Only in New York

Haven't found the time to squeeze in reports from my recent trip yet, but I had to chime in with a Bruni Alert: sidewalk dining, which of course we understand as disgusting and do it anyway. Kind of like that show with Pat O'Brien as well as the Drudge Report.

FB liked his own piece so much that he followed up on his blog with something from the mailbag:

> “I am reminded,” the reader wrote, “of one of my favorite vintage New Yorker cartoons, where a mother is sitting with her young son at a Manhattan outdoor cafe and urging him to ‘hurry up and eat before your food gets dirty, dear.’”

Review: The Brickhouse

This comes a bit late, as baseball season just ended, but I have a new contender for favorite pre-game pub. I'm a big fan of the 21st Amendment, which I've never reviewed but will someday, and you can't beat their homegrown, but the Brickhouse offers a different atmosphere. It's quiet, it's airy, and the slightly punky, slightly granola wait-staff and high wooden rafters give it more the feel of a farmhouse collective than a sports pub. (And no, it's not a brew pub, but with Anchor Steam on tap, it's close enough.)

Like the 21st, the Brickhouse pares down (and prices up?) the menu on game days -- burgers, sandwiches, salads, and the like. (Non-game days feature more variety.) I had the veggie chili (pretty good) and a large spinach salad (very good). Too small a sample size to say anything definitive about the food. Consider it a developing situation.