Bark Hot Dogs in the Slope

Hoooot dooooogs, get your hooooooot dooogssss here! Bark Hot Dogs in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn makes a mighty fine dog. All of their hot dogs are specialty made by Hartmann's Old World Sausage in Rochester, NY specifically designed just for Barks. Actually all their ingredients are hand picked from farms and purveyors mostly in the Northeast area.  Fresh local ingredients makes for serious grub.

Got to try a few things here, the onion rings were good...suuuuper crispy, a tad heavy, not for the faint of heart, but very satisfying.  The hot dog was the Cole Slaw dog, such a great combo. Cold brisk slaw matched against the warm dog and potato bun. The dogs have a good snap to them as well. They don't put too much mayo in the slaw either which is cool, i hate too much mayo.  But after all that, and being a 'hotdog' place, the BEST thing on the menu is the CHEESEBURGER.  Its super simple but the fresh ingredients just made it work. The bun is soft, the meat is ridiculously juicy and the homemade pickles just make it rock.

Head over to the Park Slope, push all those baby strollers out of the way and get yourself a dog(or burger). Afterwords you can check out the upscale adult toy shop Babeland which is right next door, come on now, where do you think all those strollers come from anyways.

-J

Brooklyn Fish Camp, Yay! Fish Camp!

Camp? Fish? What? Sign me up!!! Brooklyn Fish Camp in Park Slope Brooklyn is both fortunately and unfortunately not the kind of camp I thought it was going to be. While there was no forest full of bungalows divided up into boy and girl fishies, there was delicious seafood prepared to perfection. Damn! I can't get it all. This camp is actually an off shot of its more popular sibling in Manhattan known as Mary's Fish Camp. I've been to Mary's awhile back and I have to say I was underwhelmed, don't get me wrong, the seafood was good, but maybe it was waiting an hour and a half to get a few scallops through me off.

But this Brooklyn sibling restaurant set the stage early that it was going to be a great experience. Just check out the sign they had prompted up outside. Not overcrowded, but not empty either, filled with happy families (I was in Park Slope) and smiling faces.

I unknowingly arrived during happy hour on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. To my surprise they were offering spankingly fresh oysters for a buck! I had no intentions of eating oysters that day, but for a buck, hey, toss me two please! I was presented this nicely stacked plate by the friendly waitress. They were super-duper fresh. A little lemon, shallot and vinegar mixture and a few shreds of horseradish, SLURP, ahh bueno.

They had a small but satisfying menu. I was torn between the fried oyster po' boy and the trout BLT. Since I already had oysters, I opted for the Idaho Trout BLT. You have chosen wisely my son. Sandwiched between warm focaccia bread (check out the char on the top) and nestled on top of cool lettuce and ripe tomato. The trout had a nice crispy skin and fresh flaky flesh (say that 10 times fast). The sandwich was accompanied by onion rings. I was a BIG fan. I normally opt for the onion ring over the fries if given the choice. These were light as a feather. The batter was crispy and seasoned well while the onion still had a nice bite to it.


In addition to the buck oysters, their happy hour special included 2 for 1 beers. So after I finished my Amber Bock I was notified that my second choice would be gratis. What? Free beer? How could I say no. I finished off my second cool brew and let my seafood kiddies settle in my tummy. I love camp.

-J