Brooklyn Bars | Brokelyn - Part 2

Brooklyn bars

Holiday cocktails from cheap booze

Miriam at the Brazen head hides our alcohol shame

Miriam at the Brazen helps hide our cheapness. Photos by Eric Reichbaum.

Here’s something we learned in our conversations with bartenders during these long winter nights: The holiday season, with all its clove-spiced sweetness, is the best time of year to get away with serving cheap booze to your guests. How cheap? Think off-brand honorifics belonging to rums (Admiral Nelson, U.S. Beverage Corps, ret.) or bourbons (Kentucky Gentleman, from the 35th happiest state!).

So let’s say you have some family or coworkers dropping by and need to pass yourself off as slightly less impoverished than you really are. Follow this advice from a few of our favorite bartenders—Francesca and Jessica at Park Slope’s High Dive, and Miriam at the Brazen Head—on how to pass off the cheapest booze in the store. Read the rest of this entry »

11 deals we love: Prospect Heights

Styles at Pieces

At Pieces: party dresses and shimmery accessories. Photos by Eric Reichbaum.

With $3 drafts and afternoon-long happy hours, Prospect Heights is a small sliver of Brooklyn where the drinks alone should be a cheapskate draw. But with some mouth-watering daytime fare, sale racks that overfloweth and well-stocked knick-knackeries, the neighborhood isn’t a find only for the pocket-change imbiber. Desperate, hungry shoppers, read on too. Here are my Prospect Heights picks from beer glass to last-minute stocking-stuffer. Read the rest of this entry »

Eat your way through one frugal foodist’s Brooklyn

Picture 20As much as we try to bring you everything you need for the low-budget Brooklyn life, we have to admit, we’re not the only helpful brokesters in town. So we discovered while reading our weekly Yelp email, and there was one Broke in Brooklyn, a.k.a Kyle Huebbe, a real estate agent, former chef and, incidentally, Brooklyn burger king (here he is competing) who’s something of a self-appointed expert on all that is cheap and excellent in our borough. This includes the pork-and-leek dumplings $2 for eight at Kai Feng Fu, Mexican food at Tacos Matamoros nearby, and cheap beer and a BBQ at the Brooklyn Ice House in Red Hook. For pizza, it’s strictly San Remo on Cortelyou Road, where, as he puts it, there’s a “bunch of old neighborhood guys, making pizza.” Tell it, bro. Check out Kyle’s other favorites here.

Village Voice loves Brooklyn bars, creepy Green-Wood strolls

Black Mountain Winehouse, voted "Best Bar to Spirit Yourself Away to the Adirondacks"

Black Mountain Winehouse, voted "Best Bar to Spirit Yourself Away to the Adirondacks"

If there’s one thing the proclamations of  New York’s “best of” lists are always good for, it’s sparking debate. But when a list has categories like “Best ’90s Musical Hero Hiding Out Scruffily in Brooklyn” (Blake Schwarzenbach), who can argue? That distinction and about 250 others are from the just-released Village Voice Best of NYC 2009—a guide to people, places and things around the city that might otherwise have gone unnoticed to the average New Yorker. Naturally, Brooklyn makes a solid  showing on this year’s list, nabbing more than 40 in all. From pretend vacations to supplying your DIY needs, here are just a few of Brooklyn’s best unique virtues. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you ready for some football bars?

Mullane's photo by Anna Jacobson.

Photo by Anna Jacobson.

Back in October, we ran our list of great bars to watch the Yanks in their eventual gazillionth World Series romp. Now it’s pigskin playoff time, and Gang Green’s still around while Big Blue’s already deep in hibernation. We’ll all need a place to take in the Bengal-stomping game. Here’s our same list of  great sports bars around the borough, plus our readers’ additions from October. Because, really, big TVs are big TVs, beer is beer… and it’s football time, people!

Mullane’s, 71 Lafayette Ave. (Fort Greene)
One of our favorite sports-watching spots, Mullane’s has ample viewing room, and there’s a $6 beer-and-a-shot special to help get you through half-time. Read the rest of this entry »

Holiday cocktails from cheap booze

Miriam at the Brazen head hides our alcohol shame

Miriam at the Brazen helps hide our cheapness. Photos by Eric Reichbaum.

Here’s something we learned in our conversations with bartenders during these long winter nights: The holiday season, with all its clove-spiced sweetness, is the best time of year to get away with serving cheap booze to your guests. How cheap? Think off-brand honorifics belonging to rums (Admiral Nelson, U.S. Beverage Corps, ret.) or bourbons (Kentucky Gentleman, from the 35th happiest state!).

So let’s say you have some family or coworkers dropping by and need to pass yourself off as slightly less impoverished than you really are. Follow this advice from a few of our favorite bartenders—Francesca and Jessica at Park Slope’s High Dive, and Miriam at the Brazen Head—on how to pass off the cheapest booze in the store. Read the rest of this entry »

11 deals we love: Prospect Heights

Styles at Pieces

At Pieces: party dresses and shimmery accessories. Photos by Eric Reichbaum.

With $3 drafts and afternoon-long happy hours, Prospect Heights is a small sliver of Brooklyn where the drinks alone should be a cheapskate draw. But with some mouth-watering daytime fare, sale racks that overfloweth and well-stocked knick-knackeries, the neighborhood isn’t a find only for the pocket-change imbiber. Desperate, hungry shoppers, read on too. Here are my Prospect Heights picks from beer glass to last-minute stocking-stuffer. Read the rest of this entry »

Eat your way through one frugal foodist’s Brooklyn

Picture 20As much as we try to bring you everything you need for the low-budget Brooklyn life, we have to admit, we’re not the only helpful brokesters in town. So we discovered while reading our weekly Yelp email, and there was one Broke in Brooklyn, a.k.a Kyle Huebbe, a real estate agent, former chef and, incidentally, Brooklyn burger king (here he is competing) who’s something of a self-appointed expert on all that is cheap and excellent in our borough. This includes the pork-and-leek dumplings $2 for eight at Kai Feng Fu, Mexican food at Tacos Matamoros nearby, and cheap beer and a BBQ at the Brooklyn Ice House in Red Hook. For pizza, it’s strictly San Remo on Cortelyou Road, where, as he puts it, there’s a “bunch of old neighborhood guys, making pizza.” Tell it, bro. Check out Kyle’s other favorites here.

Village Voice loves Brooklyn bars, creepy Green-Wood strolls

Black Mountain Winehouse, voted "Best Bar to Spirit Yourself Away to the Adirondacks"

Black Mountain Winehouse, voted "Best Bar to Spirit Yourself Away to the Adirondacks"

If there’s one thing the proclamations of  New York’s “best of” lists are always good for, it’s sparking debate. But when a list has categories like “Best ’90s Musical Hero Hiding Out Scruffily in Brooklyn” (Blake Schwarzenbach), who can argue? That distinction and about 250 others are from the just-released Village Voice Best of NYC 2009—a guide to people, places and things around the city that might otherwise have gone unnoticed to the average New Yorker. Naturally, Brooklyn makes a solid  showing on this year’s list, nabbing more than 40 in all. From pretend vacations to supplying your DIY needs, here are just a few of Brooklyn’s best unique virtues. Read the rest of this entry »