Hit and Miss at Get Fresh

Restaurant Name: Get Fresh Table & Market
Restaurant Location: 370 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY



This relative newcomer in Park Slope is a place of highs and lows, so much so that after dining there last week, we left befuddled and unable to clearly answer a basic question: had we enjoyed the meal?

The Pros:
Get Fresh is a welcoming, if spare, space on the southern end of Park Slope's 5th Avenue. The servers are friendly and attentive and the menu purports to offer local, organic, sustainable fare (see below, though). Plus, it's one of the few BYOB restaurants around, which really helps cut down on the dinner bill.

Some of the dishes we tried were really outstanding. Our starter, for instance, of Rabbit-Pork sausage served atop a bed of creamy truffled potato puree, was divine. We literally wiped the plate clean with our fingers. But, oddly, rather than being housemade (as one might expect from a place championing great local food), the sausage was from D'Artagnan (this was disappointing, somehow. Though, at least now I know where I can order the sausage for myself...). Another winner was a side dish we ordered, Mexican Beans and Rice. Usually a throwaway, this dish was full of flavor and texture.

Our dessert, a chocolate "cake" (really more like two incredibly tender brownies held together with a thick serving of ganache) was also a plate-licker. Weirdly, though, this wasn't made in the restaurant either, but at a local bakery.

The Cons
Some of the dishes were downright awful. I ordered the Hawaiian prawns with sweet potato puree expecting plump prawns set atop a bed of flavorful puree. Instead the pawns were coated with the puree, creating a mushy dish with a horrifying mouth-feel. It was barely edible when it could have been great. Plus, Hawaiian prawns at a place bragging about local food? Really?

My husband's entree (the smoked pork belly with tamales and mole) was fine - good, not great.

So, in sum, Get Fresh had some real highs and real lows and very little in between. Coupled with so much of their food being prepared off-site, we just felt that the whole experience was very unrestaurant-y and were uncertain if we'd return or not.