Lunch @ Hope & Anchor

Hope and Anchor is a friendly restaurant with tasty, affordable grub. There was a table available at 1:00 PM today which made me very happy. Brunch tastes so much better when there’s no wait.

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Coffee shop after closing

The Park Slope Restaurant, on Fifth Avenue, is a neighborhood greasy spoon. When it’s open and serving food, the interior looks cheerier. The food is exactly what you’d expect.

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The El Greco Diner

Emmons Avenue

Take a Greek diner, reference a Greek painter of the Spanish Renaissance, work in a palate and paintbrush motif, and you’ve got a classy diner, sort of. What really distinguishes this restaurant are a large outdoor terrace, and the number of TV’s. It’s a new genre, the sports diner.

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Bridgeview Diner

When this diner was built, the owners looked around and wondered, “What are we going to call our restaurant?” Third Avenue, Bay Ridge, in the high-numbered streets, is not the most exciting neighborhood. Then the Verrazano Bridge caught their eye and the matter was settled.  The Bridgeview has the requisite multi-page, laminated menu with thousands of options, ridiculously cheap cocktails, and breakfast all day. And there’s a case of cakes and other fancy desserts that taste especially good eaten at a vinyl-upholstered booth.

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Drinks @ the Americana Diner

When it’s crowded, like at brunch-time on a Sunday, they open up the back room at the Americana Diner. Service could not be friendlier, and while I like to enjoy a relaxed meal, I’m not sure I’d ever order a cocktail here.

You could if you wanted, though. These are cheap drinks, even by diner standards, so maybe, just maybe, for the heck of it, one day you’ll hear me say, “I’d like a stack of pancakes, a cup of coffee, and a singapore sling.”

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This might be a joke

Recently, the City Lights Diner closed. I never ate there, but I heard it was nothing special.

Construction is underway on the diner’s next incarnation. The owners may have a sense of humor, because it’s going to be called the Ocean View Diner. There’s no water in sight, but it’s on Atlantic Avenue.

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Home baked at the Americana Diner

Next time I’m at 7th Ave. and 65th Street, I’m going to the Americana Diner so I can sit at the scalloped lunch counter, and I’m ordering coffee and a piece of cake. Leatherette swivel chairs make me kinda happy, and the desserts look fresh, though I suspect the Americana’s definition of home baked might not be quite the same as mine.

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Sunday diner

Way out Seventh Avenue, between Chinatown and Bay Ridge. Notice the dash on the Honda SUV.

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Oh my diner

Dig the wall decals.

Cold weather means lingering in restaurants, like this gigantic diner, the Park Plaza, at Cadman Plaza on Court Street, Brooklyn Heights. For each of the hundred of seats, there is a matching pastry or sweet. Everywhere you look there is a case lined with cakes, muffins, cookies, cheesecakes, and danish. They even have petit fours! Pies, brownies, and dozens more.

I like to look at the treats, but they don’t entice. My favorite is a waffle; when salt calls my name, french fries and ketchup do just fine.

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