Where Brooklyn At??
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24 hours in Brooklyn.
I’ve been the NY many times. I’ve just never ventured over to Brooklyn. So here is what I accomplished in 24 hours.
First, we had to find breakfast. I’m not a breakfast person though. I would skip straight to dinner and dessert every day of the week. I found The Original Bagel Shop online. What’s unique about this place is they make a rainbow bagel. And they also have this creation called a “cragel”. It’s a bagel and croissant having a baby. I had egg whites and turkey bacon on a cragel. It was decent. Shrugs. It didn’t give me croissant at all, other than the color of it. It had the deep yellowish golden hue but had the consistency of a bagel. Maybe even more chewy than a bagel to me. The Rainbow Bagel with the confetti cream cheese was dessert for breakfast. Although, it has all the vibrant colors of the rainbow, it tasted like a plain bagel. I was happy about that because unnaturally colorful food, especially blue, doesn’t appeal to my sense of sight or translate into a flavor that I ever like.
And of course, if you are in NY, you have to have a NY slice of pizza. We got a recommendation from a local of which pizza place had the best tasting pizza. They directed us to Paulie Gee’s. In their NY accent, I thought they said Polly Cheese, which would have made perfect sense. I instantly thought of Polly string cheese. Glad I asked for the spelling. I would have been on a wild goose chase. They have a honey hot pepperoni pizza. Honey on pizza sounds as bad as pineapple on pizza to me. I can’t wrap my mind on how that could ever be a good combination. To my surprise, honey with a kick on a slice of pepperoni pizza is phenomenal. I want to know who came up with this. It was that good. It wasn’t too much honey. It wasn’t too much heat. That pizza belongs on the food channel, if it hasn’t made it there yet.
So who knew that Coney Island was in Brooklyn? And who also knew that Coney Island is a beach? I had absolutely no idea. I’ve only heard about Coney Island regarding the hot dog eating contest every 4th of July. It’s a huge carnival. It’s kind of in the middle of a neighborhood. It has a boardwalk and a beach. And as cool as it was outside with no sun, people were having a grand beach day. It looked like a typical northern beach. Tan sand and murky water. Nathan’s Hot Dogs are everywhere at Coney Island. And as much as I like to taste what the locals eat, a hot dog is just a hot dog to me. And I’m not a hot dog eater. So, I can’t report back on if Nathan’s is the top tier of grounded up scraps of meat left on the cutting room floor wrapped in a hot dog casing.
The hotel was 50 Bowery. The address said Brooklyn. Then the area said lower Manhattan. I’m not even sure if I actually stayed in Brooklyn. However, I do know that the hotel is right off the Manhattan Bridge and in the middle of China Town. The hotel has a rooftop bar. But, please note you have to vaccinated to see any of the NY skyline from that rooftop. We had reservations for a seafood and steak restaurant. But we were in the middle of China Town. I was inspired. I took an evening stroll around the area. I’m always intrigued by the cultural divides in a city. Brooklyn also had an area of Hasidic Jews. It’s all fascinating. China Town had every Chinese style cuisine specialty you could think of. Dim Sum. Pho. Americanized Chinese food. I went with the Americanized Chinese food from Han Dynasty. I had a basic shrimp lo mein. Best lo mein I’ve ever had. The shrimp were super small and not plentiful. But I didn’t even miss the shrimp. The flavor was top notch. I don’t know what they added that the other places don’t. Maybe it was just a little extra TLC. I don’t know. But I gave Han Dynasty 5 stars even though they only gave me 5 shrimp.
My plan was to walk the Brooklyn Bridge and get a slice of Junior’s Cheesecake. If anyone remembers Diddy making Da Band walk the Brooklyn Bridge for Cheesecake, it was a pivotal moment in reality TV history. Problem. I couldn’t figure out how to get the stairs that led to the Brooklyn Bridge. I tried Google. I parked in two different places. I even asked a police officer. And she looked at me like “why would I ever want to do that”. She didn’t understand my self imposed assignment at the moment. I couldn’t even get a good pic of the bridge. Maybe if I had more time I could have fulfilled my mission. But it was an epic fail this time. So, I just drove to the Junior’s on Flatbush and picked up my Devil's Food cheesecake.
The Brooklyn Bridge Park is nice though. And it’s in Dumbo. If you have heard Jay Z’s 4:44 album, he talks about buying property in Dumbo when the prices were around $2M and how it inflated to $25M in 2017. Dumbo is a cool area. I would definitely go back there and explore more.
Brooklyn is definitely not Times Square. But still fast paced with a city suburb feel. That’s a place I would visit again. BK stand up!
