I ate at The Brooklyn Star (the website is not representative of the restaurant) last night with Matt and Ariana. The restaurant introduces Joaquin Baca, a chef who's graced the kitchens of Momofuku and The Rusty Knot. The space is sparse - wooden/slate tables, white walls - but people were crowded in early on Sunday night. The menu is meat heavy Southern food. We started with the cornbread - baked to order. An excellent opening salvo. Next up, beau soleil oysters on the half shell. They came with a hint of BBQ sauce in the shell - a tasty, tangy addition.
I couldn't resist ordering the fried green tomatoes. Ever since I had them in Charleston, I've dreamed about them. My inflated memory of the dish held up pretty well in Brooklyn. Five juicy medallions came with a smokey tomato dipping sauce.
We decided to split the trout and the chicken and dumplings as our main courses and threw in a side of summer squash casserole. The casserole came in a piping hot cast iron skillet. It's holdings were warm, creamy and rich. Julienned strips of green and yellow squash got lost in thick cream all buried beneath a layer of bread crumbs.
The trout was my favorite. It was served whole, stuffed with rosemary, thyme and sage. Two preserved lemons added the final seasoning. It was blistery good and came with a hearty portion of very sweet corn. The corn was a favorite of the table.
The chicken and dumplings held their own as well and would make a wonderful winter dish. I can see coming to Brooklyn Star in November, windows fogged up, alone and ordering the chicken and dumplings. The dumplings were sweet and soft and there was an ample portion of chicken both on and off the bone.
To close out the meal, we opted in for their experimental dessert, which we dubbed corndog strawberries. The dish was composed of strawberries deep fried in the restaurant's cornbread batter served with vanilla ice cream drizzled in honey. We all imagined this dessert invention must have been a result of some special herb floating around the kitchen and concluded that it was an inspiring take on these ingredients - like a blazed strawberry cobbler.
Overall, we liked it. It's a good neighborhood spot, already ornamented with Williamsburg hipsters. And who knows - if they keep divining dishes like the corndog strawberries, it good very well become a destination.
[...] vibe and gentle prices. We started by splitting the fried green tomatoes. I’d had them at The Brooklyn Star and wanted to do a back to back taste test. It turns out they were of different worlds. [...]
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