Coco Roco on 5^th ave between 6^th and 7^th streets is a fantastic Peruvian restaurant with very reasonable prices and amazing food.  Its not a fancy place yet it has the feel of a family restaurant with a casual atmosphere.  Staff is very friendly and helpful as well.

If your in the mood for Italian try Mulino Ristorante on 5^th avenue.  Very nice place with family atmosphere great service and good food all at a very reasonable price.

Stone Park Cafe is a classic Park Slope restaurant with plenty of outdoor seating available.  Everything on the menu is delicious and they have an excellent yet affordable wine selection.  The space is decorated beautifully and the service is excellent.

And finally the Total Wine Bar is a great place to sit down and have a glass of wine with some friends. The food here is very good as is the wine.  They serve small plates that the very bartenders prepare for you. Just great friendly service.

The neighborhood was largely industrial up until the 1970s after which  many artists and younger people looking for large inexpensive loft apartments began moving in.  The neighborhood has seen substantial growth within the last 20 years becoming increasingly gentrified.

I have already written about some of the attractions that this neighborhood has to offer one of which is Grimaldi’s pizzeria. It boasts a real wood fired brick oven pizza.  There is also Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park one of the most popular places for photography in New York City.  You can also see great views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges as well as lower Manhattan.  The park also contains a boardwalk and two historic buildings.   The Empire Stores buildings, a former dry goods storage warehouse, and the roofless former Tobacco Warehouse that serves as an outdoor entertainment area.

The neighborhood is also home to the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory and Bargemusic, a classical music venue.

Casa Calamari located on 3^rd avenue and 86^th street is another great place for either take out or sit-in.  The staff is very friendly, quick service and the food is always great and  fresh.  The prices might look a little high but when you see the size of the portions you’ll understand.

Chianti restaurant on 85^th street and 3^rd ave is a place I have only had the chance to eat at twice, but both times it was amazing.  Service is amazing, food is delicious, the portions are prefect and the wine selection is great.

And last but not least is Austin’s Steak House which is probably the best steak house in Bay Ridge if not in all of Brooklyn.  I’ve had an amazing dining experience over several occasions. The service the food and atmosphere are all great.  The steaks are the highest quality and they have an impressive wine list as well.

Hunters Steak and Ale House on 94^th street and 4^th avenue is a nice little restaurant that I have frequented on many occasions.  The service and atmosphere are great and the food is excellent. Adjacent to the restaurant is a small sports bar with a great selection of beers.  I highly recommend it.

Next on my list of favorite is Mambo Italiano on 88th and 3rd avenue.  Again great atmosphere great service and excellent food.  The cost is also very reasonable and they offer lunch specials on week days.  The walls are covered with murals that contain many Italian celebrities. Very fun place.

If your into organic food there’s Natures Grill between 74th and 75th streets on 3^rd avenue.  They have a great selection of healthy food choices and a juice bar as well. Cozy atmosphere and great prices.

As I’ve said before the places I have known in Brooklyn have changed a lot and in some cases even drastically for the better.  The communities and neighborhoods have become stronger as a result of all this development.  As people are inspired by the changes that they see happening around them it gives them a greater sense of pride and they become more active in their own neighborhoods.

I’ve seen this happen in other neighborhoods over the years and I am seeing it happen here in Flatbush now.  There is a stronger sense of community here now as more and more people become involved in building up the neighborhood.  I am very proud to be here and that I am able to experience it once again.

I was born in Flatbush, as you will see in my about page, just a few blocks from where I currently live. My family didn’t stay there to long, as I can remember moving around a lot until I was about seven years old when my family moved to Bensonhurst.  This is mainly where I grew up but my parents had friends all over Brooklyn.  So I spent a lot of my childhood in the various neighborhoods I’ve been writing about.

I am also very aware of the fact that a lot of these neighborhoods were not the best of places. The only decent neighborhoods I do remember when I was growing up was where I lived in Bensonhurst and Bay Ridge.  Yet much of what I remember as a kid has changed and it has changed for the better.

Much of the water front properties in downtown Brooklyn, for instance were just empty lots filled with abandoned cars and other junk.  Those same properties today have been cleaned up and rebuilt and so have the neighborhoods around them.

The Bean Post Pub located at 76^th street and 4^th avenue is a sports bar that as something to offer no matter what sport your into.  With 11 game-tuned T.V.’s and 55 bottled beers and 21 on tap it a great place to go to and enjoy the game.  They also have a pretty extensive menu of food choices all of which are excellent.

Tat2 Lounge is a really tattoo themed bar.  Its small but cozy and has red leather couches along the walls.  The walls are covered with some very cool hand-painted murals.  There is a small outdoor area for the summer and at night they serve food.

I save the best for last, the Wicked Monk on 85^th street and 5^th avenue.  The bar is owned by fireman Michael Dorgan who imported the hand-carved  back bar, wooden church pews and stained glass from a monastery in Ireland.  Very cool bar with nice atmosphere that has bands on the weekends.  There’s a pool table are dart boards in the back (the bar is part of the Big Apple Darts league and American Pool Association).

As I have stated in other entry’s on this blog I didn’t always have the appreciation for Brooklyn that I have now, in fact this is all a pretty recent development for me. I t all started with my walk across the Brooklyn Bridge during the Northeast Blackout of 2003.  As I related in that blog it was the first time I had ever walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and I was so taken by it – perhaps it had something to do with the circumstances at the time, but whatever it was it left me with a greater sense of connectedness with the borough I grew up in and the people that live there – that I almost immediately began riding my bike into work (weather permitting of course) everyday during the summer.

And all the history I’ve been throwing up on this blog is my way of sharing something that has become something of a pet project of mine in recent months.  It has also shown me just how unique Brooklyn really is.

Many of the families that I knew growing up are still living there as are many of my old friends.

The Italian influence still predominates in the neighborhood.  You can see it every where along 18^th ave, especially in late summer when the Feast of Santa Rosalia comes around, simply called “The Feast” by locals.  Santa Rosalia is the patron saint of  Palermo and sometimes as the patron saint of all of Sicily (mnay of the Italian Americans living in Bensonhurst are of Sicilian heritage).  Thousands of New Yorkers flock to this annual end of summer event.

Nathan worked selling hot dogs for Feltman’s hot dog stand and was encouraged by his celebrity customers Eddie Cantor and Jimmy Durante to go into business for himself the rest is history.  Nathan’s has gone on to become one of the most famous hot dogs in the world.  Other celebrities frequented the store, such as Cary Grant and Al Capone.  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served Nathan’s hot dogs to the King and Queen of England in 1939.  Even today you can find celebrities there chowing down on a hot dog.

The original store, opened in 1916,  is still on the same corner and provides year round service.  Every July 4^th since 1916, the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest has  been held there.  Contestants try to consume as many hot dogs as they can in a 12 minute period.   Joey Chestnut holds the record at 68 hot dogs.

Nathan’s is one of those places that my dad and grandfather would always take me and  today when ever I’m down in Coney Island I always make sure I stop in for a bite to eat.