It's a good time to THANK everyone who has helped make the first few months of Schnack a success! We hope everyone is enjoying themselves with friends and family this weekend. For those of you in NYC/Brooklyn, Schnack is open our normal hours and is serving up all our regular goodies + a few specials.

We had a private party on Thanksgiving day and that went over really well. Our menu included:

Vietnamese Spring Rolls
Shrimp Cocktail
Cheese Plate
Turkey (wild)
Stuffing
Garlic Mashed
Sweet Potato Mashed
Mashed Squash
Steamed Broccoli
Kale with white vinegar and black pepper
Roasted Fennel and Onions
Gravy
Chipotle Cranberry Sauce
regular Cranberry Sauce
Fresh Fruit
Cheesecake
Bread Pudding
Assorted Pies
Aunt Bertha's Fudge!
Home Style Ice Cream!

Schnack

Schnack will be open late on the 26th til 3am with  $1 PBR all day/night.

Schnack will be closed for a private party on Tuesday. We will be open again on Friday.

Specials Again

We have a few current specials. We are running the last of the stuffed Cabbage. We have Judy's Sweet & Sour Beef Brisket with P.O.D. and a small salad ($6) or as a Hero ($5).

A new dish, perhaps never before made anywhere before it emerged from the creative gnomes at Schnack, is Polish Congee, otherwise known as Rice Porridge. It's more on the thick and creamy side (no dairy) than as it's traditionally made; it's normally soupier and thinner. It contains Japanese short grain rice, water, Schnack Salt, Polish bacon, Kielbasa (both from Jubilat), onion, garlic and of course lots of Brooklyn water! + a secret ingredient.

It's only our first attempt so it's likely to get better next time we make it, but it's pretty good already. We are especially thankful to Chef Alvin Koh who gave us a few suggestions to start us off, and to our business neighbor Mrs. Lee who had a few suggestions of her own. Also, thanks to Sally at CyberExpress for taste testing.

Read more about Alvin Koh here and here

Specials and Soups

For the remainder of the week we are running "Judy's Sweet & Sour Brisket" with P.O.D. and a small salad. We also have some special bread from Caputo's which should help soak up the sauce. Everything is available "while it lasts".

Although Alan has been busy helping Jim get LaRosa & Son up and running (tonight is opening night. I'll be there at 5pm to get some!), we had a quick talk about adding some soups to the special menu. We are probably going to do one soup a week for the next few weeks. We will do more Schav, but also some more traditional soups like split pea (sez Alan).

LaRosa & Son

A reminder that LaRosa & Son will open tomorrow at 5pm at 98 Smith St. (Smith between Atlantic and Pacific)

Menu News

We have made all of the final adjustments to our newest menu. We had been using the new format for take-out for much of the last month but our in-house menu has been lagging behind as we searched for a suitable format. We will be changing format again in a few months, but the "new" current format is much better than the previous.  It's 8.5 x 11 and as such is easier to read.

Most of the items on the menu remain the same. The Hippie Dog was reduced in price. The Egg Cream was removed (but we still make them!), and the Veggie Duck and the Bread Pudding have been added on a "full time" basis.

Suzanne, a friend of Schnack and a recent mother,  let me know that having stayed home for the last 3 weeks following the birth, her first "outside" meal was at Schnack. We wish the parents and child good health and encourage everyone else to visit Schnack in your moment of "culinary need!"

the Real Naked Chef

Schnack had a visit from Alvin Koh, Chef/Owner of Singapore's Porridge King chain. He especially enjoyed our Spicy Pear Chutney. He also took time to do a photoshoot. Those pictures aren't available but he is well known for using his famous body in the promotion of Porridge King. Twice he was Mr. Asia ('92 & '93) in his weight class. Here is a link to some pictures of him. He did leave us a recipe which we hope to run some time in the future as a special. In the meantime if you're traveling to Singapore please be sure to stop by Porridge King.

Blogs and Things

We want to thank typepad.com/ for including the Schnack Blog in their foodsection.

Also thanks to 601 AM

Stuffed Cabbage

Our special this Saturday and Sunday will be Stuffed Cabbage. Also, a reminder that our brunch is now 11am to 3pm and 10pm to 1am EVERY Saturday and Sunday.

Another week

Once again Friday finds Schnack increasingly busy. We do have one problem which is that our heater isn't heating as well as we would like... Alan is going to check in to it.

PBR One Dollar

Each week we go through a few cases (sometimes more) of PBR - Pabst Blue Ribbon.
 I think we sold 2-3 cases on Halloween. That night we ran a regular holiday special we call "$1 PBR." Wednesday isn't the busiest day of the week, so we figured, trying to boost our mid-week numbers, we will introduce a new weekly promotion. Every Wednesday night from 10pm to close PBR is $1. The price for the rest of the week is $1.50

Schav

We still have a few portions of Schav left and then it will be a few weeks until we have it again. This weekend we are planning on some kind of German stew. Details to follow.

Schav

The Schav sold out in just a few days, but we made another batch late on Sunday and that is now ready to be served. Get it while it lasts. Also, we made a new Chutney this weekend. Getting into the "late fall" theme we have a cranberry, mango, orange and onion Chutney that is sweet and savory. We also have the last of our Pear Chutney on sale as well. A side of Chutney is 50 cents. We also have a Hero special for $5.50 -- Turkey, Cream Cheese & Cranberry Chutney!

Halloween

We wanted to especially thank the Deedle Deedle Dees and everyone else who helped make Halloween a big success. We stayed busy almost the whole day and we certainly handed out a lot of candy. More interesting, late at night we sold many cases of Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) at $1 a can....a hefty discount from it's normal price of $1.50. I understand we sold a few beer shakes as well.

Brunch Time

Well, we "soft-launched" a new brunch menu this past weekend. We think it worked out really well. Five tasty selections all for $8.45, and at the same time the entire regular menu is available for someone who just wants a good $4.50 Chili Cheese omelet! This is really something that we have been wanting to do for a long time but it's really a big effort to introduce a new menu with entirely new ingredients that have to be sourced, purchased, stored and of course prepared.

The Schnack partners meet last week and we decided it was time to "get on with it." It was really easy, now a few months into our operation, to pick the menu. A few things that we normally don't have like Smoked Salmon (we use Nova Tidbits (trimmings), and a few things we always have like lots of Jubilat bacon and vegetarian Duck.

Only time will tell if this menu works well enough to bring out more people on Saturday and Sunday AM into Schnack, but that is our objective here. We are trying to stay within our basic "flavor range" but come up with a full brunch meal for a good price; we include a drink, unlimited coffee and/or tea, and plenty of food!

Soup

This week until it runs out, we are serving Sorrell Soup. Also known as Schav, we are serving it warm with a few bits of cheese. In the summer we will serve it cold with some chopped hard boiled egg.

Special Ham

We are going to have a Ham Special this weekend as well... Details to follow but I'm picking up a 6 lb Ham from Jubilat today.

Weekend Brunch

We are getting ready to do a test launch of our new weekend Brunch specials. We will have 5 special brunch meals priced at $8.45 including a Mimosa or OJ, Coffee and/or Tea. The specials will include French Toast, Smoked Salmon, Onions and Eggs, a vegan item, a hearty Polish breakfast and an all protein special (No Carbs)

Time Out New York

Time Out New York has listed us in their NYC "Best Of" Eating Guide! We are also still listed in their regular listings for Brooklyn as a "Critics Choice." Thanks, Time Out!!!

Party Time

On Halloween we will have some entertainment from 5pm to 7pm... Here is the "press release."

The Deedle Deedle Dees are a brand new rock group. For kids!

Featuring the talents of Ulysses S. Dee, Innocent Dee, Valentino Dee, Friar Dee, and Gowanus Dee, the Deedle Deedle Dees sing songs about handwriting, historical villains, humpback whales, and other topics that need more songs sung about them. Country, punk, and traditional Mexican music all make their way into our sound, but the best way to describe our music is "catchy."

Don't miss the Deedle Deedle Dees' debut performance on Friday, October 31st (AKA Halloween) at Schnack. Our show is interactive so if you have instruments of your own, bring 'em!

Show starts at 5 p.m.

Our website, www.thedeedledeedledees.com, is still under construction, but if you'd like more info on the band, please write to Ulysses S. Dee at lloydmiller@mac.com.

More Specials

We have finished up the "spicy" Bigos, but we still have a bit of the Hessian Stew left. We have decided to make the extra spicy sausage part of the regular menu.

This Weekend

This weekend we are serving the last of our spicy Bigos and a Hesse region beef stew. In German it's "Hessisches Paprikafleisch."  It's from the New German Cookbook by Jean Anderson and Hedy Wurz. It's a wonderful stew of fresh lean chuck, mushrooms, and onions served with French bread and some grill roasted corn. The mushrooms were our idea, and it is traditionally made with green peppers.

Specials

Specials serve very different purposes for chefs and restaurant owners. For some, it's an opportunity to charge a lot of money for a dish that is often more rarefied than that on the regular menu. Other establishments use it to get rid of ingredients that are approaching the end of their shelf life. However, when I was growing up the special was something entirely different. It was something not normally available on the regular menu and was offered at a good value, sometimes cheaper than regular menu items. In the NY dining scene, specials are also a way of catering to regular clients who might be bored with the regular menu, and of course foodies who are always craving something different.

At Schnack we run specials for many different reasons. When we get in fresh ingredients as mundane as lettuce or as nice as turkey breast we often like to reduce the price a bit and sell as much as possible knowing we have enough in-house and will not run out of it. We also like to be creative within the context of our "palate" of flavors; this has led to dishes like Knockwurst in Japanese curry with veggies over Japanese rice.

This leads to a question we get often, which is, "what type of food do you sell?" The answer we most often give is simply American or even Brooklyn, but in truth we throw in a bit of Eastern European, like Polish, and some German, and even a bit of NYC Jewish.

For the last few weeks we have been running bigos, which is a very traditional Polish dish (Hunter Stew). We intend to be running German, Polish, and various other Eastern European dishes all throughout the fall and winter. When we get into the New Year, and Alan's TV show, "Cooking in Brooklyn" starts to air we expect to run most if not all the items from the TV show as specials.

Trick or Treat

I think everyone knows we take our "treats" very seriously at Schnack. So we are very excited about inviting the local kids down to Schnack for Trick or Treating. On Halloween we will be welcoming Trick or Treaters between 3pm and 6pm. About 5pm we are expecting some special musical guests who will be performing for the kids and their parents. More information about our musical guests will be available here shortly.