Willyburg Breakfast Tacos at Whirlybird

Let's churn some bloggy blogs out !

This is something I coaxed my fellow Williamsburg comrade out for early one Saturday morning.  I brought him an iced coffee.  He brought his appetite.

Whirlybird aspires to be an Austin-style breakfast taqueria.  It's a small closet of a restaurant, with maybe one table and lots of random riff-raff (people and decor).  There's also couple benches on the outside on which you can hunker down to eat your food.

There's really only two food items to order.  The #1 features scrambled eggs, Oaxaca cheese, salsa, jalapeno chips, and an optional $1 upgrade for some chorizo.  The second item is like the first but with fried eggs, more cheese and probably more fun for twice the money.  I ordered the #1 by showing him my skinny, outstretched index pointer finger in the air (and then pointing both thumbs to my puffed out chest).

The whole thing was pretty salty from the heavy chippage, the corn tortilla was a bit dry, the scrambled eggs and salsa were solid and the fresh cilantro is always ace.

Han's Nonsensical Rating: Not really Austin-accurate, and not really that great, but it's alright for hipster-fare.

Whirlybird
254 South 2nd St
Brooklyn, NY

Redbones BBQ

My favorite thing about work is my fellow junior associates, and my second favorite thing about work is all the food that we consume together. While the weather is not yet freezing, we've been trying out various food trucks around the financial district. This past week we ventured to Redbones BBQ. This Texan girl is in love. (Also, three cheers for a growing food truck community in Boston!)

The truck is hilarious - notice the happy baby that is seemingly being blast off into space. Notice also the ridiculously good looking stranger who smiled at my camera. I smell a new meme!

The line was the fastest moving line I've ever experience at a food truck. Major bonus points for folks on a tight schedule. At the end of the line, there is a plethora of sauces to either apply directly or put in little containers for the road. I like.

The food truck menu has all your classic bbq cravings. Kevin and I split a couple of sandwiches and sides. Here's the bbq hash sandwich + yams + mac 'n cheese.

This whole thing weighed like 10 pounds, and it was totally worth it. I absolutely loved it all - simple flavors and utterly non-pretentious food. The yams had a good balance of mush + chunks, and were cinnamon-y sweet and delightful. I took one bite and thought of Thanksgiving. Sigh. The simplicity of the mac caused Kevin to complain that it wasn't flavorful enough, but I found it to be just the kind of mac I love - reminiscent of my elementary school cafeteria... and I mean that as a compliment.

What is 'bbq hash,' you ask? I asked, too. It is "pulled pork, bbq beef, peppers, potatoes, and onions." Basically, it is awesome. Here's a closeup:

The pulled pork was equally amazing, if not better.

I slightly preferred the pulled pork sandwich, if only because it was sweeter than the bbq hash. The pork was super tender, and the sauce was smoky, vinegary-sweet perfection. Ymmmmm...

Fear not, vegetarians. Christine got the the portabello mushroom sandwich and declared it delicious.

The moral of this lunch story is to go to Redbones as fast as you can. On my list of things to get next time: R-I-B-S.

Redbones BBQ Food Truck

Follow their twitter for updates

Boston, MA

There's a restaurant, too!

A Snack at Talde & Dinner at Pork Slope

Whoa.
It is fall, dudes.

And this is a timely post from Spring paired with a post from Summer! (grin)

H&H, Jean and I are all fans of Top Chef, and our friendship over the year was reinforced through long conversations regarding our shared love for Dale Talde.

And so we bonded ourselves further together by checking out Dale's Brooklyn-based namesake restaurant specializing in Asian-American cuisine.

Because of our huge brunch at Shopsins hours earlier, we opted for a few shared plates, including a trio of Hawaiian bread buns - two with Filipino pork sausage and one of the crispy Long Island fluke.

The sausage was not memorable or interesting, but the fluke was clean and fresh.

The char siu smoked pork spare ribs were moderately tender; the sauce was sweet and fine. 

The most popular dish at Talde appears to be the crispy oyster and bacon pad thai, which at first glance seems to marry most of my savory loves in life.

However, the flavors and textures just didn't seem to work that well.  The entire dish, along with our general feeling of all the other dishes we sampled, was that everything suffered from far too much salt.

Multiple squeezes of lime could not curb the salt !

Harry is quite the gentleman.

Close up of the pad thai.  I just don't get the appeal of this dish unless you want to induce severe thirst.

We also ordered a side of the banana leaf sticky rice with Chinese bacon and scallions.  Not sure where the scallions went, but the rice was just another so-so dish addled with salt.  Sigh.

Needless to say, we were disappointed with the dishes we sampled here, after idolizing our Filipino chef for so long, but time heals all wounds, and fades memories...so...we found ourselves at another Dale restaurant in Park Slope this summer.

The place is punnily called Pork Slope.  Ugh, pig puns, my ultimate weakness.

The type of gent you can find at Pork Slope

Pork Slope was designed to be a casual spot where anyone can walk in with $20 bucks and easily satisfy both hunger and thirst off of the fairly priced food and drinks menu.  Most food items are under $12 and beers are about $5.

We sampled the burgers, based on Dale's rendition of a McDonald's hamburger.

Burgers are only cooked one way, and cannot be customized: meat, cheese, onions, sliced pickles, ketchup and mustard.  The burger faithfully tastes like a high-quality version of a McDonald's cheeseburger.  The beef patty has a nice crispy char, and the bun is soft and toasted.  All in all, fine for $6.

The fried chicken was our main draw for this spot, brined in buttermilk and hot sauce, fried once, and then dredged in more flour and spices (e.g., coriander, black pepper, paprika and cayenne) before being fried again to order.  Four pieces served to an order with a handful of sliced pickles.

Despite being dredged and fried twice, the batter of this chicken is relatively flat, with somewhat of a crunch, but lacking any crispiness that I typically love in fried chicken.

Also despite the potential layers of flavor from buttermilk brine, hot sauce and spices, the flesh of the actual chicken is quite bland, though adequately moist.  

The cornbread, served as a large slab, was moist, crumbly and good, but the creamy honey butter we had seen cited on other websites, was just a cup of melted butter in our basket.

And though I didn't try it, here's Heather's face at sampling Dale's chili.

Unfortunately, our second visit to Dale's restaurants was disappointing also.  If I had to eat something there again, it would be the burger, but it's nothing for which I would travel out of my way.

Han's Nonsensical Rating: If you're hypertensive, skip Talde, and if you want $6 McDonald's burgers, head to Pork Slope.  I wouldn't visit these restaurants again any time soon.

Talde

369 7th Ave

Brooklyn, NY 11215

Pork Slope

247 5th Ave

Brooklyn, NY 11215

a sweet cheeks birthday!

last night we celebrated jackie's birthday at sweet cheeks. even though it was a five month late celebration, we made up for it by each eating five months worth of barbecue. less than 24 hours later, i find myself craving sweet cheeks again!

how cute is this setup: three different bbq sauces + utensils + our drinking mason jars. (because everything tastes better in a jar.)

i spy one of my favorite flags: T-E-X-A-S. it's like they knew i was homesick!

our meal started with two bucket-fulls of their famous biscuits. they are HUGE (like, size-of-my-hand huge), with a nice buttery crunch on the outside, and to-the-max pillowy fluff on the inside. everything about this biscuit is perfect.

i MUST mention the honey butter that comes with, because that's 50% of what makes this biscuit perfect. the whipped butter is so heavenly soft, and the honey sweetness is just so darn pleasant. i die.

then came our trays of meat and side scoops. i find that most meals served in trays are winners. here's my rib tray:

my two sides were mac 'n cheese and potato salad. the mac was legit, and the potato salad was in general pretty tasty. my only issue was that the potato was quite firm, while i prefer the potato in potato salad to be softer. as for the ribs, the naked meat is cooked well texture-wise, with good tenderness... but flavor-wise, without any bbq sauce, the flavor is pretty lacking. of course i solved that problem by dousing the ribs with bbq sauce. the sweet cheeks sauce is okay, but i prefer my sauce darker, heavier, and smokier. in the end, the ribs can't compete with anything you'll find in my home state... but as i am thousands of miles away from home, they'll do!

jesse ordered the short rib, and it was EPIC.

when it came out, we all stared at how huge it was. i had a bite, and this thing was awesome. good char, good fat, melt-in-your mouth delicious.

jackie's tray: pulled pork

i love that pile of meat! she was one of two smart people who ordered the broccoli cheese casserole as a side. it was cheesy and eggy (if a little salty), and i would definitely order that as a side next time.

we also shared fried okra.

we loved that it came like this, instead of chopped up pieces. the breading was tasty and uber crispy, and the okra itself was quite fresh.

then it was time for dessert: strawberry shortcake and butterscotch pudding.

how cute is jackie? we loved these both. the strawberry shortcake was made from yet another biscuit (win!), filled with whipped cream, a layer of lemon curd, and of course strawberries. the butterscotch pudding was equally if not more delightful - butterscotch flavored pudding with a layer of caramel topped with salt. yup, i was in happyland.

oh, and i think i found my favorite name for a beer.

sigh, sweet cheeks, i love you...

sweet cheeks

1381 boylston st

boston, ma 02215

617.266.1300