The Flatbush neighborhoods of Ditmas Park and Midwood are a bit of a food wasteland compared to the rest of NYC. The highest quality restaurant is a pizza and whiskey place, the incredible Wheated — but you’re not going to find that much else. But there is one exception: middle eastern food. Here’s a quick list of the best options I’ve tried to date:

The unfortunately named Istanblue Kebab House on Avenue J a few doors down from the legendary but now fallen-from-grace DiFara Pizza (RIP Dom!) is a surprisingly great Turkish option. The lahmacun is just absolutely phenomenal but you really cannot go wrong with anything on the menu. The lamb chops, adana kebabs and the like are all grilled to perfection. The times I’ve gone with my girlfriend and/or others they always bring out free extra stuff (e.g., puffy lavaş bread, Turkish tea, desserts). There are numerous locations across Brooklyn but I cannot speak about the others.

Ayat is a Palestinian restaurant with a number of locations across the region and an understandably activist bent (the seafood section of their menu is titled “From the River to the Sea” !!). The best options here are the Palestinian dishes like Lamb Ouzi Royale (a bit like a lamb biryani), Zahr Ma Laban (cauliflower/lamb stew) and Mansaf. As great as it is, I feel like they’ve had some staffing issues because the quality varies from visit to visit.

Dunya Kebab might be my favorite of the three, at least currently. I’ve kept it pretty simple here as my first order here, the basic chicken breast kebab with qabeli-topped rice was is cooked so perfectly each time, I don’t want to stray. The mantu dumplings are also exceptional. I’ll eventually branch out and try more stuff.

This shouldn’t be a surprise but all three use a bit too much sodium in their cooking. I always find myself guzzling water all night after eating at any of the three. So I can’t partake TOO often but they are all great. 

During the pandemic, King’s Gourmet on King’s Highway (beneath the Q/B train station) offered me a limited but unique supply of groceries along my morning walks. Decent $8/lb coffee, a small butcher with good quality meats and pre-marinated shish kebab, bulk nuts, pre-packaged Turkish pide bread, and large tins of Valbreso cheese. More recently I’ve become aware of a new, much larger Turkish grocery on the very same block, Okka Foods, so I checked it out. My first impression was this place is sadly going to put the smaller store out of business pretty quickly, with an excellent selection of produce, a bakery department with a wide range of reasonable fresh breads, including a German sunflower bread that I am now addicted to (and cakes that look great but am afraid to try). In fact, it had everything that King’s Gourmet offers at lower prices (the Valbreso at King’s inched up to $18 or $19…but is still $15 at Okka). I started visiting several times a week. There’s a little corner with its own register when you walk in with fresh boreks, which are actually killer, and other pastries. Overall the prices are much lower than any of the shitty Brooklyn grocery stores like C-Town and MetFoods, which a higher-end selection of goods. However, the place is starting to lose me. You really need to look at the expiration dates and check the quality here (a fancy jar of peanut butter was expiring in one week, avocados incapable of ripening, etc.) All that said, hard to see how I’ll stop visiting for select items (e.g., the goddamned sunflower bread).

I only recently learned there was a Brooklyn outpost of Faicco’s, the pork store with the amazing gigantic Italian sandwiches that I know from Bleeker Street. Perhaps it’s the original store? The Brooklyn Faicco’s does not have sandwiches but they do have a range of fine products, including pork braciola, lard bread, fresh mozz, rice balls and San Daniele prosciutto for $6 less per pound than you’d pay Whole Foods or Wegman’s. And the folks who work there couldn’t be nicer or more helpful. Not sure how to cook that braciola? “I’ll run and ask the guys in the back!” You’re always going to walk out happy.

Separately, the last time I was there, there was a picture of Reagan with the quote, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand left on earth.” My girlfriend, who is from a country that one could objectively say is freer than the US (Denmark) found this HILARIOUS and I found it strangely endearing, even though I believe Reagan was a real monster. Sadly this picture is gone and has been replaced with a picture of an oddly fit Trump hoisting an American flag with Nancy Pelosi’s corpse and “RINOs” nipping at his feet. Behind the counter there is a picture of Cowboy Don. I guess the unfortunate truth is that Faicco’s is ALL IN on American fascism and obviously doesn’t care about losing our freedoms here in the USA after all. But I guess it’s not uncommon for Italians to love a good fascist, historically speaking at least.

The real question is, will I be back? Probably.