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TAMARA: We travel all over Brooklyn, New York,
to find the most Unique Eats.
Krescendo in Boerum Hill.
This is the pizza
that people are talking about, blogging about.
They're kind of freaking out over it.
MIKE: This pizza smelled pecan,
sharp, and salty,
and you just knew it was going to be good.
MATT: Court Street Grocers in Carroll Gardens.
MARK: When I got that turkey club and that first bite,
I got a little emotional-- I got to admit.
The most kick-*** sandwiches in Brooklyn.
TAMARA: La Vara in Cobble Hill.
The egipcio is an absolute must.
In fact, you might want to start with one
and have another one at dessert.
LEE: Pies n Thighs in Williamsburg.
If I can get fried chicken
and I can get pie at the same time, okay.
These are Unique Eats.
TED: When people talk about restaurants in New York now,
a lot of the restaurants they're talking about are in Brooklyn.
I know it's tough to accept that,
chefs in Manhattan. I know it is,
but there is an extraordinary amount of creative energy
that's going on in Brooklyn kitchens right now.
MATT: Brooklyn is even attracting chefs from around the country,
like for example, Chef Elizabeth Falkner.
Elizabeth Falkner is an amazing pastry chef from San Francisco.
LEE: She's been on Next Iron Chef.
She is a contributor on Unique Sweets.
And she's really just well known for being
truly one of the rock and roll stars of the pastry world.
TAMARA: And she's opened this really
great new restaurant in Brooklyn.
MIKE: Krescendo is audacious.
The audacity of a chef to come from San Francisco
straight into the Mecca of pizza for the United States,
New York, New York, and open up a pizza place,
and then get two stars-- that's amazing.
We don't do that here.
I never get tired of eating pizza.
It's just a fact--I came to this reality at some point
in the last couple of years
that I needed to really master pizza.
That's a nice char.
LEE: Her finocchio flower power pizza
uses every single part of a fennel bulb.
ELIZABETH: I'm sure most people are familiar with fennel seeds.
You find them in sweet Italian sausage all the time.
I love the seeds.
I love the bulb.
I love that cooked. I love it raw.
And I use everything at Krescendo.
MATT: The bulbs are cooked until tender
in an onion and garlic broth
and it also contains candied fennel stalks.
To build the pizza, a ball of dough is pressed,
flipped and stretched into a perfect round.
MIKE: Instead of tomato sauce for this pie,
she uses something called "panna,"
which is a thick sweet cream.
MATT: Tender pieces of the fennel bulb
are scattered over the dough.
Crumbled fennel sausage goes on top.
A generous shower of delicate fennel fronds.
And next comes the shaved provolone cheese.
Some grated pecorino romano.
Those are two sharp, slightly dry cheeses.
And a drizzle of excellent, extra *** olive oil.
TAMARA: This goes into her oven that is 900 degrees
and it takes 90 seconds to cook.
Nothing cooks in 90 seconds.
I frankly can't believe that.
I mean, I can barely get my door unlocked in 90 seconds.
LEE: When she takes the pizza out,
it's finished with red pepper flakes
from Calabria and fennel pollen.
The pizza smelled like pecan,
sharp, and salty,
and you just knew it was going to be good--like, bubbling up.
TAMARA: It's like super-fennel-to-the-max pizza and,
you know, it pairs so well with that creamy panna
which just melts and kind of binds everything together.
I could have eaten the whole thing
except I had friends with me,
and they insisted on having some.
Ugh.
Now she may adopted some New York pizza ways
when she came out here to New York City,
but she brought a little California along with her, too.
TED: In this Californication pizza--
this is her way of doing healthy,
stereotypically California food, but doing it right.
TAMARA: After she shapes the pizza dough,
she puts a walnut, arugula pesto on top.
LEE: Then she's topping it with two different kinds of cheeses.
She's using fresh mozzarella and goat cheese.
And goat cheese gives it that salty, fresh tanginess
that is so signature,
that you would find on a California pizza.
TED: Shishito peppers come next.
Now these peppers are unpredictable.
Some of them are sweet and some of them are fiery hot.
So in a way it's sort of like she is playing roulette
by throwing them out there.
TAMARA: She places the whole pizza in that 900 degree oven
where it cooks for 90 seconds,
and gets bubbly, and rich, and brown.
Once that pizza comes out of the oven,
she drapes beautiful paper-thin slices of prosciutto
over it to give it that sort of meaty freshness to it.
And then there's a drizzle of honey.
MATT: And to finish off this pizza,
they just blanket the top with arugula leaves.
And it is the Californication pizza,
so you got to expect a salad.
TED: There's clearly a lot going on in this pizza.
You've got this bitterness. You got the sweetness.
You got the tang of the cheese.
You got the creamy, melty mozzarella.
LEE: It's got that peppery zing of, like, walnuts and arugula.
TED: It's kind of crazy,
but in the end it really hangs together.
This is like a passport to California.
MATT: Krescendo has proved
that Brooklyn is no longer a destination dining.
Like Brooklyn has arrived.
It is the place you want to stay
and to be close to-- the capital of great pizza.
LEE: Elizabeth Falkner has always been a pioneer.
I mean, here we go,
one of the only woman pizzaiolos in the country,
and she is doing it her way
with a little bit of her own rock-and-roll style.
I'm just here to make more food,
have more fun and adventure
through food, and travel through food.
MARK: Court Street Grocers' turkey club--
TED: The turkey thighs have been cooked in duck fat,
stored in duck fat,
and then griddled in--what else--duck fat.
TAMARA: Carroll Gardens is a very sort of
wonderful residential neighborhood in Brooklyn.
MIKE: It's where you'll find a lot of quirky shops
with lots of character, including this little store
called Court Street Grocers.
MATT: Owners Matt Ross and Eric Finkelstein
met at the Rhode Island School of Design.
TED: In Providence they became accustomed to shopping
in all these cool mom-and-pop grocery stores,
and they thought, "Let's do something like this in Brooklyn."
MIKE: You walk into Court Street Grocers,
and it's this sort of this highly fetishized,
well-curated wall of regional American foods from all over.
But don't get distracted, because toward the back
is where you're going to find the most kick-*** sandwiches.
LEE: These aren't just regular sandwiches
that you're familiar with.
They're sandwiches pumped-up.
They're gourmet sandwiches.
They're sandwiches that, like, a chef would fall in love with.
ERIC: The turkey club-- it's one of those sandwiches
that when you order it, it's never as good as what you're hoping for.
We wanted to deliver what you're looking for
when you order that kind of sandwich.
And we get a lot of people who come in and say,
"That's the best turkey club sandwich I've ever had."
MIKE: The eternal sort of question of light meat
or dark meat is answered by the sandwich.
The answer is resounding "both."
TED: The turkey thighs and legs have been cooked in duck fat,
shredded and then stored in duck fat,
and then griddled in--
what else--duck fat.
TAMARA: The turkey breast, they are roasting,
so it's perfectly juicy and season.
They give you nice, thick slices.
MIKE: To complete the club,
they have crispy bacon, mayo, and Bibb lettuce.
MARK: When I got that turkey club
and that first bite, I got a little emotional, I got to admit.
MIKE: You had almost scrapple-like piece of this turkey
that cooked in duck fat, really fatty,
that kind of drips down to that bread.
Court Street Grocers' turkey club--
is the kind of sandwich
you want to write a song about, it's so good.
I don't know what's "Catskill"
about the Catskill roast pork sandwich,
but I do know that it's got awesome braised pork on it.
It's got house-made duck sauce on a garlic roll.
This thing is amazing.
TAMARA: They start with pork shoulder
which has been rubbed down with brown sugar,
mustard, pepper, and chili powder.
It's braised for hours in ginger ale,
and herbs, and aromatics.
MIKE: With ginger ale with the sugar
and the interesting flavors of the ginger,
it's going to caramelize a little bit
and just get a little sweet--
not too sweet-- just a little bit.
TED: The bread they're using is a chewy ciabatta,
and they're toasting it with garlic butter.
TAMARA: It's crusty on the outside.
It's a little bit crunchy, but it's moist.
So what do we think of duck sauce?
We usually think of it comes in a little jar or packet.
This is a lot different.
They make this stuff in-house.
MATT: This is apricot preserves
that have been blended with chili sauce and sriracha
and warmed with toasted cumin and coriander.
I think the stuff out of packets is good.
It's just not what we were serving in our sandwich.
It was a little too sweet.
Too sweet.
LEE: They pile it with the braised pork
which has been dipped into the braising liquid,
so the pork's super-moist and it's served right away.
MARK: First time you take a bite of the sandwich,
you really ought to be wearing a raincoat
because you're going to get juices all over.
We have the worst napkins in the world,
so you need about 800 napkins,
but it's generally about a 6 napkins,
I would say-- 8 napkins.
Six to eight.
Six to eight would be good.
TED: The bold, beautiful pork flavor of the sandwich
is just perfectly articulated by the duck sauce,
the sriracha, the apricot.
To me eating the sandwich is like being in New York
and going to my favorite dim sum restaurant at the same time.
MATT: In New York there's almost a deli on every corner.
The reason to go to Court Street Grocers
is because they cook with heart.
LEE ANNE: There's an art to sandwich making, and I think the guys
at Court Street Grocers really have it down.
You can get these sort of really innovative,
modern takes on really delicious classic sandwiches.
MIKE: The guy sitting next to me said,
"This is the best sandwich in New York City."
Can't disagree.
MIKE: La Vara transports us to a part of the world
at a certain point in time.
TAMARA: Brooklyn has changed
a great amount in the last 10 years
as a dining destination.
It used to be that you'd go there
maybe for some really old-school Italian food
and kind of not much else.
But now there is a lot of cool
culinary stuff happening in the BK.
JASON: The New York City chef Alex Raij
and her husband Edward Montero
are famous for two restaurants in Manhattan
specializing in Spanish cuisine.
For their third restaurant,
they went to Brooklyn and they opened La Vara.
TAMARA: La Vara pays tribute to La Convivencia,
which was a time in Spain
when Jews, Muslims, and Christians
all co-existed in a very happy union
and brought their incredible culinary ideas
to the same table.
ALEX: By choosing to focus on this era,
we then can be inspired by a lot of contemporary cuisines
that fit nicely into this story.
In Spain, one of the most classic dishes is albondigas...
pork and beef meatballs
usually served in some type of tomato sauce.
At La Vara, they use lamb with warm spices
and then they serve them with mint yogurt--
a delicious nod to the Middle East.
JASON: So what I love about these meatballs are the ingredients.
She's taking the ground lamb,
mixing in some scallions and some white onions
that add flavor and some moisture,
fresh herbs like oregano, parsley, cilantro.
There's cumin and cayenne,
with a little bit of Panko bread crumb and egg
to bind everything together.
She then rolls them into little balls
about the size of a golf ball...
and then shallow-fries in Canola and olive oil.
Once brown and crispy,
she puts them in a pot of simmering chicken stock
to sort of finish the cooking.
It's very easy to overwork a meatball.
These are not overworked at all.
They're soft, they're supple,
they're juicy, they're delicious,
but the outside is still crisp.
JASON: The dish is so balanced from the cool yogurt
and the spicy lamb.
It's a perfect pairing, and it's a phenomenal dish.
Save room for dessert.
The egipcio is an absolute must at La Vara.
In fact, you might want to start with one and then have another one at desert.
It's like that familiar fig cookie from your childhood
only in the form a tart and capped
with whipped cream and a tart lemon curd.
JASON: The filling is a paste that Chef Raij combines--
pitted dates, walnuts, honey, and orange blossom water.
The dish is made by taking this filling
and putting it into tart tins lined
with a dough made of semolina flower
and the orange blossom water.
TAMARA: Instead of enclosing each tart by itself,
she takes the whole tart tin that's filled with the filling,
flips it over onto a separate piece of dough,
and then punches it out that way,
and then they're filled like that.
And then, because it's very sort of rich and sticky,
we serve it with a really tart lemon curd
and some whipped cream.
JASON: The filling really is great
because it has a combination of some texture and some flavor.
It's sweet but it's soft and slightly exotic-tasting.
TAMARA: It's one of the few times in my life where I've had a dish,
and I swear to God it felt like I was somewhere else,
on another continent--
or Tangier or something like that.
La Vara transports us to a part of the world
at a certain point in time-- several hundred years ago.
I am a person who is of Jewish descent
and I met a Spanish guy, I fell in love,
made a family, opened up three restaurants.
And to me this restaurant
is sort of the marriage of all of these cultures.
TAMARA: The fact that Brooklyn exists
gives this restaurant a place to be
and a place to develop a following,
and to educate people about this brilliant little jewel in time
where the best of three cultures
were brought together on the same plates.
MIKE: Pies n Thighs is a Southern-food heaven.
LEE: You know, this is great pie
because I've got my ***,
I've got my chocolate.
It's pecan pie bliss.
ANNOUNCER: If you're craving what we're dishing,
log on to CookingChannelTv.com /unique-eats.
Brooklyn dining scene is as vast as the neighborhoods.
You've got small, very specialized ethnic restaurants.
You have tasting menus, upscale menus,
and then you also have places
that specialize in one or two items
like Pies n Thighs.
MIKE: Pies n Thighs is a Southern-food haven
located on this kind of out-of-the-way corner
right under the Williamsburg Bridge.
I want fried chicken pretty much all the time.
If I can get fried chicken
and I can get pie at the same time, okay.
The secret to the fried chicken
at Pies n Thighs is their overnight brine.
TAMARA: Brine is a combination of salt, sugar, pepper,
cayenne, and paprika.
When it comes out of the brine,
they're not adding a second batter or anything like that.
They're going at it very straightforward
and just tossing it with plain, unseasoned all-purpose flour.
MIKE: The chicken is deep-fried
in Canola oil for 12 minutes at 350.
When it comes out, it's golden brown,
this little jacket of fried chicken skin
just covering the entire thing.
MARK: The first bite at chicken--
it kind of shatters and just kind of gets all over the place.
And it's juicy--really juicy from that brine.
MIKE: They should put you in a turtle pool, and just a bib,
and you should shamefully eat through this bucket of chicken.
It's so juicy and crunchy-- so worth it.
Hose you off afterwards.
TAMARA: Everyone from the South worth their salt
has their own pecan pie recipe, right?
But this pecan pie has bourbon and chocolate in it, too.
MARK: So to make this unbelievable filling,
they're pouring melted butter into eggs,
then they whisk it all together to combine it.
Then they pour in dark corn syrup,
which is going to give you that unctuous gooiness.
Then they add-- and when I say "add," I mean "dump"--
a generous pour of bourbon,
enough that,
you know, you might need ID to buy this pie.
MARK: Finally sugar is added to kind of sweeten things up.
LEE: They're using an all-butter crust.
And what they do is when they roll it out,
they actually line the bottom of the crust
with semi-sweet chocolate. And when that bakes,
it sort of seals in and forms this, like, shell
so the crust itself doesn't get soggy.
TAMARA: Right onto the chocolate goes
a whole mess of chopped pecans.
MIKE: Then they pour the filling on very slightly
as to not agitate the pecans.
Don't taunt the pecans.
LEE: They egg wash the crust so when it bakes,
it turns this beautiful golden brown.
Then they bake these pies for 30 minutes at 350 degrees
until the custard is set
and you can smell the bourbon just coming off this pie.
MARK: I was so excited to try that bourbon pie
that I actually missed my first bite
and it ended up in my lap.
So my second bite, it was nutty, gooey,
but above all, it was about the bourbon.
MIKE: If bourbon and pecan are two of the greatest things
that come from the South, it's right up there with,
you know, country ham and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
There's everything in New York.
But if you just want a little bit of Southern hospitality and charm,
head across the bridge,
go to Brooklyn, check out Pies n Thighs.
You'll be glad you did.
LEE: It's just a great place
where you know you can get consistently good fried chicken
and consistently good pie.
And that's really all you need, right?
Your pies and your thighs.
Don't worry, you can go buy jeans tomorrow.
Pecan, pecan,
pecan...
( laughs )
pecan, you know.
Duck fat--ain't nothing wrong with duck fat.
You can give me more duck fat.
You can put it all over me with that duck fat.