Sunday, February 25, 2007

Lori’s Restaurant Tip #3 Luz

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

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Presidential Campaign 2008 -Dream Press Conference Question for Hillary

Senator Clinton
The Bush administration is driving this country over a cliff with a foreign policy fiasco that they sold to a majority of Congress and the American people like the sleaziest trial lawyers that ever bamboozled a jury.
There are only two alternative explanations for your vote to let them do it- neither one is too pretty.
The first is that you’re human and like most of the other kids in the class, you fell for Colin’s dog and pony show like a ton of bricks - that might let you off the historical hook - but Im not aware of the rule of career advancement that says "if you make a really dumb decision about something very important you get to be the boss". Furthermore, if you did nothing wrong and would do it again how can you be trusted to standup to the upcoming snowjob for a preemptive attack on Iran.

Then there is the other more likely explanation. You knew it was a catastrophic mistake but didn't care because doing the right thing once again lost out to presidential lust - the other kind. The country has been there and done that.
Here’s the question -unless you have a third explanation - why do choices one and two earn you anyone’s vote ?

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Presidential Campaign 2008-Dream Press Conference Question for Rudy

Mr. Guliani - prior to 9-11 your political career was in the toilet and New Yorkers were sick of your divisive, temper driven, leadership. After 9-11 the nation's shattered psyche craved the image of Wyatt Earp taking back the streets of Dodge City -but that was it. Instead of retiring gracefully, you shamelessly exploited 9-11 to develop your marketing brand as "America's Mayor" and with smoke and mirrors spun it into a multimillion dollar security consulting business, with your trusted partner Bernard Kerik.
When and if the national press snaps out of its trance there are some items in your resume that people might care about when choosing a president;

Dealing with a diverse population
-You were perhaps the most racially divisive mayor in New York City's history. Not once, in your eight years as Mayor, did you meet with the black Manhattan borough president;
Having a psyche that can be trusted
- What's with that screw loose history of a marriage to a second cousin that was later annulled;
Courage in a tough personal crisis
- You chose to let your wife, Donna Hanover, know you were filing for divorce by announcing it at a press conference - dashing any hope of being crowned "America's Husband";
Strategic planning
Before 9-11 you made the decision to put the city's emergency command center in a building at the World Trade Center - knowing that terrorists had already tried to destroy it with a truck bomb - so with a tank of its own fuel supply as an accelerant your command bunker helped bring down one of the smaller WTC buildings.

How come you never mention that?
Sound personnel decisions
- You opted to form a partnership with Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik who, when he wasn’t muscling himself into the camera shot next to you at press conferences, or pushing his autobiography or making a fortune selling stun guns to police departments, was having trysts in a government paid for condo at ground zero in an apartment rented with tax payer dollars as a place for ground zero workers to rest. Kerik finally capped his distinguished career by pleading guilty to ethics violations for using government contractors to work on his mansion.
Sound foreign policy decisions
Since 9-11 your only contribution to the national political debate has been your unflinching support of the worst foreign policy debacle in American history and the bible thumping snake oil salesman who convinced our elected patsies to gave him the nation's wallet and car keys.

So Mr. Guliani -aside from a decision we all appreciated, to get rid of that silly comb over (what a surprise- you're bald - who knew?)- and other than your press conference skills why would anyone in their right mind want you to be in charge of digging us out of the smoldering wreckage that George Bush will have left us?