Brokelyn

Today Google Offers has a deal for half off a BYOB painting class at Painting Lounge in Williamsburg. The two-hour class is only $25, as opposed to the  usual $50, including supplies and the finished painting you get to take home. We’ve never been to this joint, but Painting Lounge has scads of love letters on Yelp (which you should always check because an alarming number of places on those deal sites sound worse than Gitmo.) Painting Lounge also has an unusual approach: they teach you to copy master paintings, which are posted on this here calendar. Sounds like a fun birthday gift / wedding present (especially if you include the booze) / Valentine’s Day date. (Paging Mr. Brokelyn!) Get the Painting Lounge deal here.

The fire this time, at Black Mountain Wine House

Oh the weather outside is frightful, and the fire inside is … non-existent, unless you live in some fancy Rockefeller-filled chateau on the edge of Central Park or something. Still, we’ll have days when the mercury is doing the deep-bend limbo and all you want is to stuff your face and booty against the comforting pre-historic warmth of a roaring fire. So where do you go? The folks at Yelp have the answer in their  weekly email roundup, which lists all the best bars with fireplaces in Brooklyn (according to Yelp users). Read this list — and the ensuing Yelp debate – and find out where you should go for your post-snow-play date night cuddling. Read the rest of this entry »

Do cops search Yelp for lawbreaking bars?

I noticed the other day that a bar I liked started cracking down on a little thing called “to-go cups,” in which you’ll find a little something extra that you can only legally drink on the street in Europe (and party cities). A source told me it was because of the internets. ”There’s a division of police where all that they do is look up this stuff online that’s going on and they bust people. On Yelp, people are writing everything, I mean everything, about this and that. So the cops read the reviews then go in and bust the bar owners.” Cops online, I’ve heard of, but sifting through Yelp? I put my best Nancy Drew cap on, but found that this is a hard pickle to prove. DCPI, the official NYPD mouthpiece, wouldn’t return my messages, and when I approached a bike cop, he didn’t know what I was talking about. So I waltzed myself over to my computer, typed in Yelp New York City, and had myself a little search-a-roo.  And holy crap, do you guys make it easy for the coppers. Take a little Yelp review journey with me, will you?  Read the rest of this entry »

$30 for a 2-hour Hollywood stunt class in Greenpoint [Yelp Deals]
When is it worth buying organic? [LearnVest]
Comparative grocery shopping guide for six stores [CG Patch]
Sidewalk rage is real, can lead to “intermittent explosive disorder” [WSJ]
Brooklyn Castle Grayskull igloo singlehandedly justifies winter [Boing Boing]
Beastie Boy Mike D now writing wine reviews [Grub Street]
BK Brewery’s new $8 million expanded brewhouse opened yesterday [TRD]

As 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.