Last week, Brooklyn’s Ditmas Park Blog [via Eater] noted a new and tiny neighborhood space: Asian Grocery, the nondescript bodega located next to the Cortelyou Avenue Q train stop, will be selling momos around the clock when its in-store Tibetan restaurant opens next month.
A close look at the Asian Grocery storefront (seen here, with some archaic deli signage toward the top) reveals that a tiny, 5-seat restaurant has been hiding in plain sight for a while. Camouflaged among the fresh flower buckets and painted green plywood bins of fruit are a series of hand painted Tibetan images – traditional altar items and instruments – covering its roll-down steel doors.
Ditmas Park Blog reported on the bodega’s secret momo menu back in September, consisting of dumplings, steamed and slung into a clamshell container with a side of chili sauce ($5 for six). Asian Grocery already sells a variety of fruit/vegetable juice concoctions up front, up until now was basically celery-beet-carrot/ your-heart -will-thank you territory. The full service restaurant, located at the back, will feature homestyle Tibetan food. When all the paperwork is in order, commuters should hopefully be able to grab a hot butter tea with their morning paper.
The so-called "Connecticut Muffin Index," named for the local chain’s ability to heat-seek neighborhoods on the verge, spiked for Ditmas Park last fall when it opened on Cortelyou Avenue. But the neighborhood retains a knack for shaping its own development: The 32 year-old Flatbush Food Co-op is moving across the street to larger digs in the former Associated Supermarket space; Farm on Adderley spinoff Pomme de Terre is set to open soon on Newkirk Avenue, and Vox Pop, beacon of free speech and strong coffee, remains just that.
Asian Grocery: 1510 Cortelyou Road / Brooklyn / (718) 282-3750
