Back in March when I was looking all over Manhattan for an apartment, I met a broker that used to be a waitress at Aqua Grill in Soho. Even though I didn’t find a place through her, I got some good restaurant recommendations, including a burger joint in Brooklyn - DuMont Burger. I meant to check it out sooner, but getting to Brooklyn is a hassle.

Chris and I took the L train to Brooklyn for dinner, which is a pretty big deal because taking the L train on the weekends can be a huge pain in the butt; there is always some kind of construction going on! We ended up getting to Brooklyn and finding DuMont Burger:

Initially, we walked into the take-out portion of the restaurant (we were a little disappointed because it was a hike from the subway stop to DuMont Burger and we didn’t see any chairs to sit in while we enjoyed dinner), but when we got up to the counter to order, the cashier told us there was an actual restaurant a couple doors down - whew!! DuMont Burger is actually an extension of their restaurant, DuMont; they opened up DuMont Burger because people always ended up waiting forever for burgers and bar food. We walked into the restaurant, took seats at the bar, and ordered a cheeseburger with fries and macaroni and cheese.

Chris’ cheeseburger with fries:

Juicy medium rare:

The burger was actually pretty good - I’d say it’s worth it if you’re in Brooklyn, but not worth the hassle of going to Brooklyn JUST for a cheeseburger. It was juicy, flavorful, and the brioche bun was the perfect proportion in relation to the meat. The lettuce, something I hardly ever mention in burger posts, was very crisp and the perfect size as well (boston lettuce, I think). Their fries were all small bits (similar to Soho Park’s leftover fries!!).

Since I didn’t want to order the same thing as Chris (we because we always switch plates halfway through our meal), I ordered the DuMac and Cheese:

Remember how I said that the burger isn’t worth going to Brooklyn for? Well, the macaroni and cheese DEFINITELY is; it has an amazingly cheesy crust, lots of perfectly cooked rotini noodles, lots and lots of gooey cheese, and bacon. TONS OF HUGE BACON pieces. I was so amazed at how much pork was in the macaroni and cheese (it was even better than Artisanal’s).

The walk back to the subway didn’t seem as far as the walk over because I was so stuffed from the macaroni and cheese and the cheeseburger. I will definitely go back - for their mac and cheese!

What to order: The DuMac and Cheese, tempura onion donuts, and the DuMont burger.

How to get to DuMont Burger:

DuMont Burger
314 Bedford Avenue between 1st and 2nd Street
Brooklyn, New York 11211
718-384-6127

Over the weekend, Chris and I went to the Takashi Murakami show at the Brooklyn Museum:

Murakami has been called Japan’s Andy Warhol, has worked with Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton, and his team illustrated Kanye West’s music video, “Good Morning.” He also owns a company called Kaikai Kiki, which is a collaboration of young artists that do similar work (Kaikai and Kiki are the names of two of his cartoon characters). We went to Murakami’s show at the Gagosian last year, but the Brooklyn Museum’s is much more comprehensive:

There’s a video of Kaikai and Kiki that was so cute (it’s about watermelon seeds, poop, and spaceships). Here’s a youtube video of Kaikai and Kiki (although it’s not the Watermelon video).

There’s also a funny video about a kid robot named Inochi (the 57 second video sums up adolescence for boys.)

The exhibit runs through July and is definitely worth checking out!

Our first stop on the fro-yolympics was in Brooklyn. If you read my blog, you know that I’m not a fan of going to Brooklyn; why take a train for half an hour if you can get frozen yogurt right outside your door?! But, for the fro-yolympics, I’ll do basically anything. Most of the people that I invited told me they’d meet up with the tour some time during the day, but they weren’t trekking out to Brooklyn, not even if I enticed them with SUBSIDIZED frozen yogurt. The real frozen yogurt enthusiasts, however, took the train for 20 minutes to make it out to Oko for me (a special thank you to Justin and Ariel - sorry for being 30 minutes late and thank you for being so patient!). Oko, meaning “eco” in Hungarian, is the most environmentally friendly yogurt store I’ve ever visited. Almost everything in the store is made from some sort of renewable resource; their floors are made out of linseed oil (which is completely bio-degradable), their containers are made out of corn, their spoons are made out of potatoes, and their countertops are made out of pressed sunflower hulls! Oko also tries to get all of their products locally.

Oko’s lovely storefront:

1. Size of the hole:

The hole was EXTREMELY small because our yogurt specialist tapped the container on the table to maximize the amount of frozen yogurt we were served.

2. Tanginess vs. creaminess: On a scale from 1 to 5 (one being tangy and five being creamy), Oko scored right in the middle with a solid 3.

3. Topping Variety:

All of the toppings were stored in air-tight containers. They also serve berries with chopsticks, which is a cute touch!

4. Fruit Quality:

On a scale of one to five (one being over/under ripe and five being perfectly ripe), Oko scored a perfect FIVE!

5. Calories per ounce: Oko has 30g calories/ounce and 5g of sugar/ounce (their online menu includes all of this helpful information).

6. Price per ounce: Oko clocked in at a healthy 62 cents/ounce.

7. Atmosphere/quality of service: You can tell Oko really cares about the environment; their walls have a wood panelling that is made out of bamboo, their drywall is made out of recycled content, and a lot of other things that add up to a very eco-friendly store. They played top 40 hits and the atmosphere was friendly (although our frozen yogurt server was a little suspicious of us taking so many pictures).

8. Iciness vs. Smoothness: On a scale of one to five (one being icy and five being smooth), we rated Oko a 3; a perfect combination of iciness and smoothness!)

9. Number of flavors: there are 4 flavors at Oko - original, blueberry, orange creamsicle, and chocolate. The flavors change daily so you never know what you’ll get!

10. Resilience to heat:

Well, this case is special; they only give samples on small spoons so our sample looks a little beat up. On our frozen yogurt order, the melting wasn’t too bad (probably because we demolished it).

11. Presentation:

Very beautifully presented with LOTS of toppings. I don’t think I’ve EVER had that many toppings on a frozen yogurt! Brooklyn knows how to serve it up!

Only four people went to Oko (Justin, Ariel, me, and Chris), but we all enjoyed it. The rest of the frozen yogurt followers met up with us in Manhattan.

Final notes: We liked that Oko was environmentally friendly and that they have a buy 10 get 1 free card (Chris can testify to how much I love frequent buyer cards…I stuff them into my huge wallet!). Also, the solid texture really made the yogurt delicious and I personally love it when the fruit is slightly frozen by the yogurt (the yogurt is SO cold that when it touches fruit, it becomes crunchy). Also, we think it’s great that Oko’s owners found a Greek family (locally) to make their yogurt mixture. They offer other items like fairly traded coffees and teas, which is a nice alternative for people that aren’t interested in frozen yogurt. The only thing we disliked about Oko was the distance (since we all live in Manhattan), but in Brooklyn, Oko is the authority on frozen yogurt. We gave Oko a 4.0/5.0. Tomorrow, we head into Manhattan and explore Pinkberry!

Here are all of the entries in order (in case you wanted to jump around):

Day 1: Oko
Day 2: Pinkberry
Day 3:Red Mango
Day 4: Yolato
Day 5: 40 Carrots
Day 6: Very Berry
Day 7: Flurt
Day 8: Berry Wild Smooth and Kindy Icy
Day 9: Crazy Bananas

Josh wanted to see Manhattan’s skyline from Brooklyn, so I took him over to Brooklyn (gasp!) to get a view of the city. While we were over there, we stopped by the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory for some touristy ice cream. We saw Rachel Ray feature The Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory on her $40/day show because of their all natural ingredients (and it’s supposed to be cheap):

The line was really long, but we figured if Rachel Ray recommended it, it had to be YUM-OH, right? We ended up waiting in line for 30 minutes - just to freaking get inside! The place is really old fashioned and has only five or six flavors, but apparently the vanilla content is really high, so we decided to go with vanilla and chocolate chocolate chip. Our guy scooping up our ice cream:

And a shot of our ice cream:

The ice cream was good, but it tasted JUST LIKE BREYERs! Was it worth waiting for? Probably not. Was it worth $6? No, I don’t think so. It was rich and creamy, but I didn’t taste any difference between the vanilla they produced and the vanilla that comes out of the supermarket. Rachel Ray, what were you thinking?

How to get to Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory:

Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory
1 Water Street
Brooklyn, NY 11230
718-246-3963

Last night, Chris and I ventured into uncharted territory (Brooklyn) to have dinner at Peter Luger Steak House:

I made reservations a month ago (no joke - I called them in early May asking when their first available Wednesday was and June 6th was our lucky day) and we were definitely excited about having big juicy steaks. To give you a little background about Peter Luger’s, they started in 1887 and only select cattle that are considered PRIME by the USDA. Once they have the PRIME meat, they look at the color, fat, and conformation of bones. According to Peter Luger’s website, the color must be pink with an even conformation of fat dispersed throughout. This is referred to as marbling. If selected, the loin is brought back to the premises of the restaurant where the dry aging process begins. The loins of beef sit in a temperature controlled cooler where air circulates around them. After the meat is properly aged, it is butchered and brought up to the kitchen for broiling. Whew! That is a lot of work for a piece of meat!

We were promptly escorted to our seats for our 7:45 reservation and started munching on rolls:

They had actual pieces of onion in their bread! Another shot of our expertly arranged rolls:

I usually really dislike onion bread/bagels/onions in general, but this bread was tolerable because the onions weren’t too pungent, but still had a little flavor. The butter that came with the rolls was also really creamy and tasty. Okay, onto the food we actually paid for…

Since we had a month to prepare for our glorious night of steak, I asked for suggestions on what to order from some Peter Luger regulars. Out of all the people I spoke with (some had never even been to the steak house), everyone said that I absolutely HAD to try their bacon, so that was the first thing we ordered:

Do you see how much fat is on that bacon? I dove right in and it was incredibly juicy and fatty (making it a great piece of bacon). Chris, on the other hand, is health-conscious and picked off the pieces of meat (initially). After a while, he basically just dove into the fat. Even though he winced at the idea of the fat clogging his arteries, he agreed that it was definitely a good piece of bacon.

We also ordered the steak for two since my friend said it was a better deal than each person ordering their own steak:

The steak was definitely one of the biggest pieces of meat I’ve ever seen (a close second would be the 22 oz porterhouse I had at Shula’s in Orlando). The steak was one tasty piece-o-meat. It was juicy, tender, marbled, and had a great crust on top. A close-up of my plate:

In a previous entry, I mentioned that we purchased some Peter Luger Steak Sauce to put on our steak and that I thought it tasted like over-priced cocktail sauce that went better with shrimp than steak. I still think it tastes like cocktail sauce, but surprisingly, it paired really well with the steak from Peter Luger. One thing that surprised me about the steak was that I thought it was slightly plain on its own. I usually don’t use A-1 or anything with steak (I think it ruins the flavor) but for some reason, I couldn’t eat the steak without the steak sauce.

We ordered creamed spinach as our first side dish:

If you end up going there, I would pass on the creamed spinach. It’s a little too salty and it loses some of the spinach flavor. Plus, there’s so much steak that you don’t even need to order sides!

Our second side dish was French fried potatoes (a fancy way of saying french fries):

Another side dish I’d pass on. The fries weren’t crispy enough and they tasted slightly stale. Plus, they didn’t offer ketchup and we didn’t want to offend them by asking for it since we had so much Peter Luger sauce. A picture of me and Chris before we started on our eating adventure:

When we were almost done with our meal, I looked outside (just randomly) and saw John Turturro! He was very nicely dressed (I think he even had a scarf on?) and was having dinner with friends. Overall, I think the meal was pretty tasty, but it’s one of those places you only go to once (it’s way too fatty to become a once-a-week type place). Afterwards, Chris and I got into a little trouble with the Brooklyn PD. I’ll tell you in person if you ask.

I’ll be back next week with an update on my weekend surprise, another trip to Brooklyn (possibly), brunch, and more surprises!