Good evening, everybody.
We are standing here in the shadow
of the beautiful Williamsburg Bridge.
And Williamsburg, of course, is the home
of The Commodore on Metropolitan Avenue
which is where we're headed right now.
Williamsburg is an epicenter of culture
and particularly music, a lot of art,
a lot of artists.
For better, for worse, what a lot of people think of
when they talk about Brooklyn
and Brooklyn hipsters and gentrification.
There's a lot going on in Williamsburg.
There's a lot of controversy that surrounds Williamsburg.
The Commodore is just a cool neighborhood bar and restaurant
where they have really great food.
You can get a really great fried chicken sandwich.
You can get a really great plate of nachos,
some of the best in the entire city.
You can get some biscuits.
It's a Southern-themed bar that also happens
to be tropical themes.
Let's head over there.
(lively instrumental music)
Yes, oh!
Can I get a hot breast?
Can I get some nachos?
One order of biscuits.
Oh, you know what I want?
I want a wedge.
I like a wedge.
And then, can I have something very fun to drink?
I can make you like a rum punch and a pina colada.
How 'bout that?
Sounds great. Alright.
(upbeat techno music)
Very strong drinks.
Why am I drinking tropical drinks
in this sort of strange environment?
Well, because I'm at The Commodore.
If you've been around the food scene in New York,
you know Stephen Tanner.
You may know him from Pies 'n' Thighs diner.
These are all restaurants that he's associated with,
and so, he has a place called The Commodore
and it's Southern and tropical drinks.
I hesitate to use the word hipster
because I think it's overused and I'm not sure
a lot of people exactly know what it means.
But, people could say it's a hipster bar too.
(steady rhythmic instrumental music)
The nachos could have some salad on them
because that makes them delicious and not one note.
Yeah, you can just do cheese or ground beef
and drippy sauces and beans, but it's nice to get radish.
Get a little cilantro, green onion.
A little fresh tomato.
Gives it a freshness.
Gives it a whole new dimension
that I think your conventional nachos may lack.
There is refried pinto beans, queso, sour cream.
A couple of different sauces.
Sort of a darker red sauce, and then you have
a green sauce that just gives it a nice variation
so it's not just one note.
And queso, of course, that wonderful, fake plastic cheese.
It is cheese and it is not,
and I'm sure it's not very good for you.
But, who doesn't love queso?
Nachos are nachos.
You're not going to elevate nachos
to like Sistine Chapel level greatness,
but you can make 'em really good.
These are really good, and you can make 'em a lot better
by like puttin' some (bleep) vegetables on.
It makes it good.
Makes it so you can keep eating them.
What do you want me to eat next?
Scream at your computer which one you want me
to eat next.
The person who scream the loudest,
I will eat what you suggest.
Wedge salad, that's what I heard.
So, yeah, I do love a good wedge.
A wedge salad obviously named because
these pieces of iceberg lettuce are shaped like a wedge.
I love iceberg lettuce.
It's like eating crunchy water, but it's so good.
Bacon bits, blue cheese dressing,
two flavors that I love very much.
And that's just perfect.
So light and crunchy and satisfying.
Iceberg lettuce, it's such a good like blank canvas
for these very strong flavors because bacon,
obviously very strong.
Blue cheese is an equally strong,
if not stronger flavor and iceberg is just sort
of like a nice neutral canvas.
Wedge salad, love it.
Next, these biscuits.
These look nice, fluffy, and this looks like
a very delicious butter that has been whipped
with something, but it looks (bleep) good
'cause it's just running all over the place.
Mm, biscuit.
That's honey.
So, they whip the butter with honey,
really perfect with this salty,
light, buttery, fluffy biscuit.
Biscuits, of course, a staple of Southern cuisine
and one of the things The Commodore specializes in.
Can't be a good biscuit.
Let me wash it down with this very strong tropical drink.
That's just firewater.
I mean, it tastes good, but I don't know.
I don't drink a lot of hard alcohol.
This is what I'm excited for.
If you have every been to Pies 'n' Thighs,
you know that they obviously specialize
in chicken, fried chicken.
This looks like a beautiful, enormous chicken breast.
It looks like we've got some pickles
and some coleslaw on this which I adore.
A very well-sesamed sesame seed bun.
You can see it drippin' on the plate there.
This is very good.
Very tender, juicy chicken breast
which I think is a very lovely thing to have
on a chicken sandwich.
I've had chicken sandwiches made with chicken thighs
which are good too.
That meat is a little richer, a little darker,
a little fattier.
White meat chicken breast is going
to be more like pure meat.
You're not going to have as much fat, skin, gristle
as you would on another chicken sandwich.
The heat itself from the sauce on the fried chicken,
I think it's pretty simple.
It's just cayenne, vinegar and some sugar.
It's a little sweet.
It might be a little bit of a nod to Nashville hot chicken.
But, this doesn't approach as far as like atomic heat,
but it's still got a little bit of a cayenne kick.
I can feel it a little bit in my sweat glands.
I feel a little bit in my brow.
This chicken sandwich was (bleep) great,
and the nachos were great.
The Commodore's cool.
This is a great place.
Good food, good drinks, pretty cool vibe.
Fun Gilligan's Island-themed pinball machines.
I don't have a problem with it.
It's great.
This is a part of the identity of Brooklyn.
It's not the entire identity, but it's part of it,
and it sort of makes up the whatever,
the pie, the salad, the melting pot.
Thank you for watching this episode
of Dining on a Dime from The Commodore
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
If you'd like to watch more, please click here.