A Good Burger and Very Good Ceiling at The Good Fork

There is no doubt that The Good Fork will make you want to become a local of Red Hook, so that you can in turn become a local at The Good Fork. From the first mouthful of dumplings, taking the B61 or B77, just to get to and from the subway, doesn't seem so bad after all. And the critics agree. The critics also resoundingly agree on owner, Ben Schneider's, ceiling:

The ceiling:

NY Mag: "vaguely nautical curved-wood ceiling"

Citysearch: "the restaurant's curved wood ceiling"

L Magazine: "Its ceiling, warm-wooded and curved to meet the walls...like the hull of a ship (if you focus on the low ceiling) or a frontier bar (if you’re listening to the country tunes)."

The New Yorker: "The dining room, which Schneider built up from a nearly raw space, has a curvy wood-panelled ceiling; the effect is something like being inside a Stradivarius."

GQ: "To me, the curved ceiling is suggestive of a Conestoga wagon or an Airstream trailer."

We, at Burger Club, don't really know what we are doing. So we take our cues from other people. With that being said, we'd like to comment on the ceiling and agree, that yes, there is a curved wood ceiling at The Good Fork. To us, the effect was more of a (elaborate hand gestures inserted here)...is suggestive of (ahem)...being in a Red Hook restaurant? And while we understand that the comparisons above are meant to be complimentary, isn't just being inside a Red Hook restaurant less terrifying than being shrunk in size to fit in a Stradivarius violin or more comfortable than riding in a Conestoga wagon? Besides, anyone who has ever played Oregon Trail knows dysentery is inevitable when riding in a Conestoga wagon.

Perhaps we have less to say about the ceiling because we ate outside in the garden. Very lovely. Christmas lights twisted into the fence, a drunk woman got rowdy with the smell of incense in the air. We ordered the homemade pork and chive dumplings ($8), the 8 ounce fresh ground beef burger served with tempura onion rings ($12), and Steve's delicious Key Lime Pie ($7). The cows are not grass feed. In an effort to avoid the dissolving bun problem, the buns overwhelm the burgers by being so large that neither top nor bottom could ever dissolve, but if paired with a stronger cheese, blue cheese for example, the ratio works nicely.



At one point, The Good Fork used English muffin* type buns, so this is definitely a move in the opposite direction, much sturdier and breadier. The lettuce and tomato are locally grown and tasted and looked as fresh as they could be. The tempura onion rings were delicious and fun to play with too. Anna, a sucker for good buns and cool ceilings, rates:

*I have no idea how the capitalization of English Muffin works. I googled to check, but everybody does it differently. Then, the confusion over whether to capitalize the "m" in "muffin" got me wondering about whether or not to capitalize "key lime pie," which also appears differently. Anyway, Apologies For Any Grammatical Errors (sic).


Roger:
I would agree with Anna that Good Fork makes me love Red Hook. But it has nothing to do with the burger. It just seemed like another nice restaurant that decided to make a burger they can charge $12 for. Too much bread and maybe too much meat.


But the main problem is it wasn't tasty. Granted $12 isn't crazy expensive but there are a ton of burgers in Brooklyn that blow it out of the water for cheaper. But definitely check out Good Fork, just not the burger. Roger rates:




Bex:
The Good Fork has a cozy atmosphere and is perfect for a casual and intimate dinner. It was a nice night so we sat out back, also very cute. Although I never saw any mosquitoes, there was an annoying woman next to us that couldn't stop complaining about them. This may be why the back yard smelled like my college dorm room; the incense smell was intense, and I can only imagine they were using it to thwart the pesky bugs? Smell is a big part of eating so when I bit into my large burger, I could really only smell nag champa. I did like the burger, sort of.... I wouldn't order it again, but it was good enough that I ate a large part of it.


I think my biggest problem was the bun. The bun's flavor and texture overpowered the other ingredients. The bun itself was delicious, but it would have been better on it's own, (as a dinner roll?) since it tasted like a hearty sourdough and was very firm. I do have to mention that the meat, although not extremely flavorful, was cooked perfectly to medium rare and was extremely juicy. Also, the tempura onion ring accompaniments were not my favorite- very greasy and heavy on the batter. All the other food on the menu sounded delicious though, so I'd like to come back for some other dishes. Bex rates:





The Good Fork
391 Van Brunt Street
Brooklyn, NY 11231
http://www.goodfork.com/