Special Edition on How To Have Fun

Spotlight on Little Poutine, a monthly-ish supper club featuring a star-studded cast of chefs

Happy February! A lot of my friends have been complaining to me that they don’t meet new people anymore, which is a bummer, and also incomprehensible to me. I’ve decided an awful lot of you people could just use a primer on how to have fun. Meeting new people in the context of food is my preferred activity at all times, so I figured I’d do the public a solid and let you all in on a few of my little secrets. Here’s how I’ve been having fun recently.

Little Poutine

Little Poutine is a dinner party series based out of this fantastic duplex in Williamsburg. My friend Eli cooks for the group, so I bludgeoned him into sending me details for their recent Paella Party, and I convinced my (somewhat reluctant) friend Lance to come with me. One ticket ($50 on Tock) granted unlimited access to drinks — they were serving kombucha sangria and cold Canadian beer — and paella cooked by Eduardo Cuenca, former head chef at Miss Ada, who is a total riot.

Horrifically bad image of Cuenca doing his thing over the second paella pan of the night

The team served paella portions in small checkered boats, slathered with pimentón aioli and topped with a few choice cuts of succulent Iberico pork. The paella was great, but the highlight for me was probably the Spanish tortilla. (Can I use the word ‘ooze’ as a compliment? It oozed.)

Lance going feral on the dance floor

After the paella was served, the DJ portion of the evening kicked off. Little Poutine’s parties are big enough to feel populated, but still intimate enough to facilitate connection between strangers. I walked in knowing essentially no one aside from Lance; by 1 a.m., I had been invited to join a new figure drawing group and go line dancing. Any evening that ends with a fantastic chef force-feeding you a mezcal shot on the makeshift dance floor is a good evening, I think. If you’re looking to have fun, look no further — they just announced their next event, a sit-down dinner, on Instagram.

Other fun things I’ve eaten recently

1. “Pots of Gold & Rainbows” ice cream from Salt & Straw

There is nothing more glam than open & inviting ice cream pints

This past week, I got to hit an ice cream tasting for Salt & Straw — picture me at a conference table with seven NYC food influencers, all of us eating tiny bites of ice cream with tiny baby spoons — and their Lucky Charms-flavored pint blew me away. Tyler Malek, co-founder of the brand, confessed that his chefs literally sift through boxes upon boxes of Lucky Charms by hand to collect all the marshmallows for this flavor, which is why they only offer it one month a year. Upsettingly, there are no Salt & Straw locations in NYC, but they deliver nationwide.

2. Fried rice at Ugly Baby

The colors!!!!

There are three Brooklyn Thai restaurants whose reputation for spice precedes them, and Ugly Baby is the scariest. We’re talking no reservations, lines out the door, hour-long waits, and menu items marked “Brutally Spicy.” The waiter took one look at me and decided I was not going to be able to handle Brutally Spicy and he was right. Zoe and I got seated in the middle of a communal table that was simply too small to be communal and we talked to the five people on either side of us all night. The Kao Klook Kapi above was “medium” spicy and it definitely still knocked me out, but the crispy pork was so beautifully caramelized that I fought my way through, and the fried rice beneath offered a bit of respite. Strong recommend.

3. Wood-fired beets at Theodora

The beets are at the bottom; above it, the cinnamon-roll-looking-thing is za’atar kubaneh, and the other dish is a sashimi-esque crudo in a dashi broth

This past Friday, I went to the new Fort Greene restaurant Theodora to review it for BK Reader. I happened to be seated next to an author named Howard Fishman; I traded him a prawn for a falafel, and got to hear about his recent book on musician Connie Converse’s life and disappearance (anyone want to book club this with me?). The food was fantastic, Tomer Blechman (of Miss Ada fame) is doing brilliant things with his Josper grills, and I think this restaurant is going to win some serious awards. Read more about what I ate here.

In other news

Here’s a couple of articles I published in the past few weeks:

• History of Fashion at “B” Dry Goods in Crown Heights – A cool new fashion-based exhibit opened up at “B” Dry Goods, a small gallery in Crown Heights. Gabe Boyer is a cutie and the show is quite cool.

• Libraries Spared in Budget Cuts, But Loss of Sundays Still Hurt – Budget cuts took Sunday service away from libraries in November, and there was a threat that we might also lose Saturday service, but Adams spared the libraries. One of my interviewees said this about it, which I think is well-put: “There’s a lot of money for other things, for war — it’s very sad.”

In summary: Go out to a strange little food event! Have fun this month! Thank me later!

Hannah