Bashi Channel Visited 9/27/2015 3.5 Forks

Bashi Channel 1120 Cortelyou Rd., Flatbush, NY 11218

I've had a few friends moved to Ditmas Park in recent years and the area has definitely started to develop it's own neighborhood food scene.   The area has been known for places like The Farm on Adderley and Purple Yam, so I was excited to try out another local scene.  Although to be honest,  I am usually a bit weary of Asian fusion places especially ones that are run by non-Asians.  But luckily Bashi Channel turned out to be a lovely surprise that I can see would be a nice neighborhood hang out if I lived nearby. 

The space is cozy but fairly non-descript.  There's a small bar upfront and then a few tables in the back.  The menu here is, as I mentioned, Asian fusion - it had dumplings, ramen, steamed buns, stir fry, pad thai, Vietnamese sandwiches and curry salmon - so it was literally Asian fusion in the truest sense.  It's like they took the "best of" or "greatest hits" of a Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Korean,  and Indian menus and put it all in one place.  The soup dumplings actually sounded and looked delicious but I wasn't super hungry so I opted for the Dan Dan noodles ($14), Greg got the kimchi ramen ($14) and Sarah got the Bashi Noodles ($12).   I've always been a big fan of dan dan and other types of cold noodle dishes, so I was excited to try this one out - especially when the waitress told me that I got the last one for the night!

The noodles were served with spicy ground pork, scallion, a raw egg yolk and "dry" noodles (meaning no soup or sauce really).  I was quite impressed with the presentation especially with the beautiful yolk in the middle.  The noodles were nice and thick and chewy - just the way I like my cold noodles dishes.  The waitress had warned me that the dish was spicy and even though I am trying to improve my spice tolerance, this one was still pretty damn spicy.  I was chugging ginger beer and water constantly throughout the meal.  You definitely can't say that this dish doesn't have flavor to it - it was just a bit too much for me.  I kept mixing the scallions and yolk around to offset the spicy pork but it didn't really help too much.  Luckily I was able to chow down on most of the yummy noodles and sadly left a bunch of pork behind in the bowl.  Greg and Sarah's dishes both looked comforting and like it would hit the spot.   Even though we were pretty full we were lured into dessert with the description of donuts with vietnamese/condensed milk type of dipping sauce.  You could tell that they were freshly made because they were warm and soft.  The sugar and cinnamon covering was delicious and it was a nice way to end the meal.  

Overall, I left feeling pretty happy and satisfied for a random Sunday night outing.  As my friend Neel said (who also lives in the 'hood), it's not awe-inspiring but it fills a gap and need in the neighborhood and I couldn't agree more.  In fact, I wish there was a place like this near where I lived because Williamsburg is severely lacking in casual, affordable, Chinese comfort food that isn't served behind bars.  I was hoping that Kings County Imperial would fill that gap, but sadly it was too pricey to be some place that I would go frequently.  The only bad thing about this place was that the waitress messed up splitting our bill and swiped Greg's card twice (essentially paying for the entire meal) instead of splitting it on 2 cards.  I'm sure we could have said something as she was super nice and sweet, but when the total bill was roughly $20-25/pp we couldn't be bothered to deal with it.  Total bill:  $86 for 3 people with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

The Farm on Adderley Visited 8/20/2011 3.5 Forks

The Farm on Adderley 1108 Cortelyou Rd., (between Stratford Rd & Westminster Rd), Brooklyn, NY 11218

The Farm on Adderley is one of those places in "far out" Brooklyn that I keep hearing about but have never managed to venture out to.  I'm not sure exactly what neighborhood this place is, but most people call it Ditmas Park.  To be honest, the surrounding area wasn't the most impressive (not a whole lot of character), but once you walk inside this restaurant it's like you are in a totally different neighborhood.

The inside is sleek and modern and has a great outdoor area, which is totally not what you would expect from the surrounding area.  At first glance at the menu, it looked great and affordable (everything was $10 or under).  I ended up ordering the ham and gruyere croque with a fried egg ($9), Dan got the fisherman's eggs ($10), and we split the chocolate brioche ($3) and cheese grits ($5).  The food came out pretty quickly and everything looked great.  My first bite went straight for the grits and they were definitely cheesy tasting and was one of the better grits I've had in the city.  Many places make them super bland and they almost taste like oatmeal, but the grits here were extremely flavorful without being too salty.  Another star was the chocolate brioche.  I'm not a huge fan of chocolate but this had butter and sea salt and it was my favorite dish during our meal.  It was perfectly warm and had the perfect combination of sweet and salty.  I totally want to buy sweet croissant type breads now and put salt on them!  The crust at the end was a bit hard and dry but I had left the crust on the plate for most of the meal and came back to it later, so I'm not really surprised by that.  My croque had a lot of ham and was covered in the gruyere (not a huge fan that the cheese was a bit burned in some areas but that's to be expected in a sandwich like this).  It was a pretty good sandwich except that the ham was pretty salty and the fried egg on top could have been a bit runnier.  Dan's dish consisted of 2 poached eggs, over smoked trout, mixed greens all on a potato latke and hollandaise sauce.  We didn't really expect the greens to be so prominent...we thought it was going to be more like a side salad but they kind of just dumped giant pieces of leafy greens without chopping or cutting them up.  They were way too big to eat and seemed a bit excessive for the dish.  I had the same experience with my dish except it was positioned as a side salad and not a main part of the dish.  The poached eggs could have been poached just a tad bit runnier and the hollandaise sauce had too much lemon in it (not sure if that was because there was fish invovled),  but overall the dish was pretty unique tasting and I liked the mixture of egg, trout and potato.

If this place was closer to where I lived (like walking distance or a shorter drive away), I would definitely return.  The combination of the beautiful decor, affordable prices and great side dishes would make it a no brainer to come back to.  BUT since it's a 20 minute drive away on the highway and not in a neighborhood where there is much else, I'm not so sure I would how often come back unless someone else really wanted to or ended up moving to the area.  Total bill with tip for two was $32.


photo credit: Yelp