Day Tripping - Canarsie

Last weekend, I went back to my old neighborhood.

Once predominantly a community of Italians and Hasidic Jews, Canarsie is now primarily populated with immigrants from the West Indies.

I went back to Canarsie to scope out the scene and taste my way through some new flavors and some old favorites; beef patty on cocoa bread - I’m looking at you.

Canarsie is still as spread out as I remember it being. Six blocks of walking still felt like forever, as I walked past old friends houses, gas stations, the nursing home where my grandmother was living, the Brooklyn Public Library - where I would attend RIF every Friday afternoon - and numerous bodegas.

Avenue L still housed Jack and Frank’s barber shop and the original Original Pizza - since there are 3 originals in Brooklyn. I sat down to eat at Dougie’s Jamaican Cuisine for reasons having to do with nostalgia, as I used to work in that store - when it was J&S Seafood and Pasta House. My $5 an hour job at J&S was bonus time with my best friends, as we all worked together, and a way to pay for my fresh tips. I’d take my weekly pay and get my nails done, the rest went to paying for college applications and tickets to prom.

The food at Dougies, pretty pleasing to the palette - as my friend and I shared a heap of jerk chicken, ackee and saltfish and what seemed like bottomless portions of rice and peas.

Star Nail Salon was gone and many of the shops I remembered were closed down, but the new ones I did stumble into were gems to be re-visited. And I have, already. I went to Canarsie last Saturday, and I found myself back there on Sunday - for round two of a chat with Orin Smally - my new buddy and owner of Smally’s West Indian Market on Avenue L. I also had to sneak in another patty, but this time I enjoyed fresh made fish pattys, courtesy of my new baking hero - Mitzie Patterson - owner of Tastee Pattee Bakery & Grill on Rockaway Parkway. We also shared samples of all of the baked goods pictured below, and I even scored an offer to make beef patties at their flagship bakery on Church Ave.

This is just a smattering of what went down in Canarsie. More to come regarding my adventures, including recipes from the Caribbean Sunday dinner hosted at my apartment, which can be seen on nomnoms and full stories to come on cityspoonful.com

Jerk Chicken
Ackee & Saltfish
Pickled Vegetables
Beef Patty on Coco Bread
Toto

Bulla Cake
Spice Bun with Tastee Cheese