Excess and the Brooklyn Flea

Our friend Andrew is in town from San Francisco for the next week. While I love Andrew to death, hanging out with him often leads to an excess of eating and drinking and subsequent damage to my stomach and liver. Yesterday was no exception. We started the day by watching the Michigan game at a friends place. Then as I waited for the Mister and Andrew to meet me at the Bellhouse for possible Eugene Mirman comedy tickets, I wandered around. I managed to find Brooklyn Homebrew (which was perfectly acceptable for all the Mister's needs), a new green-certified Chinese food place focusing on humanely raised meats, and an adorable little pie shop called Four and Twenty Blackbirds. So I had to get a slice of pie, right?

Course I did, in plum crumble

Waiting took a little longer than expected though, and in my further wanderings I stumbled across the big gay ice cream truck parked in Park Slope. Let me tell you about food trucks in New York, especially food trucks up for vendy awards: you do not pass by them without getting something. So I had just eaten a slice of pie, but did that stop me from getting a Salty Pimp?

Heck no it didn't.

This ice cream cone was beyond worth it too. My choice of a vanilla soft serve cone coated in a mixture of dark chocolate, dolce de leche and sea salt pretty much blew my mind. Then later, after the comedy tour tickets didn't pan out, I brought the Mister and Andrew to the truck. Sampling their choices, Bea Arther for the Mister (Vanilla soft serve covered in dulce de leche and smashed up vanilla wafers) and the CocoCone for Andrew (Vanilla soft serve covered in curry spiced coconut flakes) was just as amazing.
So with no comedy tickets (drats, sold out) and no plan, of course our evening turned into a night of gluttony. Next stop was Willie's dawgs (where we each got a unique hot dog), Mission Dolores for drinks (and the guys got yet another sausage), Peter's Waterfront Ale House for more drinks, and finally taking a cab to our ultimate destination, The Meatball Shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Some of you have already heard me talk about checking this place out, and words cannot describe just how much actually going there did not disappoint. If you plan a visit here, you WILL be going to the Meatball Shop, so just prepare yourself now. Also, have no fear my veggie friends, as the menu includes "veggie" meatballs as one of the choices in the crazy long ala cart menu.

Meatballs, get in my belly

After wandering around the LES some more, we checked into our final stop for the evening, a bar called Heathers. Yes, the Heathers intro was playing on a loop on a small tv above the bar the entire time. :-) It was a cute, albeit loud little place, and once again, I'm so thankful to Andrew for finding it. One long walk and another long train ride home, the Mister and I finally rolled in the door about 2:30am.
This morning then, I decided to check out another rad thing I've been hearing about in this town, the Brooklyn Flea. It is only 4 blocks from my apartment after all. It's held in One Hanson Place, which is the big clock tower you can see from some of my apartment pictures. One Hanson place is an absolutely beautiful old building, and getting to see the inside of it today was really cool.

The Flea

The flea is beyond awesome (Stephanie, this is right up your alley darling and it's on my "Stephanie tour of NY" list), and had I even been a little bit hungry, I would have loved to try some of the food carts there as well. But alas, I was still feeling totally sick from all the excess last night, and I'll have to save the food carts for another week. Wandering the 3 floors of wares was pretty cool though, and I almost, just almost, bought a screen printed cityscape bracelet made from a recycled vinyl record. Vintage sets of pyrex dishes almost sucked me in as well. Maybe next week. For now, I've got to go eat a salad and get back to organizing.