Where to Eat When You're on Jury Duty in BK - Part 2 Visited 9/26-9/30/2016 2.5 - 4 Forks

Week 2 of grand jury duty!  Unlike trial jury duty, for grand jury duty, they pretty much assign you a block of time and then put as many cases in front of you during your timeframe.  The minimum you can get away with is 2 weeks but people can get put on 3 month, 8 month and sometimes even 1 year long commitments!

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

Photo Credit:  Yelp

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

 Photo Credit:  Yelp

Where To Eat If You're On Jury Duty in Brooklyn Visited 9/19-9/23/2016 3 - 4.5 Forks

My first listsicle!  Instead of individually reviewing a bunch of places, I’m going to give you a list of the good/bad/ugly of places to eat if you have to serve jury duty in Brooklyn.

I’ve had the “honor” of serving grand jury duty for the past 2 weeks in BK.  It’s actually quite an eye-opening and frankly, scary view into how fucked up our judicial system is.  But this is a food blog and not a political blog, so I will stop here.  But being stuck in jury duty for 2 weeks means 2 weeks of finding lunch options in the depressing downtown Brooklyn neighborhood.   At first glance, there aren’t a lot of great options as the immediate area of Fulton Street Mall is packed with fast food places like Burger King and cheap pizza joints.  But there are a few gems and if you are willing to take a 10 minute walk.

Potbelly – Yes, it’s fast food but it’s one of the better sandwich places around and it’s fast and very cheap (you can get a sandwich for <$10).  It’s a definite go-to if you’re looking for something that isn’t burger and fries.  My go-to is the Roast Beef and there's just something about the toasted bread that makes it tastes that much better.  They also have killer cookies and milkshakes if you need a sugar high in between cases.  4 Forks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Juice Shop – This is right next door to Potbelly and it was a healthy lunch life saver.  This isn’t Tribeca or Soho where you can find a bougie salad place every 10 feet, so it's slim pickings out here.  The only place I saw within a 10-15 minute walk that served real salads (I’m not talking about the kind at Hill Country Chicken where you can basically put fried chicken in your salad), was The Juice Shop.  They only have kale salads and they have a variety of combinations but the one that I got (Baja Verde) which amazing.  Topped with kale, quinoa, corn, beans and an addictive verde dressing, I definitely became hooked on this place.  Everything tasted fresh and healthy and it was actually really filling.  I came back two more times and and now actively looking for other locations in the city so that I can get my free freaking salad (only 7 more to go!)  4.5 Forks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Yaso Tangbao – I was shocked to find this place in the middle of downtown Brooklyn.   It bills itself as Chinese street food but it’s a very clean and well run joint.  It has a very similar vibe to Xian Famous Foods but the focus on the food is less on spicy noodles but more on soup dumplings and other noodle dishes.  I got the beef noodle soup which is a dish that I remember loving in Taiwan.  This one was ok – it was a simple beef broth with sliced braised beef, nappa cabbage, bok choy and these pickled Chinese greens.  But what makes this dish is the broth and this one needed more salt and flavor to it, it was just kind of bland.  It could have also had more sliced beef but at the very least it was a nice change in a world of sandwiches and salads.  3 Forks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Hanco – When I lived in Park Slope, this was a favorite go-to place because they made a solid Banh Mi sandwich.  It’s a 10 minute walk towards Brooklyn Heights but the food is quick so even if you have an hour, you can still make it.  I got the classic sandwich and summer roll.  The summer roll was nicely done with shrimp, lettuce, rice vermicelli wrapped in rice paper and served with oh so delicious peanut sauce ($5.25).  The classic sandwich comes with ground pork, Vietnamese ham, pate, mayo, butter, cucumber, pickled carrot, daikon radish and cilantro on a soft and toasted French baguette ($6.75).   It’s a delicious sandwich although it is super messy with the ground pork falling out every time I took a bite to eat.   It’s a cheap and delicious and makes me sad that I no longer have one in my neighborhood.   3.5 Forks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Sophie’s – Ahh Sophie’s.  I have been going to Sophie’s (not this location) since I first came to NYC and worked at Goldman Sachs downtown.  It’s straight up Cuban comfort food and it is seriously addictive.  I always get the exact same thing:  baked chicken with yellow rice and beans.  It’s a chicken thigh/leg served on the bone, which is why it’s so moist and delicious.   But the absolute best part of the dish is actually the green sauce that they give you in a bottle at the table.  It is seriously the most addictive sauce I’ve ever had – it’s got a hint of spice but it mainly tastes like a cilantro sauce (they won’t tell you what’s in it or sell it by the bottle).  I seriously go through half a bottle when I eat there and if I do take out, I will pay extra for more of it (they only give you 2 small servings of it).  I slather it on everything, the chicken, the rice, the beans.  Honestly, the rice and beans are just a vehicle for me to get to the sauce.  The food here is heavy and every time I eat here for lunch, I want to take a long nap afterwards, but it is so worth it.    4 Forks

Photo Credit:  Yelp