#30 - la isla bon eatah.

as of just under two weeks ago, there's now a trader joe's in brooklyn, at the dividing line between downtown & bococa, right at the corner of court and atlantic. it's an interesting area of brooklyn.

to the south, there's red hook and its box store expansion, with ikea & in due time, a bj's wholesale club (which led to the inevitable headline "after ikea's success, red hook to get bj's") and the current filming of mtv's the real world: brooklyn.

to the east is the pending construction of the barclay's center (soon to be home to the new jersey brooklyn nets). this monstrosity (will somebody please take away frank gehry's license? i mean, really ) is part of a larger project, the atlantic yards project, which will drastically transform the intersection of two of brooklyn's largest streets--flatbush ave & atlantic ave--with the arena & towers & such.

4th ave, the street i live on, starts at the same intersection & runs six lanes all the way south through brooklyn to the bottom of the island, where it ends at the intersection of the verrazano bridge to staten island & jersey and the belt parkway, which runs along the bottom of brooklyn all the way east past jamaica bay & jfk airport into long island. i'm about 30 blocks down from the atlantic yards area & all down 4th ave to my apartment, tall apartment buildings are sprouting up thanks to rezoning fallout from the project. my landlord's putting in an 8 story one next door...& so there's now a trader joe's up the street. map here. scan around.

in my life, i've had a good deal of exposure to trader joe's. there's that one in coolidge corner that i definitely went to on a number of occasions but don't recall all that well. it's apparently one of 16 in massachusetts. then there's the union square trader joes, divided into a wine store & a grocery store because of liquor laws (i assume). i usually only go to the wine section when i need a bottle of wine for some reason & can't spend more than $3. i've gone in the grocery section twice & the cramped, crowded aisles infested with nyu students drive me into panic attack mode. i hate going into the union square trader joe's grocery store. hate it.

the other day, i paid my first visit to the brooklyn trader joe's. when you initially enter, you can't help but notice the long ass line to your right. when i returned today, it was still there. i can only assume that it's there in perpetuity. usually, their lines move fast, but it's still intimidating. on that visit i just scoped the joint out. the combination of the signage, the shelf layout, the way the store is divided up & some other factors really rubbed me the wrong way. i vowed to give it a second chance though.

#30 - la isla bon eatah.

snack: spanish olive mix
drink: garnacha de fuego 2007

overall, i know a minimal amount about wine. i usually at least have good luck at picking out a decent wine. i'm not entirely blind. as an example, i can tell the difference between trader joe's brand wine (not available in brooklyn) & well, actual wine. there's a wine store in my neighborhood, adam's wine and liquors, that is owned by a cute couple in their 50s(?). they are wonderful at suggesting wines, obviously knowledgeable & usually offering samples. it is the only place i go in brooklyn to buy real wine. they have one of those frequent buyer cards, where you get your 13th bottle of wine free.

my number came up the other day & i decided that tonight i'd try out that unlucky bottle of wine, a garnacha de fuego 2007. it's from spain. "fuego" means fire en espanol. it's pretty good & tastes a bit fruity & a bit spicy. read the wine weekly review i link to. i'm pretty sure they actually know what they're talking about.

i also decided that i'd head back to trader joe's tonight to pick up some fresh mixed olives to snack on with the wine. turns out trader joe's brooklyn doesn't have fresh mixed olives either. some girl even went & checked for me. sadly, she never returned. i can only assume she is dead. i know a lot of people, my own sister included, who swear by trader joe's, but really, i hate it. i don't care how many dang mangoes they put in their salsas.

instead, i just went a block down court street to pacific green gourmet food, where i found myself an olive bar with an entire bin devoted to "spanish olives." there are some dark red ones with pits, some less-dark-red ones with pits, some big-ass green ones & some smaller ones with pimentos. they're in an oil with a bunch of minced garlic. during the course of writing this, i've eaten about 50 of em. they're pretty friggin' good, although during the course of writing this, i've also made my way through 250ml 300ml 350ml of the wine, so that could just be the fuego talking for my taste buds.