Search for ‘Dave Cook’ (13 articles found)

Banana honey cone from Miss Softee

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Dave Cook at Midtown Lunch fifth birthday party, New York.

Bittersweet

Grapenut (single scoop, $3.50), one of this coffee shop’s housemade ice creams, features the wheat-and-barley cereal — which contains no grapes or nuts — in a vanilla-flavored base. Customarily the cereal is ground much more finely, as in this commercial brand made in Maine.

I enjoyed that earlier scoop on a road trip to New England, and considering the combo of ice cream and coffee, I’d guessed that Bittersweet had roots somewhere in Red Sox nation. But I guessed wrong — the owner’s mother was raised in the only other island of grapenut ice cream fandom, Jamaica. The wooden spoon, however, is strictly ballpark.

Bittersweet
180 Dekalb Ave. (Carlton Ave.-Cumberland St.), Fort Greene, Brooklyn
718-852-2556

Tacos Matamoros

Don’t mind the snob, chile de arbol is a noble servant.

Bulk, not refinement, is the forte.

During a post-lunch market crawl, a sometimes chef from Mexico observed that the guajillo and ancho peppers in his shopping basket had been absent from our meal at Matamoros. The restaurant, he maintained, had relied almost exclusively on chiles de arbol, which are comparatively vinegary and bitter. But the distinction (which eluded my own tastebuds at the table) didn’t diminish our group meal or a previous, even larger chowdown.

Shown: nachos strewn with chorizo (above); tacos al pastor; tacos de lengua; huaraches; tostadas de ceviche; a goat tamale; a platter of barbacoa cabrito, slow-cooked baby goat (which might be available only on weekends or by special order); costillas en adobo rojo; camarones al mojo de ajo; pollo a la Mexicana; flan.

Tacos Matamoros
45-08 Fifth Ave. (45th-46th Sts.), Sunset Park, Brooklyn
718-871-7627