Bussaco

When I heard whispers last month of a new restaurant opening up in Park Slope, I was intrigued. Knowing my parents were coming to town to visit, I did a little more research to see whether I should try something new, or keep it super-local and go back to No.7. The NY Mag previewed Bussaco's menu at the beginning of October and the pastrami duck and fried poussin had me salivating. So I made a reservation.

The space itself, right across from the Park Slope food co-op, has a gorgeous entranceway and good vibe walking in. We were seated near the communal bar table made from salvaged Prospect Park oak and quickly found that the owners had done little to mask the barrage of sound coming from hungry patrons and clattering plates. Nevertheless, being with the fam, gave me opportunity to try a number of dishes, and they almost made up for noise.

After we ordered, they came around with a bread basket with multiple options, always a plus. I took a olive roll which ended up complimenting my dirty onion martini. The drink was one of the most unique I'd ever tasted. Instead of Olive juice, they used the juice of homemade pickled baby onions (three of which were speared in the pinkish martini). While Elizabeth literally said that it tasted "like ass" I thought that the pickled flavor gave the vodka a quality that brought it past martini-dom into something much more creative and sophisticated. (The Sicilian and Greek wines my father ordered were also delicious.)

I'd read that the go-to appetizer was the "freshest mozzarella" (pictured below) which involves chef Mathew Schaefer dropping curds into hot water and then...that's it. He tops it off with delicata squash and candied pecans. It was decent. But the braised/grilled squid hit the ball out of the park. I wish I could remember exactly how they did it. But I'm pretty sure they had some water chestnuts in there that played crunch to the squid's chew.
Did I get the Beef Bavette for its sweetbreads and four mini blood puddings? Yes, and it wasn't a wrong choice. The meat was tender and cooked to perfection, the blood puddings cute but packing punch and the fried sweetbreads also tasty. But sweetbreads, at least from my few encounters with them, are over-rated. What stole the show was the Fried Poussin aka chicken and waffles. I've had the fried chicken at Blue Ribbon which is damn good, but I always feel kind of weird ordering fried chicken for more than $20. The poussin killed it though and the waffles, enfused with vanilla were light and pretty much the platonic perfection of what a waffle should be. The dish was topped off with a ramekin of joyful collard greens for good measure.
Finally, for dessert I ordered butternut cheesecake which quickly became the envy of the table (Go pastry chef Deborah Snyder). Sidenote: did you know that pumpkin puree ain't really made out of pumpkin. So probably most of those pumpkin cheesecakes and pies you've enjoyed are actually made with some sort of squash. Anyways, there were hits and misses throughout, but by the end of the meal I was confident that I knew exactly what to order next time. The squid and the poussin. Then again, they have a tasty looking bar menu...for cheap.