I've relocated to Brooklyn, and so have my gastronomic adventures. Generally, I haven't ventured farther than a close-by beer garden, the hottest Caribbean take-out place ever, and a Chinese place that delivers classic Chinese fast food and neglects to offer a fortune cookie (!). If you're going to be a stereotype, at least do it right.
Fortunately, I have friends who are not chained to the three block line extending north-south from their houses. Thus, I made it to Do or Dine.
Reservoir Dogs started out with a conversation
about what would happen if you named
a restaurant "Do or Dine." True story.
A word of warning: DO NOT, do not, fall for the awning. This is not a West Indian/African restaurant, believe it or not. The trick is to look at the bottom of the awning--the most obvious of places--to find the name of the restaurant.
Inside, it looks like a retro diner: not like a diner from the 50s, mind you, but a diner that is designed in 2011 and harkening back to the 50s, with the inevitable 70s tinge (see: disco ball), just to even out the average of the years. (I may be an English major, but everyone knows that the midpoint between 1950 and 2011 is 1980 minus ten because the 80s were awful). That said, I've only sat on the patio, which has a vine hanging down the middle and wood flooring with long wooden tables.
The menu is one page and divided into snacks, small plates, and proteins. Nothing is simple here--the nachos aren't made with chips, the jalapeno popper has goat cheese and bacon, the foie gras comes in doughnut form, and the deviled eggs, cleverly titled e666s, are deep-fried. So basically a stoner opened his fridge, but instead of being in college and broke and making do with spaghetti and bread crumbs and random cheese that he shoved into the oven and then eagerly watched bake, he found out he was a millionaire and his caring (and enabling) butler had stocked it with octopus and exotic cheeses and salts (plural!) and something called nippon and clams, but also understood that a stoner has base cravings like tortillas and frozen Snickers bars (a real desert offering, but topped with strawberried) and deep fried foods.
This clip is not related to this post but
Archer's abusiveness toward Woodhouse
brings joy to my schadenfreude heart.
For now, this place is BYOB and they treat the drinks you buy from the corner bodega across the street like royalty--frosted glasses, glasses that match the drink you're having (not, like, mugs for anything from tea to sweet tea vodka), ice buckets. It makes me feel important, and, consequently, fills me with the desire to trash the place.
The wait staff are all extremely friendly and supportive through the arduous process of ordering. My favorite waiter seems to be perpetually stoned. He poured our wine extremely slowly and carefully because, he claimed, "I am a committed alcoholic and don't want to see any alcohol go to waste." Let's be real, though, he got couch-locked watching the pour. When we came in and said that there were two of us, he repeated it: "there are two of you," in such a way as to transform this declaration of number into a existential statement. It was disconcerting and endearing.
Conclusion: Dine or Dine.
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