery currently has 1 star on Google. I'm actually surprised you can even look it up on Google, because to some extent it may as well not even exist—I'm surprised simply by the fact that I was able to find that it's actually called Hassan Halal Meat & Grocery and not simply "that shitty bodega next to the other shitty bodega," or "that place where I think they sell meat in the back." There are innumerable places like this in Brooklyn, that you walk by 100 times without noticing, or when you do notice them, you have to wonder for a few seconds how they can possibly still be in business, or what their business even is, and then you consequently forget about them immediately.

Early last year I started frequenting the laundromat a few doors down from this place. It was bigger than the next closest laundromat, and they have a parking lot, so I could lug more bags there without having to hire neighborhood kids to help me carry it all. While waiting for the wash cycle to finish, I'd often walk around outside, and maybe hit up the other shitty bodega for a Coke or candy bar. It never even occurred to me to go to this one, the view from outside was so despairing.

Then one day, when the whether got nicer, a charcoal grill appeared outside. And the next laundry trip, a guy was out there grilling kebabs. Then the next time, he was grilling chicken legs. Every time I walked past, someone would be out there grilling, sometimes alone, sometimes with a few customers or friends—mostly likely Pakistani—sitting around. It always smelled amazing. But it was never clear who they were grilling for. Were they selling this stuff? Was it just for themselves for dinner? Nothing on the windows of this place advertised any cooked meat. Yeah there was seemingly a butcher that sold bulk cuts in the back, but this was not a place you'd stop in to get a bite at. I saw this grill outside for months, just assuming it was not for me. But shit did I love smelling them every time I walked past.

Then on a recent night, waiting for another wash cycle, the other shitty bodega was shuttered. Permanently? Temporarily? I don't know. But I wanted a Coke, and didn't want to go down the block to the other other bodega. So I popped in to Hassan. The grill wasn't outside that night, so I wasn't thinking much about it. I went to the fridge, grabbed a can of Coke, and went to give the man my dollar.

And there I saw it: sitting in an Ikea tupperware bin on the counter, unrefrigerated, probably breaking a dozen different health laws, unrepentant, a pile of kebabs. It was finally happening. "Are those kebabs for sale?" A dumb question in hindsight, but you have to understand the laissez-faire nature of this place's merchandising methods. He looked at me—I read puzzlement on his face—"Yes, one dollar. Do you want it heated?". I replied no, to another period of puzzlement, and he handed me the cold floppy kebab on wax paper and I took my Coke and left.

Cold, yes, floppy, yes, and one of the best kebabs I've ever eaten.

Nicely seasoned but still a good dark meat chicken flavor, surprisingly spicy, and a kiss of char. I immediately wanted to go back and buy three more. Maybe heated this time. Or at least catch them as they were grilling them rather than buying them out of the tub. That'd be weird though, right? Anyway it was a deeply rewarding kebab. This whole idea of finding a secret little hole in the wall; I mean, that's a dumb cliche and probably classist and racist on our part to think about, right? Like that Seinfeld episode where Jerry befriends Babu? But I can't stress this enough in this case, you guys: No cool white yuppies or Instagram food influencers are going in there to find the secret kebabs they read about on Eater or something. It's just an invisible Halal butcher shop that serves parts of the huge neighborhood of Pakistani and Bangladeshi people. But the feeling of knowing that this guy on his grill outside this 1-star nothing grocery store is making the best fucking kebabs you've ever eaten—it tickles.

Postscript: We moved to Queens last week, so I probably won't be back to Hassan Halal Meat & Grocery. But a week before we left, when I was out doing one last load of laundry before packing, I had to stop in to see if I was imagining this kebab experience. So I grabbed a pop, went to the counter, and interrupted the owner's conversation with the 4 guys that were all sitting around shooting the shit. "I'll have a kebab, heated please." There was a little puzzlement again, but of a different stripe. He grabbed the kebab from the tupperware, nuked it in the microwave for a few seconds, and handed it to me in the wax paper. As I paid, he stopped and asked me straight up, "How do you know about—", rough English kind of ending his question short. I told him how I see them grilling outside all the time and it smells great, and I bought one a few weeks earlier. Honest to god, I don't say this to make myself look like some fucking white savior do-gooder bravely supporting his neighbors or whatever—that Seinfeld Babu thing—but when I told him that, his face lit up with a genuine smile. I'm sure those dudes talked shit about me when I left, but whatever. The kebab was even better hot.