Park Slope Food Creeps South: The Project Me! Report

Guest blogger Krista Garcia of Project Me!, the wonderful food blog that features both great items on restaurants and recipes, was kind enough to file a report on the movement of Park Slope-style eateries into the blocks to the south. Check it out:

In the early twenty-first century I inhabited Brooklyn’s barren wasteland in the 30s, cemetery to the east, federal prison and porn shops to the west. Call it Greenwood Heights if you will (I wouldn’t). Sunset Park North, even. South Slope, not so much. Chinese take-out, Mobil’s On the Run and White Castle were about as good as it got culinarily. I quickly gave up on any scant Park Slope goodness ever creeping downward.

At the time I had a boss who lived on Eighth Street . And despite being younger than me, she reminded me of an intolerable mom consumed with repetitive, clueless questioning. She had a fondness for asking, “So, are there any restaurants in your neighborhood yet?” “No, dumb ass, same as the last time you asked me.” I tried repressing my surliness but was eventually fired anyway (in part for writing about her on the internet. C’mon, what kind of freak freely admits to calling a carbohydrate addicts hotline and doesn’t expect ridicule?).

Now, it appears that I’d finally have a fresh answer for this woman. In the past couple of months the teens and 20s have received plenty of Park Slope spillover (and it seems that all new storefronts must have three long-necked lamps over the awning). I couldn’t have waited five years for wine bars and sushi. Yet gentrification is still slow going in certain pockets. My former underdeveloped 30s? White Castle remains the only bright spot.

Has anyone visited these newcomers or have any dirt on the burgeoning scene south of the Prospect Expressway?

· Sidecar: 560 Fifth Avenue , between 15th and 16th streets.
· Vin Rouge: 629 Fifth Avenue , between 17th and 18th streets.
· Quarter, Fifth Avenue , just below 20th Street.
· Sushi will be replacing Coffee Shack on Fifth Avenue (photo below), right next to Vin Rouge.
· Brick oven pizza (photo above) is rumored for the NW corner of Sixth Avenue and 21st Street.