Pupusas in Red Hook

Eat It: The Brooklyn Food Blog turned one year old this past weekend and I'm celebrating with a contest! To enter, write about your favorite restaurant or meal in Brooklyn and email it to EatItBrooklyn (at) gmail (dot) com; don't forget to include photos! Two lucky winners will each receive a copy of the new book out by Andrew Coe called Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States and will have their submission published here on Eat It! Special consideration will be given to those who write about Chinese food! Contest ends August 3rd!

Great days involve great food. Great food does not have to be eaten at a fancy restaurant, or any kind of restaurant actually; it can be purchased from a truck and eaten with your hands at a wooden picnic table in the shade on a hot, muggy afternoon. That is exactly what I did yesterday and it was pure wonderfulness.

After a lazy swim at the Red Hook pool and cooling off in its crystal clear blue waters, a friend and I ambled over to the Red Hook Ball Fields at the intersection of Bay St. and Clinton St. to get some lunch from one of the vendors selling all manner of yummy food - grilled corn, flautas, tacos, chicharron, plantains and, of course, pupusas. I ordered one Bean & Cheese and one with Pork & Cheese, which are served with the tastiest pickled slaw & onions and doused with sour cream and hot sauce. Pupusas are small rounds of corn meal stuffed with a variety of fillings. The best is when some of the cheese spills out and gets toasted by the grill it's cooked on so it gets browned to a crisp. There are a few vendors that sell pupusas, I pretty much pick the one with the shortest line! This time I ordered from Soler Dominican and found them to be terrific.



I also make sure to get a big cup of juice while I'm there as well. My favorites include Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Tamarind and Horchata (made from rice, almonds & cinnamon), but you can also get lime & lemonade, pineapple juice and mango juice. So refreshing, sweet and delicious!

Parked!: Lunch at The Yard

FYI - A number of Park Slope restaurants are offering deals on meals, now through the 30th, in honor of the Brooklyn Half Marathon which is this Saturday, starting in Prospect Park and ending in Coney Island. Check out the New York Road Runners Club website for details on participating restaurants and where you can cheer on the runners. Go Mom!!!

Oh yeah! The Yard, now know as Bklyn Yard (388-400 Carroll Street, by the blue swinging bridge, between Bond St. & Nevins St.) has opened for another season and I'm so excited. There's something about the ramshackle, haphazard spot on the banks of the Gowanus Canal that makes me so happy. Not to mention, the food!!! This Saturday marked the first of many Saturdays where you'll be able to amble down and get some of the tastiest treats in Brooklyn, all at one place! Some weekends there will be special food, like the Pit BBQ coming up on June 6th; others will host various food vendors selling their fare out of trucks.

First, get yourself something to drink 'cuz you're going to be standing in line and waiting for a while before you get to eat anything. There is a bar with beer but I got myself some Hot Pink Lemonade from the Green Pirate instead. Green Pirate is a juice bar on wheels that makes delicious liquid concotions. The lemonade had lemon & lime juice, celery, sweet beets and ginger, which resulted in a cup full of blood red liquid, sweet and tart and very refreshing.



I then stood in line and ordered a couple of personal pizzas from Pizza Moto, a mobile, wood-fired, brick oven pizzeria. One was with Artichoke Hearts (for me), and was delicious, with plenty of chokes and melty cheese. The crust was perfect - thin and bubbly, crisp and not soggy at all.



The other, for the BF, came with Ramps and Bacon and was so good my eyes bulged out of my head when I tried a bite. Seriously. Smoky, chewy bacon, tangy ramps and again, that fresh, melty cheese and wonderful sauce.



We bumped into some friends who stood for an hour to get some Huaraches from a vendor who normally sells in Red Hook on the weekends. It was a ginormous dish, and very messy, so snag a seat at a table if you can. I tried a bite for research sake and found it to be quite good. The tortilla is so fresh, it's unlike any other tortilla wrapped food, and all the flavors migled together to make a very tasty meal indeed!



The Van Leeuwen Artisanal Ice Cream Truck was there when we left, but we were full and the line was ridiculous, so we left. Maybe next time. The truck was pretty and I hear their ice cream is the bomb.

Also, don't forget that on Sundays there are DJs and dance parties. Go to Bklyn Yard!

Pupusas at the Brooklyn Flea

Ever since the Red Hook Ballfield vendors became so popular, it's nearly impossible to get food there unless you're willing to stand on line for an hour. That's why I'm thankful for the Brooklyn Flea Market (www.brooklynflea.com). If you get there before the lunch-time rush, you can easily satisfy your Pupusa craving with these amazing little treats.



These are the Bean & Cheese Pupusas with tangy cabbage, hot sauce and sour cream. They're SO incredible. And sometimes, if you're lucky, you'll get one where some of the cheese has bubbled out and got a little burnt, which tastes SO good. The cabbage is mouth-watering good as well.



Two Pupusas make a good-sized meal, and there are other items like ice cream and baked goods on hand from other food vendors, you won't go hungry at the Flea.