Brooklyn Street Local

We woke up this stone gray Sunday morning to a baby screaming her little head off someplace in the building and with wind whipping hellish and wild against the windows. Evidently it’s supposed to be the windiest day in Michigan on record — geez, who knew?

It was not what you or anybody else would call a soothing way to wake up. Between the wind pounding on the windows and the baby’s wailing I felt like I just might lose my dang mind.

“How do I keep from going insane this morning?” I asked the wind.

“Vegan poutine” was the wind’s reply.

And the wind was right.

It always is.

So it was settled. We were going to Brooklyn Street Local
to munch.

Brooklyn Street Local is not a big place. It is a little one. I didn’t read how many people it can sit on the fire safety notice, but I did eyeball it which is worth something. To my eyeball it looked to seat about 30 ish people, maybe a little more. I checked with S and her eyeballs agreed.

Inside it was friggin busy, so we had to put down a name and were placed on about a 30-minute wait which is breezy for a hustlin’ breakfast morning.

The breezy wait was made breezier still by the sweet little fact that PJ’s Lager House is right next door, and so we went in and sat for a whiskey coffee and a Guinness to wait it out. I would say plenty more about PJ’s, but that’s for a whole ‘nother post. A whole ‘nother day. For now, it was just a drink and four walls against the wind and that was plenty.

At the very same time that we were finishing up our drinks we got the text that our table was ready. Sometimes life is just a sweet juicy peach like that.

On the inside, Brooklyn Street Local is a busy and cozy little diner with a long and thin dining room and the kitchen line always near with bells dinging for orders up and warm whiffs of breakfasts meant for other stomachs endlessly rolling through.

We give it a very high chillability rating.

Nice big fat windows for plenty of daylight too which I imagine to look really nice and pretty when the day is a lot less gray than it is today.
But enough about all that. Onto ze food.

We heeded the wind’s advice and ordered the Vegan BSL Poutine as well as the sort of build-your-own Traditional Breakfast which were both oh so dang tasty.

For drinks, S went with a black coffee and I had
another Guinness.

The poutine is supa’ deep and rich w/ thick mushroom gravy, loads of sauteed onions, black pepper, some melted Daiya, and french fries with that just right ooh-la-la slight crunch. Spot fuggin’ on.

The traditional breakfast was spot fuggin’ on too. The tofu scram is light and fluffy and almost tastes like there’s dang near a curry spice going on — heavy on the cumin and cayenne — and that’s one of our favorite ways to have it (we added the spinach and caramelized onion because it was the right thing to do). A couple strips of smoky bacon-style tempeh, toast (we got rye), strawberry jam, and red skin potatoes. Yow!

Whew. That’s what you say when you’re finished up with that breakfast. But not that gnarly nasty whew of I ate too much junk and I feel sick it’s the phew of being nice and full, having satisfied yr desire to munch on something rich, hot, and savory without having to be rolled out of the restaurant. It’s that good good.

I felt warm and perfect as we wrapped up our gray morning meal even as I watched the weather worsening considerably outside. Breakfast latecomers were screaming while they ran through the lot towards the door, hair blowing all over the place. That’s how strong the wind was — people were screaming. But not us. The wind had been very kind to us this morning.

xoxo

J