Flatbush FARM bar restaurant

I went to the restaurant this weekend. Best meal in this area in a while. Just great. The drinks, the apps, the entrees, the desserts. Plus Gorilla Coffee. A knockout.

we had dinner there a few nights ago. the garden is SOOOO gorgeous. and all the staff were wonderful.

we ordered two things off the dinner menu and one off the bar menu, but i have to say, the bar menu item (burger and onion rings) was the best.

we also had a warm tuna appetizer with beans and arugala -- good, and plenty of food for a light dinner -- and a special butternut squash soup, which i found disappointing. it had chantrelle mushrooms in it, which added some texture and may have looked nice (we were outside, so it was pretty dark), but didn't seem to taste like anything at all. the soup base was okay, but just not all that especially good, and it was sort of boring.

the burger, on the other hand, was the stuff of dreams. and it went great with the prosecco, thank you very much.

we had a plum/fig crisp for dessert, which was not at all crisp, but otherwise okay. again, though, the plums seemed to not have much flavor -- i know from experience that they are tricky to bake with and can even become rather bitter, so maybe that was a fluke.

atmosphere was A+++, though. and i loved the fellini-surreal feeling of sitting in this dark garden, barely lit so everything seems like a wonderful dream. a waiter came zipping up to our table with a plate at one point, leaned over and said, in a very fellini way i can't describe, "Did you order pig's feet?" (you could have observed a significant difference between the gf and me, had you seen our facial expressions at that moment. longing & regret vs. slight distaste.)

big fan of flatbush farm. everyone should go. now!!


disclaimer: the general manager is a former coworker of mine

Jesus this neighborhood is yuppifying at a frightening rate.

Ah, the Flatbush Chasm!

PH is yuppifying like mad as well. The other day I was trapped behind two SUV style strollers on "Crazy Lane." Everytime I go to Jocelyn it's strollers and children. And I don't go to Jocelyn that much because everything costs yuppie prices.

Joyce

The change of neighborhoods is really speeding up over the last couple of years. In his new movie SHORTBUS John Cameron Mitchell has a character theorize that it's because of 9/11, that people move to NY to try to get a part of that realness. It's an interesting thought, and I can tell you that the difference between Flatbush before 9/11 and Flatbush today is pretty incredible.

So I don't know. Change happens in NYC - look at the Lower East Side and the various ethnic groups who have lived there over the decades. The difference is that yuppies aren't an ethnic group, and they aren't part of a tradition of change, like when the Jews made way for the Italians who made way for the Chinese on the LES (in general. Obviously elements of all those ethnicities remain, but not in force like they once did). Yuppies are the endgame - they remake the neighborhood in their own, ugly image and bring in insular merchants (places with two dollar mini-cupcakes are not serving the community at large). The yuppies won't make way - what has to happen is a major crash of interest in the neighborhood, returning it to a similar state as the 1980s.

Basically you're seeing Prospect Heights moving into its final phase - it's getting whiter and the shopping and dining is getting pricier and "fancier." I don't know what will cause the White Flight next time - another City budget disaster, a huge housing project nearby (maybe the Atlantic Yards low-income housing will be this), a general economic downturn that spikes crime - but the next step is pretty much inevitable. As for when that happens - who knows? I think the Atlantic Yards project is a massive variable. Does Brooklyn become just another part of Manhattan? If so, ProHo yuppies thrive for a while. Does the project fail? If so, ProHo is doomed within 20 years.

The thing is that you almost never see neighborhoods scale back as nicely as they scale up. When the neighborhood no longer wants to support 2 dollar mini-cupcakes, Joyce closes and the space stays empty. That'll happen quickly up and down Vanderbilt and then up and down Flatbush. The tide that brought the yuppies in will bring them back out just as quickly.

devincf wrote: So I don't know. Change happens in NYC - look at the Lower East Side and the various ethnic groups who have lived there over the decades. The difference is that yuppies aren't an ethnic group, and they aren't part of a tradition of change, like when the Jews made way for the Italians who made way for the Chinese on the LES (in general. Obviously elements of all those ethnicities remain, but not in force like they once did). Yuppies are the endgame - they remake the neighborhood in their own, ugly image and bring in insular merchants (places with two dollar mini-cupcakes are not serving the community at large). The yuppies won't make way - what has to happen is a major crash of interest in the neighborhood, returning it to a similar state as the 1980s.

I think multiculturalism and non-homogenous living has affected the way this process takes place in NYC and all over the US. the ethnic and racial background of the 1980s NYC yuppie is vastly more homogenous than that of the 2000s NYC yuppie. I think, and hope, that this cycle continues and that the yuppies of 2020 will be marked more by class and wealth rather than those factors plus race.

also, regarding the return to urban living, someone recently told me that 9/11 has very little to do with it. that it is, in fact, Giuliani we have to thank for making urban living and child-rearing desirable once again to the upper middle class and wealthy population in the greater NYC area.

Anybody who thinks that the yuppies moving to ProHo are multiculti is blind. Buppies may have moved in Fort Greene, but ProHo's new two dollar mini-muffin crowd is way white.

As for me? I'm a college dropout born in Brooklyn. So no, I wouldn't say I am part of the problem. That said, I was a roommate in the first white apartment in my building, so I do feel like I was vanguard of gentrification in some ways, and I do feel bad about that. To an extent.

I'll tell you what I feel like separates me from many of the other new people (besides the fact that I make a lot less money than any of them) - I am aware that I live in a neighborhood. I am aware that the "scary kids" sitting in front of the building are the children of parents who probably lived here for decades. I am aware that those kids grew up together, know families on the block, etc etc etc. I don't see ProHo as a place to come and clean up or improve.

doctorj wrote: [quote=devincf]Anybody who thinks that the yuppies moving to ProHo are multiculti is blind. Buppies may have moved in Fort Greene, but ProHo's new two dollar mini-muffin crowd is way white.

Does 'multiculti' mean 'not white' to you? I ask, because I'm pale of skin and don't speak English (or Spanish) at home.

yes, that's what he means.

doctorj wrote: [quote=alafairnadia] I think, and hope, that this cycle continues and that the yuppies of 2020 will be marked more by class and wealth rather than those factors plus race.

I hope the yuppies of 2020 are dirt poor regardless of ancestry, and that instead those who will be in their late 40s will finally be getting a break once the boomers are gone

hah! though, I wonder, how much wealth (of the liquid or easy to liquidate variety) yuppies of today actually have. between credit card debt, student loans and mortgages, I'm not certain that yuppies have as much walking around money as some folks think they do.

A link was posted in another thread to the Off the Menu section of the Times and I noticed this little tidbit of info:

Chefs on the Move

ERIC LIND, who was chef de cuisine at Bayard’s, is now the chef at Flatbush Farm in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/dining/25off.html?_r=1&ref=dining&oref=slogin

I haven't been to Bayard's so I don't really know if this is good or bad, anyone familiar with Eric Lind?

I hope for their sake this place is still working out its kinks. I had a so-so brunch there on Saturday. My dish (biscuits and gravy) was dee-lish, two others were just okay, and my sister-in-law ordered a baked egg and spinach thing that came really undercooked and gel-like. She asked to have it put back in the oven, they did -- for a really long time -- and it came back almost exactly the same. She asked if they could try one more time, and they did -- it also took quite a while -- and nothing ever actually changed. Maybe their broiler is broken? In the end, she couldn't eat it. We all tried it too, and it was gross. What irked us was that the waiter kept representing the same dish as if something had changed, and made no acknowledgment that the dish was left uneaten, let alone offer to take it off the bill. Also, the coffee was luke-warm and the water for the tea wasn't even approaching warm, and the teabag was really cheap and tasteless.
Too bad. We all really wanted to find a good brunch spot in this largely brunchless neighborhood.

Haven't eaten a thing there yet, but I have been there for drinks a couple times. Nice place, good barkeep (Jason?), good servers. The cocktails were made pretty well - nicely balanced sweets and bitters. I'll have to order an old fashioned next time, I wouldn't be surprised if they made one almost as good as I do

alafairnadia wrote: also, and this is a personal beef given my on-again, off-again relationship with the sauce, I just don't understand bars that don't stock a non-alcoholic beer. it's a simple way to keep folks like me and the pregnant bunch happy.

Sing it Sister. You don't realize how few people stock N.A. beer until you try to get it with some consistency. It's not just the teetotlers and prego crowd who could use it, some of the lactators don't like to get to much booze into their milk supply.

Beast and Tavern omn Dean have always had some in supply when I've been there.