Eastern Europe on the Subway

The Back Room @ Eurotrip

Sometimes you don’t have to travel to JFK and beyond to get good central European food. Brooklyn is as far as you have to go to get a decent taste. 

Eurotrip, a great-priced restaurant & bar, hovers the border between Park Slope and Prospect Park (or in “South Slope,” as New York magazine refers to the area , although I’m not entirely sure that’s a defined neighborhood…). I, myself, am not an expert nor much of a fan of central/eastern Euro cuisine, but my foodie friend insisted we try out this place, and she has been raving over Halušky (a gnocchi-like Slovakian dish with cheese, bacon and chives) since she came back from her own Euro trip last summer. I figured why not.

A Nearly Finished Plate of Halušky

We went for Sunday “dinner” at 3 p.m., as before that there’s a prix-fixe brunch menu, and Halušky isn’t available at that time. The service reminded me of European restaurant service as well: incredibly friendly but incredibly slow. Granted, there was only one waiter present, but there were only two or three parties in at a time. The Halušky is only $7, and is listed as an appetizer, but definitely lunch-entree sized. With a glass of Rosé wine for $7, it’s a nice little Sunday lunch. 

While we were waiting to order, we discussed if the dish would be as good as it was in Bratislava. Now, plenty of tourists in America harp on how food is never as good as it is back home. And a lot of times they are right. But New York is a culinary capital of the world. And when was the last time you had a better hamburger (or even decent Mexican food) in Europe? 

But, considering how long we waited just to order, our food arrived in front of us rapidly fast. My friend devoured her plate (and cleared most of mine), attesting that while it might be American, it’s still damn good. As for myself, I liked it, but I thought there was way too much bryndza cheese. And I love cheese. What was really mind-blowing and will have me hopping on two trains from Manhattan to get there again was dessert. We split the Langos Bonbon, which is Hungarian sweet fried dough with Swiss organic cherry jam and whipped cream. Think high-end funnel cake. But it was huge and delicious. We could have (and maybe should have) just eaten that for lunch.