only in ny #7: connecticut muffin.

  

snack: pumpkin spice muffin
drink: caramel latte

being an "adult" is pretty awesome, huh? my favorite part is the part where you have to have a job & support yourself or you starve to death or get put out on the street. ever since i first became an "adult" a few decades back, i've gone through three periods of time where my job was "eliminated" & i had to rely on government assistance to survive whilst i've looked for a new job. the first two times both lasted a few months & both times i'd spend many a morning riding the F train a few stops through brooklyn to the furthest west corner of prospect park where, in an effort to wake up & get my ass out of the house & get the day moving, i'd grab breakfast at connecticut muffin.

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only in ny #6: good beer nyc.

  

snack: roni-sue's beercorn
drinks: founders double trouble ipa / bear republic racer 5 ipa / 21st amendment fireside chat / captain lawrence espresso stout

today i'm going to take you on a JOURNEY INTO THE PAST, a journey to a simpler time, a time before nyc was turned all willy-nilly upside-down by SNOWPOCALYPSE 2010. this time was back in mid-december, the day after i complained on this here blog about my difficulty in finding a reliable companion for a trip to good beer nyc, a relatively-new beer store in the east village. third time's a charm or some crap, so that very same night, as i wrote of the second companion fail, i put out a desperate call on the facebook for a new companion & ms adrienne, the lovely lass who also accompanied me to bierkraft last february for the inaugural edition of this here neglected "only in ny" column, answered the call. the very next day we found ourselves at good beer nyc.

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only in ny #5: brooklyn MAC.

  

snack: the carroll gardens MAC with bacon
drink: santa cruz organic orange mango sparkling beverage

i like to think that i'm on the cutting edge snackwise, someone who's got his eyes on the blogs & his belly full of unique & exciting foodstuffs. like, i knew that bacon was awesome WAY before it TOTALLY BLEW UP LADY GAGA STYLEE. a few weeks back, the village voice tipped me off to the upcoming opening of brooklyn MAC, a brand new restaurant in greenpoint that's focused on the good ol' american favorite, MAC & cheese. i totally missed out on the first nyc MAC & cheese wave when S'MAC opened up back in the summer of '06, so when brooklyn MAC finally opened up about a week back, i figured this was my chance to redeem myself.

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only in ny #4: smoke joint.

snack: black angus dog / spicy french fries
drink: abita jockamo i.p.a.

even though i've lived in brooklyn for almost a decade now, my knowledge of the fort greene, brooklyn food & drink scene is relatively lame. i haven't really had all that much reason to hang out there until this summer, when i've found myself at the brooklyn flea on most weekends. as a result, i've been spending much more time in the neighborhood lately. a couple fridays ago, on my quest to find "a place to drink that has food," my brooklyn flea partner-in-crime jessica suggested the smoke joint, a bbq restaurant right off of fulton st. i'm not exactly a huge meat eater, but i do go for quality meats every once in a while, so the promise of bbq sounded good to me.

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only in ny #3: snack shop

  

snack: snickers cupcake
drink: manhattan special espresso coffee soda

in the BOCOCA (boerum hill, cobble hill, carroll gardens) area of brooklyn, smith st gets all the hype. they've got the requisite hip neighborhood quota of restaurants, bars, shops & boutiques. they've got a comic book store, a cheese shop & a brooklyn industries and american apparel. all told it equals H-I-P. in my time in brooklyn, i've spent a lot of time on smith st. i've had many a drink in its hip bars & food in its hip restaurants. there was a time when i used to go to faan at least once a month. in some forgotten restaurant on smith, i had dinner one night with this dude who was a friend of a friend, only to realize after that it was likely a date. i even got dumped in one of the handful of interchangeable sushi joints. good times on smith st.

...but in my book, smith st is so 2004. in 2010, court st is the way to go. it's filled with restaurants & shops, but it's never got the same sort of attention that smith st has. still, the more i've lived in brooklyn & the more i age & the more i become a hermit, the more i find myself on court st. that's mainly because while smith is home to lots of places to go out to eat & drink, court st is home to american beer distribution (where i often buy beer to drink in the comfort of my home) & cobblestone foods (where i often buy cheese to eat in the comfort of my home). if lines & cramped spaces didn't freak me out, i'm sure i'd frequent the fairly new trader joes on court. there's a movie theater on court st, but i read somewhere that it's MAD SCARY. scary or not, smith st doesn't even have a movie theater. so yeah, court st's more my style these days.

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