DuMont: A Brooklyn Canteen

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  November 26, 2012]

Why review DuMont?  It's been around, under the same ownership, for ten years.  Surely everyone has made up their minds about it, or its siblings, Dressler and DuMont Burger.

Quite right. I had no intention of reviewing it, but other plans were canceledor fell through, and sometimes you end up just where you didn't expect to be.  Not that it wasn't interesting.

Although I've eaten at Dressler, it was actually my first time at DuMont.  It's a handsome place as you approach, drawn by the neon lights.  The front dining room with its tall bar is appealing

Then you get led through to the rear, where everything is happening.  A very large, heated, two-level backyard is packed with Brooklyn at trough.  Really, a lot of people, across a range of age groups (young ones wear hats), chowing down -- really working at their food.  This is a sort of Brooklyn version of Chartier (only not as cheap).

Is it the cutting edge new Brooklyn cuisine which draws the crowds?  Not really.  Sure, there's a gesture to the season in the cauliflower and parsnip soup, but this is essentially a short, homey, comfort food menu.  Nothing to scare the children.

Salad or soup, chicken or steak.  A fish: skate.  The famous burger.  A vegetarian pasta.  Fortunately, there was a daily special which sounded more interesting -- pork shoulder with white beans.

I started with a crab cake, which was really very ordinary.  Maybe it should have been called "crab cake salad," buried as it was under a mountain of chewy greenery.

When I finally dug down to it, I had no big complaint (or great praise) to offer about the flavor.  The texture, though, was mushy.  Kind of like a puck of crab paste, breaded.  Not exciting.

The pork shoulder came as a big, boneless lump, piping hot, over a soupy cassoulet of white beans, vegetables, and the inevitable kale.

It was a little dry; the best thing about it was an appetizing scent of rosemary released when I cut it open.  Certainly plenty of food, but so far I was eating things I could make -- and make better -- at home.  I was saving on cooking and doing the dishes.

Looking around, it was clear that the burger outsells everything else here, and perhaps rightly so.  The patty is a monster, and it was amusing to watch diners carefully trying to insert lettuce, tomato and pickles without the whole thing falling apart.  Once they'd bitten into it, diners tended not to put the burger down again.  It's something you hold onto with both hands.  Lots of fries, lots of ketchup, and at $14 it's probably the best way to go here.

I finished with a cheese plate, and again, generosity could not be faulted.  There was half a loaf of raisin bread with it.

So this is how much of Brooklyn actually eats?  Hold the artisanal honey, the designer mayo, the foraged leaves with rooftop herbs, the hand-raised goat and the triple-smoked brisket.  Give me salad and a burger.  On the one hand, it's all reassuringly grounded.  On the other hand, you can do much better.

The website is here.