Boulders, Mango Rolls, and Dog-Friendly Bars--Only in Brooklyn

One of the many reasons I love living in New York is that no two nights out are alike.  There's a neighborhood for any mood you can conjure.  If I'm feeling lethargic, I'll throw on a pair of jeans and sneakers and trudge over to the Kettle Black around the corner.  These days we've been doing a lot of trudging thanks to the snow.  If I'm feeling trendy and adventurous, I'll go to Brooklyn Boulders for rock climbing and try a new cafe in Park Slope.  When I'm feeling mellow and low-key, I'll hop on the train and wind up on the Lower East Side for cheap beers and old-school punk rock.  And if there's a game on and I'm feeling pumped, I'll hang on for a slightly longer commute to midtown or uptown for a power-packed, energetic happy hour. 

This past Friday night I was feeling in between low-key and trendy, so Park Slope seemed like the perfect neighborhood for relaxation.  My sister-in-law Christine, enjoying a well-deserved night out from my adorable four-month-old twin nephews, accompanied me.  We decided not to go in with a plan, but to meet at the train station and scour the neighborhood for something appealing.  I've found that sometimes the best nights start out like that.  And this time was no exception; we were lucky enough to find two hidden Brooklyn gems, one for dinner and one for drinks.

We ate at Ginza, a Japanese sushi-hibachi fusion restaurant.  It's one of those Benihana-esque places, but it had a more home-y feel to it.  There were hibachi tables, but we opted not to sit at them because I was planning on having sushi.  Christine had the teriyaki chicken and shrimp.  Without hyperbole, I can honestly say that Ginza had the best spicy tuna roll I have ever tasted.  You know how when you go to cheap sushi places, you get like a dot of fish and a pound of rice?  Well, Ginza's roll had a nice, thick slab of tuna (yummmmmmm! My mouth is watering right now!) with just a ring of rice around the edge.  My other notable roll was a mango-avocado shrimp.  I used to get grossed out by the thought of fruit with regular dinner food, like pineapple on pizza; now I'm becoming more acclimated to the idea because I've come across so many times, like this one, where it simply works.  (Another example is the chicken and sour apple sandwich I once had at a bar in Bushwick, but I digress.)  There is something about the tang of the mango merging with the crunch of the shrimp that creates some kind of new super-food.  Shrimp is good; mango is good; together they're phenomenal.  (Can you combine three sentences with semicolons?  Oh well.  I just did.)

After dinner we had planned on strolling around and looking for a wine bar or something, but alas, the weather cares not about your measly plans.  It was about 25 degrees out--with a wind-chill factor of are you kiddin' me?--so any place with heat would do.  Luckily the first place we came across happened to be pretty cool.  We huddled inside Great Lakes, a comforting and unpretentious bar.  And unpretentious isn't something you come across all the time in Park Slope.  Christine ordered a Blue Point toasted ale and I ordered a pinot grigio from the friendly female bartender, odd for us since she's usually the wine and I the beer.  I needed to warm up!  The usual Park Slope crowd encircled us, scruffy, skinny-jeaned dudes and flowy-skirted, bespectacled gals, (none of whom speak with New York accents) but everyone was amiable enough.  The bar had a couple of arcade games, including a Pac-Man turned on its side that doubled as an extra table, which I thought was pretty nifty.  You'll find the usual tap here, and not exactly an extensive wine list (red or white? pinot or chardonnay?) but if you don't have obnoxiously discriminating taste you can find something to drink.  And the bar, like many in Park Slope, is dog friendly!  I realized this when I looked down from my conversation with Christine and saw the head of the 130-pound boxer named Ceasar in my lap.  And he didn't even buy me a drink first.  Ba-dum-bum. 

So what did I learn from my ladies' night out in Park Slope?  Mango and shrimp go surprisingly well together. If you can't find a sitter for Rover but still want to get hammered, go to Great Lakes.  And if you have a canine-loving husband like I do, dog-friendly bars can be used as leverage for moving to Park Slope.  It may be on the table after this year's lease is up.  I already have the glasses; I'll just need to get myself a flowy skirt.  Stay tuned. 


The following are links to the locations I referenced in this blog.  I would recommend all of them, and at times I do have obnioxiously discriminating tastes. 

Kettle Black (Bay Ridge)----http://www.kettleblackbar.com/ Corner of 87 Street and 3 Ave

Brooklyn Boulders (Park Slope)----http://www.brooklynboulders.com/ Corner of 3 Ave and Degraw Street

Iggy's Celtic Lounge (one of my fave spots on the Lower East Side)--www.myspace.com/iggys
Ludlow Street between Rivington and Stanton

Jake's Dilemma (best happy hour on the UWS--FULL half price bar til 8)--http://www.nycbestbar.com/ Amsterdam Ave between 80 and 81 Streets

Ginza (Park Slope)--http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/ginza/ 5 Ave between 1st and 2nd Street

Great Lakes (Park Slope)--http://nymag.com/listings/bar/great_lakes/ Corner of 5 Ave and 1st Street