So, uh, what's the DEAL, Prospect Heights? (the Bad)

There are many reasons why I love living in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn. I love being close to Prospect Park, and having barbecue parties there in the summer, strolling over to Grand Army Plaza on the weekends for the farmers’ market, stalking my favorite French bulldogs and Foxy Brown, and eating out at all the unpretentious neighborhood restaurants. Most of these restaurants serve some really decent, at times great, affordable food. Lately, though, it seems like there is a price to pay for the price we pay.

One Sunday not so long ago, I went for brunch with my amigas at Beast, one of our oft-visited neighborhood joints. In a neighborhood of very unreliable peers, Beast can usually be counted on for solid service. But on this particular day, this was disappointingly not the case - our food took almost an hour to get into our hungry bellies, with not one word of consolation from our waitress, who seemed barely to notice us at all. The food, as usual, was very good (see below for evidence*), but it hardly mattered because that magical brunch mood had been squashed, and we all brooded bitterly like 5 recently sacked federal prosecutors. Yet this is nothing compared to the brunch we had at Tavern on Dean only a couple weekends before, where we waited an obscenely generous TWO HOURS PLUS to get our food, again with scant apology, recognition or compensation.

Sadly, most of us are accustomed to this ordeal. Some restaurants, though, have caused one too many premature gray hairs, and have managed to earn the extremely rare status of “Blacklisted” from some of my less forgiving friends (Café Shane , hottest servers in the world and all, with a brunch I love, is one of these elite few).

So come on, Prospect Heights, get with it, cause this shit is sooo played out. Yo.



*The food at Beast is actually consistently good:

Brunch - homemade granola with fruit and yogurt


Brunch - three cheese omelette on croissant


Dinner - seared tuna rolls


Dinner - duck with beet salad


Dessert - fried baby bananas with pistachio ice cream