Buttermilk Channel Guest Blog

As promised, we bring you Eric Mancini. Hailing from Providence, RI by way of Agawam, MA, Eric is a good eater, fun Monday night company, almost citified walker, and has a good eye for detail. Enjoy:


We spent a hot day wandering through the post-industrial playgrounds that are the more obscure neighborhoods in Brooklyn, through areas that are supposed to blow up any minute (aren't they all), walked literally off our feet on the last full day of my week long visit to the hippest place on earth. This is how we came to Buttermilk Channel. This trip was the culmination of a week of being whisked around the city to one landmark restaurant after another by my gracious hosts, and it loomed large, seeming as it did to embody so many of my conflicted feelings about Brooklyn. Serious food trying too hard to be a casual neighborhood experience. Historical names and places mined for design elements. New American cuisine that (though I love it) tends to be similar across trendy restaurants. Spaces that are beautiful but so self consciously designed to be so. Also, and this is the crucial part, food that is better than any restaurant within fifty miles of where I live.
We got in around 6:30 and were the last customers to sit down without a wait. The interior was refreshing: all simple cream colors that gave off a warm, welcoming light. Any weariness the four of us felt from the long day of walking drained away almost immediately with the first round of drinks and popovers - light and crispy with just a hint of honey. The ladies went the route of multiple small plates and salads while the guys voted the Buttermilk equivalent of the straight ticket: buttermilk fried chicken with cheddar waffles, as close to a signature dish as the restaurant has.
Most of the small plates were tasty – the brussel sprouts practically jumped off the plate with their seasoning, and the cheese plate had one certified superstar - Queso del Inferno from Vermont, a harder cheese with a great salty flavor like spicy pecorino. Some of the dishes missed – the fresh mozzarella itself was good but the butter soaked bread between each piece was soggy and overpowering. And the sweet potato and goat cheese croquettes were nicely creamy but without any big flavor payoff. It's telling that my fiance, a croquette fanatic, thought they were forgettable.
Though fifteen minutes later it was easy to forget even the better appetizers in full embrace of the chicken and waffles. Served in a neat pile, universally dark amber in color and balanced out with a bright white scoop of cole slaw, it was immediately clear that someone thought this dish through. The chicken had the expected outer crisp with the interior landscape of a slow roasted bird, dark and moist. The waffles were browned, unassuming. Both tasted good alone but didn't reveal themselves fully until they were bound up with the primordial glue that was the syrup. Dark as petroleum but thinner, it poured easily and soaked into the chicken. It wasn't entirely sweet; there was a flavor in there that I struggled to place afterwards. My best guess would be a type of balsamic vinegar. All these years living in New England seeking out the thickest, sweetest maple syrups and I had it all wrong.
No room for dessert, we headed to a tiny bar across the street to meet with friends, my tongue still probing around for more syrup. And as always happens, my original, cynical defenses are taken down in presence of the actual thing, the food itself. Then I'm forced to admit that my conflicted feelings are mostly posturing, with a slight hint of envy, and that I've eaten better this week than anytime in recent memory. Brooklyn has some truly great restaurants. I can't thank my hosts enough.