So by week 2, I knew most of the places I wanted to go that I hadn't gone to yet and there were a few I re-visited.
Shake Shack - Let's be honest, no visit to Downtown Brooklyn would be complete if you didn't have Shake Shack at least once. I had been avoiding it because it's not really the healthiest thing and I've been to it a million times before. But sometimes it just calls your name. It really is delicious and I stand by that themushroom burger is better than the hamburger. However, recently they've introduced the chicken sandwich and it's pretty freaking delicious too. It's a crispy chicken breast with lettuce, tomato, pickles with buttermilk herb mayo on a potato roll. Genius. While I was there, I helped myself to some yummy crinkle fries as well. It's not a lunch time meal I recommend on a frequent basis but having been stuck in a jury room with 22 other annoying people, I felt like I deserved this meal. 4 Forks
Photo Credit: Yelp
Pinto Thai - Sometimes during jury duty you luck out and get an extended lunch break. Tuesday was one of those days where we got over an hour, so I took a leisurely stroll down Montague Street which is a lovely but busy street in the heart of Brooklyn Heights. I randomly stumbled upon Pinto - I've actually been to the one in the West Village before with Aarti many times before and really liked it, so I was pleased to find it here. It's a lovely setting and of course they have a nice lunch special menu. For $9, you can get an appetizer and entree which is quite a steal! I got the fried tofu appetizer and the chicken pad thai (duh) and since I was on an extended break, I thought I'd treat myself to a thai iced tea too. The fried tofu was great - not too greasy or oily and really soft on the inside. It was served with a spicy mayo which is not what I would have expected from a Thai place but it was delicious non the less. The pad thai was solid - it's what you expect from a neighborhood thai place. My meal would have been great had it not been for the Thai iced tea. Don't get me wrong, it was delicious and super unique in that the ice cubes were made from frozen thai iced tea and they serve you everything in a deconstructed way - separate glass of condensed milk, separate glass of iced tea and a little glass of simple syrup. Adorable right? Except when the bill came it was $6. WTF? It was almost as much as my entire lunch - so much for a steal. I told the waitress that I was shocked by this price and she apologized but didn't do anything about it. In no world should a freaking drink that does not have alcohol in it cost this much. For this, I had to knock my review down to 3.5 forks. Stick with the $9 lunch special and you'll be fine.
Photo Credit: Yelp
Hanco - I came back to Hanco, but this time to try their pho ($9.75). I wasn't feeling too well and the weather was starting to get chilly so I thought some pho would solve the trick. I actually came in with zero expectations for their pho because well frankly, it's run by Chinese people and not Vietnamese people. However, I was actually fairly impressed by it (I guess this is what happens when you have no expectations). It still wasn't as good as Pho 75 back home but the broth was great and there was a shockingly good amount of beef slices in the dish served rare which is my favorite. I am kicking myself for having wasted other lunch meals when I could have gotten a really solid bowl of pho here. If you have more than an hour for lunch and you're serving jury duty in the winter, definitely come here for the pho. 4 Forks
Nanatori - Ugh, this was my least favorite meal of the entire 2 weeks. I am usually a sucker for sushi lunch specials but since I usually only had an hour, I didn't feel like I really had enough time for it. Luckily, I had another extended lunch day and thought I would give this place a try since it looked crowded from the outside. They serve your standard sushi lunch specials - I opted for the 3 roll combo ($11.95) with spicy tuna, spicy salmon and eel/avocado. It comes with a miso soup and salad - nothing to write home about here. The 3 rolls came out and they just looked sad. The rice was falling off most of them and there was just way too much of it in general. I ended up pretty much removing almost a full cup of rice from the rolls. The rice was most definitely not high quality (not that I was expecting much but I expected it to at least not suck) and the spicy tuna and salmon was the pre-mixed/chopped up kind. It was just an overall disappointing waste of a lunch special, you're much better off at Hanco across the street. 2.5 Forks
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