Z: Zaytoons

Whenever I want some babaghanouj or a juicy, spicy tuna kabob, I make haste for Zaytoons. My favorite middle eastern restaurant has convenient locations in both Clinton Hill and Carroll Gardens. Both have cozy, dimly lit dining rooms and affordable menus brimming with everything from the classic falafel sandwich ($4) to pitzas and spinach pie ($5). Often the special is a whole roasted chicken–if you are lucky enough to be there when this is the case, I highly recommend it. Zaytoon’s spices, sauces, and homemade pita bread are all excellent and elevate the restaurant above its competitors.

Zaytoons is BYOB, which will cut down on your dinner cost. If you’re in Clinton Hill, grab a bottle of wine from the liquor store just a few blocks down on Myrtle. And if you live in the neighborhood, Zaytoons is a great delivery option–check out their menu from home. You can also just stop by and pick up a sandwich to go if you’re en route to the park or a friend’s Top Chef marathon.

Zaytoons Clinton Hill is located at 472 Myrtle Avenue

Zaytoons Carroll Gardens is located at 283 Smith Street.

Y: Yoga

While Kyle prefers doing yoga from the comfort of his own apartment, I sometimes like to venture out to a studio. Something about the energy of others and the roaming teacher inspires me to work harder. Like most urban areas these days, Brooklyn has more than it’s fair share of places to practice.

Technically my favorite New York yoga studio is in Manhattan. I love the sunny atmosphere, the free lemon sandwich cookies, and the cheaper, 1 hour classes at Laughing Lotus. However, sometimes commuting all the way to 19th Street is just too much effort. What’s the point of yoga if the stressful, crowded subway ride back home cancels out that warm relaxed feeling?

X: Xtra-Special Literary Festival

OK, so this is a bit (a lot) of a stretch for the “X” entry, but Kyle and I wanted to be sure to plug the annual Fort Greene Literary Festival in time for you to attend. The event is intimate and community oriented–last year many of the writers were from the neighborhood, and I later ran into some of them on the streets.  Think booths from places like the library and independent publishers , lots of families sprawled out on picnic blankets, and musical interludes.  Really, what could be better than a sunny day in the park complete with books and readings?

The festival will be held on the hill in the park this Saturday, August 18th at 4:30pm. Authors attending include Gloria Naylor, Jennifer Egan, Chris Abani, Staceyann Chin, and Roger Bonair-Agard. Students from a neighborhood summer workshop and the P.L.A.Y.E.R.S. Club Steppers will also perform.

This promises to be the kind of event that makes you very glad to live in Brooklyn. And (no small feat) it even tops the Halloween dog costume parade as my favorite Fort Greene Park gathering.

W: Walking Brooklyn

When I attended Book Expo America this past spring with Michelle, I picked up an advance copy of Adrienne Onofri’s Walking Brooklyn (Wilderness Press, 2007) with the intention of making it the “W” of my Brooklyn alphabet. I was not disappointed. The small book (perfect for carrying in your bag) details 30 different Brooklyn neighborhood walks. Kyle and I often take off on our own circuitous routes through Bed-Stuy or Prospect Heights, but with this book, you actually have a friendly tour guide by your side. Each walk includes maps and bullet points of historical, cultural, and architectural information. For example, Onofri explains what’s up with Farrell’s, the old-time bar near my Windsor Terrace apartment that my roommates and I always wonder about:

“Farrell’s is said to be one of the first bars opened in Brooklyn after Prohibition was repealed. Cops, firefighters, and neighborhood loyalists love Farrell’s, which was featured in a scene with Helen Hunt and Shirley Knight in the Oscar-winning flick As Good As It Gets” (92).

V: Vanderbilt Avenue

I’ve been a frequent rider of the 69 bus, which traverses Vanderbilt Avenue, for the past 2 years. The section between Grand Army Plaza and Atlantic Avenue in Prospect Heights is constantly evolving. There’s an interesting mixture of old and new–a faded ad for Brooklyn BBQ is painted on the side of a building right next to a tiny French cafe. It’s a beautiful, brownstone-y stretch of blocks, and one ripe for visiting. Next time you’re in the area, get off the bus and take a stroll.

U: Uncle Louie G

Uncle Louie G is a Brooklyn-based ice cream chain with rich, creamy flavors and a decidedly neighborhood feel. This isn’t the place to go for organic basil gelato, but when a scoop of bada-bing cherry vanilla or pistachio nutz is what you’re craving (see the complete list of flavors here), then Louie G will hook you up. The outlet nearest me, at 157 Prospect Park Southwest, is just a window in a wall with a couple of picnic tables and garbage dumpsters in a lot bordering the park. On hot summer nights middle age couples share sundaes and kids ride up to order on their bikes. At one point my goal was to sample every single flavor they sold, but this got to be too much of a challenge when I fell in love with banana head and couldn’t move on. Uncle Louie G’s also boasts 40 flavors of Italian ice.

The chain has been so successful (it’s been around for less than 10 years and has already expanded to Manhattan, New Jersey, and even Florida) that borough president Marty Markowitz proclaimed June 10th to be “Uncle Louie G Day” back in 2002. It’s a little too late to celebrate officially this year, but with 8 Brooklyn locations, you can grab a cone and make today your own Uncle Louie G Day.

T: The Tooth

Ever wonder about the tall, clock tower building that looms over the edge of Fort Greene and downtown Brooklyn, right next to the Atlantic Terminal Mall? It’s allowed me to tell time from as far away as Park Slope, where I remember waiting outside in the freezing cold, watching the minutes tick by, when a show at Southpaw started very, very late.

S: Siren Music Festival

This Saturday from noon-9pm, Coney Island is home to the annual Siren Music Festival. The free, all ages show will include headlining performances by The New York Dolls and M.I.A. I’m personally most excited about We Are Scientists (graduates of my alma matter) and the up and coming, Bushwick-based White Rabbits (who you can also hear on tonight’s Letterman).

What could be more fun for a summer Saturday than free music and the beach? Just be sure to bring sunscreen!

R: Rats

Now that Ratatouille and this study have come out, maybe my love of rats won’t be so strange. OK, I would certainly be freaked out to have one of the furry fellows living in my apartment, but I have an obsession with observing and reading about them. When it’s midnight at the Metropolitian stop and I’m waiting for the G, rat counting is my favorite activity. And have you seen how many there are on the border of Prospect Park? I used to think that the crunching leaves I heard in the trees along Prospect Park South West were squirrels, until one evening I realized that the noise came from a whole colony of rats. As I licked my banana head ice cream they multiplied before my very eyes.

Q: Q-train

Brooklyn’s got its share of MTA subway trains. While many people wax poetic about the literary F or root for the underdog G, my affections lie with the fast, reliable Q. It’s more of a functional relationship than one filled with drama and passion, but hey, maybe those are the ones that last anyway.

My vote for the Q is based mainly on two great features:

• neighborhoods traversed
• express status

The Q stops at a lot of my favorite neighborhoods as it snakes its way through the borough of kings. The DeKalb stop is a pleasant walk from Fort Greene and Clinton Hill (and across the block from Junior’s for all your cheese cake/egg cream needs) and Atlantic Avenue is a Brooklyn transportation hub and home of clothes and home improvement genius Target (what do you say to that, Manhattan?). The 7th Ave/Flatbush stop is perfect for reaching both Prospect Heights and Park Slope. The next two stops take you to the North and East sides of Prospect Park, and then you get the Brooklyn College area, the lettered avenues (Avenue Q!), and finally Coney Island.

Even better than the diversity of neighborhoods crossed is the speed with which the Q gets you to them. From DeKalb to Union Square is just 2 stops! Want to visit Pearl Paint for some art supplies or get dim sum in Chinatown? The Q will get you there from Park Slope in 15 minutes. And for some reason the Q seems to have a lot less construction delays than some of the other lines.

So if you’re in the market for a new Brooklyn rental, consider making proximity to the Q train high up on your list of requirements.