So we went there again this weekend, and as you’ve probably heard the brisket is fantastic. One caveat….

THEY DON’T DO BBQ SAUCE.

We don’t care how good your brisket is, BBQ sauce is part of the experience and doesn’t ‘compromise the integrity of your food.’ It’s like serving fresh bread and refusing butter. The attitude just makes us want to go to Mable’s or Fette Sau instead.

Evidently, a few reviewers on Yelp are discussing this too:

The owner was adamant – he doesn’t “do” sauce.

No matter how much my friend argued, he was adamant that Brisketown would not be a place where people slop sweet brown ketchup on top of his masterpieces.

I won’t be waiting in line for an hour at Fette Sau the next time I want BBQ, let’s just say that. I wouldn’t mind some BBQ sauce, though. Jus’ sayin.

If you expect sauce there isn’t any here, except for third party hot sauces. I completely understand the stance of not wanting the flavor of meat being covered by sauces. But in this case the flavor isn’t is amazing on its own as the owners think, and I think that if they made their own in-house sauce to compliment the meat they could still control the experience and enhance it. Also, if you’re a no-sauce place, why offer hot sauce? It ruins the flavor just as much as bad BBQ sauce. Seems like a contradictory stance.

via Eater:

Daniel Delaney’s barbecue joint BrisketTown will start serving breakfast tacos this coming Saturday, with brisket and pulled pork taco options. Also starting this week, BrisketTown will be open seven days a week.

More information here.

Also, Monk Pizzeria is now open:

The new concept in the Williamsburg space that briefly housed the ambitious Basque restaurant Mercado on Kent is now open. Called Monk Bar & Pizzeria, it’s a Neapolitan pizzeria with a menu that includes Southern Italian pastas, as well as some cheese and antipasti options. The pizzas all run between $14 and $17 and come on a crust of white organic flour, with spelt or khorasan wheat crusts available as a $2 add-on. Monk opened in early December, and Eater hears that at least one of the Mercado on Kent principals is involved in this project as well.

Monk Pizzeria is located at:
291 Kent Ave Williamsburg
Brooklyn, New York 11211

BrisketTown (c/o Eater)

There are lots of great new places now open in the hood:

Selamat Pagi

From the NY Times:
Indonesian restaurants are scarce in New York, and this one specializes in the cuisine of Bali. The owners are the ice cream artisans Ben Van Leeuwen, Pete Van Leeuwen and Laura O’Neill, who had some storefront space at their production kitchen and decided to take their love of Bali to the public. Of course, their sweets are served. But before dessert, consider finishing your plate of lemon-grass fish curry, prawn and fish satay, bluefish caramelized with palm sugar, and nasi goreng (a type of fried rice). The chef, Sophia Loch, came from Otto. The pastry chef, Chelsea Wilkes, from Marlow & Sons, is whipping up a Balinese coconut crème brûlée

Williamsburg Pizza:

From Serious Eats:
The pizza was really good: housemade or Grande mozz on the slices, sweet canned San Marzanos strained as the sauce, and an old school NYC slice crust that had a crisp veneer and tender insides, with plenty of color and bubbles to boot…. We [also] had a grandma slice, a regular slice, a slice with apples, gorgonzola, and a rectangular slice with mushrooms and fresh rosemary. None were less than very good, and it’s clear that Coniglio has the chops and the desire to make terrific slices pizza born out of NYC slice tradition at its finest.

(more…)

Via Diner’s Journal:

Daniel Delaney went from being the filmmaker to becoming the subject. A few years ago, he started doing videos of food trucks for a Web-based series called VendrTV, and became so hooked on barbecue, most notably Texas-style smoked brisket, that he is now part of the story. His camera is gathering dust while he hauls slabs of meat into an 18-foot smoker he acquired in Texas.

Under the name Brisketlab, he sold his brisket online (in March he presold 3,200 pounds of meat in 48 hours and subsequently put another 5,000 or so pounds up for presale). People have been eating the meat they reserved at pop-up events in Manhattan and Brooklyn, while they waited for the day when he would open his own restaurant and market.

And with money in the bank at $25 a pound, that day is coming. Mr. Delaney has signed a lease for a space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at 359 Bedford Avenue (South Fourth Street), and plans to open BrisketTown, a counter-service restaurant, on Oct. 31. (more…)