you either love williamsburg or you hate it. both are probably warranted. anything that soars in popularity suffers equal backlash, and usually there's a little truth to both sides. so yes, williamsburg can seem a little stale and a lot overwrought, but it's fun. and last time i checked, people still go there. so i'm going to come out and say that i
like williamsburg. by admitting such, i am automatically disqualified as a hipster, which leaves you with a predicament: now you don't have to hate me, but you probably won't trust my opinion either. the mind reels.
if nothing else, go for the food. well, go for the food if you're the type that enjoys cuisine of the free-range-grass-fed-hormone-free-organic-grown variety, which fortunately i happen to be. every elitist liberal buzzword can be found on the menu, unless the restaurant happens to be too trendy to have a menu, like
diner.
like many restaurants across brooklyn,
diner achieves its lofty status by serving great food while channeling the aesthetic properties of a dump. nooo, just kidding,
diner -- you don't look like a dump, you look like a diner, natch!
creativity points: +2; williamsburg cliché penalty: -2.i visited this fine establishment at around midnight on a friday. the kitchen stays open until 1am on weekends,
(+1 point) and although it was crowded we were comfortably seated at a booth right away.
(+1 point) our waiter was extremely friendly and attentive
(+2 points) and we had our wine list, menus, and water right away.
there wasn't a wine under $32
(-4 points), and i don't remember what we ended up getting because it wasn't very memorable. i am of the school that encourages restaurants to put together thoughtful but affordable wine lists, and
diner falls short on this point.
but it makes up for it in other areas. the dinner menus we were given listed one appetizer, one side dish, and a burger as the entrée. the recovering vegetarian in me suffered a wave of panic and started praying that, although we were in a diner car, the rest of the menu changes daily. and halleluja! a moment later the waiter was seated next to me, writing out the day's specials on the tablecloth.
(+2 points) he described each dish as he wrote, starting with a
sorrel soup and finishing up with the $36 steak of the day. we opted to share the soup, and ordered risotto and pork chops.
as soon as the soup came, i had forgotten about the wine. after the first slurp i decided it was too salty, but i was wrong. The sorrel and potato base was complimented by fennel and crème fraîche on top. once everything melded, a perfect balance had been achieved.
(+2 points)the risotto was risotto...there's not much you can do to make it better or worse than normal. the highlight was the use of
ramps, which gave it that local/seasonal quality the restaurant strives for.
(+1 point)
the great victory was the pork chop. i don't recall ever having enjoyed a pork chop before (remember, recovering vegetarian) but this was phenomenal. it was served with home fries, greens (with shaved fennel, of course) and tied together by an egg over easy. my fellow diner fell into some sort of eating trance from the first bite to the last, and then talked only of that pork chop for the rest of the night. without the egg, this would have been a very good meal, but because the runny egg yolk added so much to the texture and taste of the meat, it was worth (+5 points)!
overall i would say that diner is a good place to go with a small group of friends, maybe for a special occasion. it's a little too low key and noisy for an intimate date, but the noise level was low enough for good conversation over really good food.
total score:10
meaning of scores: undetermined.
