Montreal foodie looking for recco's in Brooklyn/Williamsburg

[estilker]

Visiting for the weekend and looking for good breakfast/lunch/dinner options. Moderately priced (and an occasional splurge).
So far I was thinking of Prime Meats, Marlow & Sons (or any of their offsprings), Motorino for pizza.
I am looking for a great ice cream place with unusual flavours (think vodka redbull sorbet, curry banana, honey lavender, etc.).
Also a mixology oriented bar (think home-made infusions, syrups, bitters, pickled onions, brandied cherries, tonic and top local artisanal liquor, etc).
And a bar with a great selection of micro-brews (Dogfish Head, Rogue Ale, etc.). (Been to Barcade, perhaps Radegast this time)

Other suggestions are also welcome, but I come from pretty food-centric city and lived the most part of my life in Europe. Montreal has French bistro food covered.

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Marlow & Sons
81 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Radegast Hall
113 N 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Barcade
388 Union Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Motorino
319 Graham Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Prime Meats
465 Court St, Brooklyn, NY 11231

[deabot]

Try Paulie Gee's for pizza. It's in Greenpoint, not too far from Williamsburg.
For drinks, Counting Room or Dram in Williamsburg sounds like it would fit the bill and if you like bitters, there's a new bitters centric place in the East Village called Amor y Amargo that would be worth a visit.

As for ice cream, are you looking for something similar to Harve Aux Glaces? I'm hard pressed to think of anything with the unusual flavors you mention (though they sound amazing!) but one of the Van Leeuwen shops or il laboratorio del gelato on the LES might work.

Beer-If you can make it over to the West Village, Blind Tiger has a fantastic selection of American microbrews. Spuyten Duyvil in Williamsburg or 4th Avenue Pub and Pacific Standard in Park Slope would work too.

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Pacific Standard
82 4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Fourth Avenue Pub
76 4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Spuyten Duyvil
132 N 5th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Paulie Gee's
60 Greenpoint Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222

The Counting Room
44 Berry St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Dram
177 S 4th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

[estilker]

Cheers ... so many options ... only one weekend ... Counting Room, Dram and laboratorio del gelato all look great!

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The Counting Room
44 Berry St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

[deabot]

A few more, you mentioned breakfast so maybe Egg or Pies N Thighs in the Billyburg area would be nice although both would be crowded during the weekend. Also Clover Club in Cobble Hill is a nice spot for cocktails. Happy eating!

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Pies 'n' Thighs
166 S 4th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Egg
135A N 5th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Clover Club
210 Smith St, Brooklyn, NY 11201

[Silverjay]

Second both Dram and Counting Room (the downstairs after 8pm). The bars at Rye and Maison Premiere also have a good mixology program. Bozu does infused shochu cocktails.

Spuyten Duyvil has a limitied selection of American beer and mostly focuses on bottled Belgian, German, and Euro beers. Radegast offers mostly German brews and some Belgian bottles. In Williamsburg/ Greenpoint, the following bars are good American craft beer destinations besides Barcade:

Mugs Alehouse

DBA Brooklyn

The Diamond

The Gutter

Lucky Dog (easily last in terms of atmosphere)

Van Leeuwen has a shop in Greenpoint and a truck on Bedford Ave., W'burg's main drag. They're flavors are more othodox than you may be looking for.

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Spuyten Duyvil
359 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Bozu
296 Grand St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Mugs Ale House
125 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Barcade
388 Union Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

The Diamond
43 Franklin St, Brooklyn, NY 11222

d.b.a.
113 N 7th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

The Gutter
200 N 14th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Rye
247 S 1st St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Lucky Dog
303 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Maison Premiere
298 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream
632 Manhattan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222

[gort]

Rye and Maison Premiere seconded. Amor y Amargo is also great, and I definitely think it's worth venturing into the East Village to try it. (Brooklyn connection: the guy who does the beverage program at Rye guests there one night a week.)

Also, this weekend will mark the debut of Smorgasburg, a food-focused venture from the Brooklyn Flea proprietors: http://www.brooklynflea.com/2011/05/1...

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Brooklyn Flea
176 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238

Maison Premiere
298 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Smorgasburg
27 N 6th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

[kathryn]

Counting Room used to have a great cocktail program with a lot of options but one of their bartenders recently left for Maison Premiere, and the cocktail list is now only 5 drinks long.

http://offthepresses.blogspot.com/201...

I wouldn't spend all night there but the Salt & Ash is a fantastic drink. I might do a cocktail crawl that included Counting Room, Maison Premiere, Hotel Delmano, Dram, Fatty Cue, and Rye.

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Hotel Delmano
82 Berry St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Fatty 'Cue
91 S 6th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

The Counting Room
44 Berry St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Maison Premiere
298 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

[Silverjay]

The other places have a fairly modest specialty cocktail menu as well...You'd probably want to straighten out the route on such a crawl. I actually did an ad hoc crawl myself a few weeks ago working from South to North: Dram->Rye->Maison->Counting Room. I fortified my stomach with house pickles at Dram, house smoked sturgeon app at Rye and 1/2 dozen plump cherrystones at Maison.

[Mike R.]

Be efficient!

Head for the same Greenpoint Avenue block and straight for BROUWERIJ LANE - 20 craft beers of TOP quality on tap and cask...then a few doors down for the great and powerful PAULIE GEE'S PIZZA.

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Brouwerij Lane
78 Greenpoint Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222

[gort]

Oh – just occurred to me that it might be worth keep an eye on the whereabouts of the Coolhaus truck if you like unique ice cream: http://eatcoolhaus.com/new-york/produ...

They were in McCarren Park in Williamsburg last weekend.

[estilker]

Thanks all. Leaving Saturday morning, too much to choose from.

Coolhaus seems right up my alley and that cocktail crawl looks like very interesting way to take in the best of the mentioned places.

Seems I won't have time to do anything else but drink and eat :-)

Will report back.

[gort]

If you do plan a cocktail crawl note that Maison Premiere offers $1 oysters from 4-7pm on weekdays.

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Maison Premiere
298 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

[estilker]

Thanks for all the great suggestions. Here's what I ate/drank in Williamsburg:

Started with cocktails in Dram in the late afternoon. Had some chili cheese puffs as a snack. Nice place, good cocktails. Then moved on to Rye for an Old Fashioned and Rose from Long Island. It's was that odd time before dinner so the place empty. But the maitre d' was chatty and talked about Montreal. Had some wonderful smoked country ham with espresso spiked mayo. Great combination. The bartender turned out to be working in Amor y amargo (so we spoke about the Bittermens). Ended up buying some Fees Brothers Bitter in Dean & Delucca.
Then we walked around a little bit more and were enticed by Fetten Sau. We ended up having dinner here trying the sweet Italian sausage, brisket, ribs and porkbelly and a mini key lime pie. Enjoyed some of their good micro brews on tap and a nice whisky (great list of domestic choices). We were stuffed!
Walking on Bedford to the Counting Room there was a Van Leeuwen ice cream truck, so I had a scoop of Earl Grey ice cream. And finally a last Bourbon in the Counting Room before heading back to the hotel. Although a good selection of beer of scotch, I must say that Counting Room was the least interesting place especially ambiance wise. But it could've been that were just too tired and too much to drink and eat already.

For a report on our Manhattan food trip, head over to http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/785303. But essentially we had dinner and lunch at Torrisi on Mulberry.

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Fette Sau
354 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Rye
247 S 1st St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

The Counting Room
44 Berry St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Dram
177 S 4th St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

[AubWah]

Authentic Chinese Cuisines are scarce in Montreal so head to Sunset Park Brooklyn to get some of the real deal.