Brokelyn

Bagel Hole, photos by Jill Harrison

Will you PLEASE do a bagel review? a reader named JT requested a while back, following a post on the mediocrity of Tim Horton’s donuts. I don’t know what kind of review you’ve got in mind, JT, but I do have a tip for you: The Bagel Hole in the South Slope has the best bagels in Brooklyn, and probably the whole city.

It took me a while to realize it this, though. When I moved nearby a few years ago and started going there they seemed kinda small and kinda hard. This is a common reaction, I was later told by Phil Romanzi, who’s owned the narrow, no-frills shop for close to 25 years. If your notion of a bagel is a dough bomb as big and round as a softball and as soft as a Twinkie, then they take getting used to. And it almost certainly is, unless you’re of a certain age and grew up in or around the five boroughs. Read the rest of this entry »

Some of what you can expect at the Re/Dress trunk show tomorrow.

Re/Dress is a Brooklyn plus-size vintage and contemporary second-hand store we’ve been meaning to write about for a while, and here it is in a nice little NYC fashion roundup in the Times’ excellent frugal travel blog this week, so thanks, Matt Gross.

If you’re one of those people who thinks vintage dressing is strictly a skinny girls’ game, you probably haven’t seen this Boerum Hill shop, where the Times found “clothes by everyone from Target to Marina Rinaldi, with prices generally hovering between $20 and $80.” Some is vintage, some is Lane Bryant resale and the like, but none of it is smaller than a size 14 (but beware that’s about a size 10 by 1950s standards.) Read the rest of this entry »

This question seems to come up all the time, so it’s no surprise that it popped up in our Dear Penny mailbox too (that’s the place where you can send your stumpers about saving money in Brooklyn and we’ll either answer them ourselves or ask our readers to). Rachel writes:

Like many fans of Stacy and Clinton [you are not not the only one, sistah!], I lust after a well-tailored wardrobe, but don’t have a lot of cash, and don’t know my way around getting alteration services in NYC. Growing up, my mom hemmed all my skirts (d’oh!!) Can you help?

Glad you ask, Rachel, because we could use a great tailor too. We could also use one of those seamstresses that all of our fashion-y friends seem to know, the kind who can duplicate a favorite shirt in seven different fabrics in an afternoon. Readers, let ‘er rip, so to speak.

Squirrel is jittery and lean, with a look of confusion on his face. “Do you know the Rainbow Family?” he asks. “I’m part of the tribe. You can call me Squirrel. It’s my Rainbow name.” For a student of couch surfing, Squirrel is an intriguing character study, but the encounter ends as a cautionary tale.

I meet Squirrel during a five-day experiment in couch surfing through Brooklyn, which takes me from a shag rug in Bed-Stuy (not all couch surfing is done on couches) to a plush white sofa with a view of McCarren Park.

The practice of couch surfing—crashing at a stranger’s home for free rather than at a hotel or hostel—is growing among thrifty travelers both here and abroad, many of whom find each other through the five-year-old web site of the CouchSurfing 2.0 Project (CSP). Here some 1.3 million road trippers and prospective hosts (many of them one-time couch-surfers themselves) post detailed profiles listing their occupations, travel experience, personal philosophy and interests, along with action shots from the road.  As on eBay, members review one another, a practice that usually—but not always—encourages good behavior. Read the rest of this entry »