Luz
177 Vanderbilt Avenue (Myrtle Avenue), Fort Greene, Brooklyn; (718) 246-4000.
Oozing along sclerotic Flatbush Avenue in rush hour, towards dinner in Fort Greene, I found myself wondering how on earth will Brooklyn survive the artery clogging impact of that $5 billion, 22 acre, entree known as Atlantic yards.
The approach of a meal took my mind off the fate of Brooklyn and things really started to improve when we found a parking space right in front (hold your applause)of Luz, a charming unpretentious neuvo latino neighborhood restaurant with a high quality varied menu and decent prices. The decor is attractive with a minimalist feel that was both warm and cool. Our waitress, a delightful kid who knew the menu and was able to explain her choice of favorites and what didn’t make her list and she understood the ballet of how to float in and out at the right time during the meal.
On a chilly February night hot sangria - a spicy hot mulled wine- hit the spot. Others reported that the cold sangria was refreshing. The white red and sparkling sangria as well as fruit flavored mojitos looked good for next time.
Three of us enjoyed two appetizers. We went with the arapas -3 corn and goat cheese disks with a subtle interesting flavor and a cerviche of poached shrimp with mango on an attractive bed of mango slices.
The slow cooked pork with plantanos was good but not as memorable as the appetizers -(aint it always that way). The short ribs had a great flavor although it lacked that melt in your mouth/fall apart at the touch quality that was hoped for.
Desert fiends may be disappointed by a limited four item desert menu - we split one delicious hot chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream - not what we ordered but a welcome mistake by our buddy the waitress who had a lot of goodwill chits to cash in.
There will be a next time and on the list to be tried is an interesting whole snapper that has some kind of salad inside it. The ½ or whole Peruvian roasted chicken and a choice of sides including potatoes, collared greens. The ½ chicken was $5 - [sounds too cheap but I think its right](whole chicken $10) plus $5 for the choices of sides - it looked good on the next table where it was ordered by the young woman on a what looked like a first date.
Entrees were were $20.00. Appetizers were between $9 and $12
The place was not crowded when we arrived on a Friday night at 7 but as we paid the bill the joint was jumpin and people were waiting for tables. The Friday night crowd was a nice mix of folks reflecting the different shades of Brooklyn and the presence of art students from nearby Pratt.
Fort Greene is another NYC neighborhood fighting for its future in a war with the salivating predators of this town's real estate industry- I mean that in a nice way - The community is not going down against the Atlantic Yards project without a fight - thats the good news. The bad news is that the fight is pretty much lost at this point and developer Ratner has already started clearing operations.
Norman Oder, a tour guide and journalist who blogs in his Atlantic Yards Report observed, “Fort Greene, with stark poverty across the park from steady gentrification, may be as emblematically paradoxical a neighborhood as there is in New York” Greenhttp://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2007/01/two-realities-in-fort-greene.html
