To some, The Brooklyneer?a new Brooklyn-themed restaurant in the West Village with menu items sourced from and named for Brooklyn neighborhoods?is a peculiar little idea worthy of mocking. To others, like the NYDN's Alexander Nazaryan, it's a soul-sucking virus that has "killed Brooklyn." Specifically, the yupster ideal of Brooklyn "cool," because now that "a tourist from Paris - the one in Texas, that is - can order an authentic Carroll Gardens meatball sub without ever setting foot in the borough of Kings," Brooklyn is no longer the mysterious shadowland calling out to Murray Hill post-grads seeking an "authentic" New York experience. Hammer: Dropped. So, uh, how's the food?
Who cares! There are more serious issues in play regarding The Brooklyneer. Nazaryan gives voice to these pressing concerns, and the plight of a generation:
The restaurant's aim, according to its menu, is "to bring Manhattan the newly emerging food & drink artisans from where else but Brooklyn." On that same menu, there is a cartoonish rendering of the borough, with pictures of food and drink scattered through the neighborhoods: a cow in Fort Greene, a fish off Coney Island, a pig in Park Slope. I am not sure I'd eat a fish that's ever swam in waters within 50 miles of Coney Island, but that's beside the point.
The point is that I'm outraged. I'm beyond outraged, and I speak for the hundreds, no thousands, of twenty- and thirtysomethings who moved to Brooklyn with the pride of trailblazers only to now realize, with growing horror, that the borough where they live is about as undiscovered as Times Square.
Amen, brother! Revolution! Tonight, one and all, for our fathers and their fathers before them, we dine-and-dash!
· Brooklyneer, new Manhattan restaurant, marks the end of Brooklyn cool [NYDN]
· Brooklyneer to be More Obnoxious Than Previously Thought [Eater]
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