A blog about our Brooklyn neighborhood.
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Friday, January 13th, 2012
This delicious soup special I had at Mimi’s the other afternoon was pretty satisfying for a cold winter day: chickpeas, rice, and lentils in a lemony, tomato-based broth.
What’s the best thing you ate in the neighborhood this week?
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
If you have family that says all they want for a gift is “world peace,” why not bring a little piece of your world to their house this year? If you’re visiting relatives out of town, or hosting them in your own home, consider putting together a taste of your Brooklyn neighborhood:
A Dozen Catskill Bagels: Nothing says Brooklyn like bagels, and we’ve got some great ones right on Cortelyou.
Mimi’s Hummus: It’s the best hummus this side of Isreal, and if you take some home, spread it on a bagel, and top it with some vegetables, you can make a great impression on any relatives.
Pickles from the Pickle Guys: All that’s left for a great gift meal like this is a side of pickles, and these famous ones are just down Coney Island Avenue at Avenue J. They have more varieties than you, or your family, will know what to do with, and they go great with hummus.
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Monday, November 21st, 2011
Here’s a statement I’m sure a lot of you would echo from reader “Spanky Tomato,” who saw a Wall Street Journal review of Mimi’s Hummus this morning: “I know this isn’t the first time, but I do get a thrill every time Cortelyou Road or Flatbush makes the WSJ, something I never thought I’d see when I moved here.”
And here’s what the WSJ has to say about Mimi’s:
In a town where people fight over which restaurants make truly good hummus, having to choose between the various versions at Mimi’s is not a bad problem to have.
Thursday, October 20th, 2011
Mimi’s always has the best flowers on the tables, originally uploaded by carryboo.
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Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
And the deals just keep on coming. Today, you can get a code for 30% off at Mimi’s Hummus through Blackboard Eats, yet another online coupon promoter. You have to subscribe to their service to get the code, but there are no other costs.
Fine print:
Details: available for brunch, lunch or dinner; minimum purchase of $10 per person; max party: 4; dine-in only; not valid with any other discounts or promotions.
Special expires at close of business on: Dec. 11, 2011
Does anybody use these once the get them? For instance, has anyone saved 50% at Picket Fence since that deal came out in August?
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
The New Yorker ventured out to Cortelyou Road recently, and they liked what they found at the trifecta of Mimi’s, Market, and the Castello Plan.
They suggest you try Mimi’s for “hummus so fresh and flavorful it might change your life” (which you can get at lunch too), and they recommend the Castello Plan’s extensive and interesting wine list, which is “sold convincingly by a gently professorial staff,” adding that “it’s a lovely place to have a glass or three.”
Good advice! Grab a bottle for yourself tomorrow when Evanescent, with Bliss Blood and Al Street, play live beginning at 8pm.
Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
Mimi’s is serving lunch every weekday from 12-4pm, offering special deals and new lunch sandwiches. The sandwiches sound pretty exciting: Iraqi Sandwich (hummus spread, cilantro spice, sliced potato, pan fried eggplant, hard boiled egg); Labne Sandwich (labne cheese, cilantro spice, cauliflower salad, cumin mushroom, green tahini sauce); Beef Sandwich (hummus spread, pan fried eggplant, ground beef, tomato & onion sliced). Take a look at the full lunch menu below.
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Wednesday, March 9th, 2011
Shakshuka eggs from last year’s review of Mimi’s Hummus by Serious Eats.
This morning’s egg torta and an article about egg whites vs. egg yolks got me wondering about the best egg dishes in our area. High on my list would be Mimi’s Shakshuka eggs (I ask for them spicy) and the Ox Cart’s Alamo burger, which comes topped with a fried egg. But sometimes you can’t beat a quick and cheap bodega egg sandwich, which is pretty unique to the New York metro area. So where do you get your eggs when you’re running to work, or when you have time to sit and enjoy them?
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
In honor of a certain chain restaurant’s declaration that today is National Pancake Day, Serious Eats compiled a list of the top 10 New York City pancakes. Congratulations to Mimi’s Hummus, whose Moroccan pancakes make the list, and are described as “lacy-edged semolina pancakes with fresh strawberries and lots of honey butter.” Too bad we’ll have to wait until Mimi’s weekend brunch to celebrate this delicious holiday.
Monday, March 8th, 2010
NY Magazine lists Mimi’s Hummus as Best Hummus in NYC:
The great Israeli hummus boom of the last five years or so has opened New York’s eyes to the richly decadent potential of what was once viewed as hippie-commune health food. We’ve had great, creamy, oil-dappled versions at Hummus Place, Taïm, Hoomoos Asli, and the late Hadom, but we’ll still happily trek out to central Brooklyn for a bowl of Mimi Kitani’s luscious chickpea purée, served up in five distinctive versions, all accompanied by hot, fluffy pitas that disappear too fast. For its exquisite balance of delicate seasoning and sheer heft, the meat rendition is our favorite, garnished with cinnamon-spiced ground beef and a smattering of pine nuts.
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Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Serious Eats has a seriously long and lovely review of Mimi’s and Castello Plan, with gorgeous images of the food. (Thanks Carey!)
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Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Or can you? Here’s a bit on the Mimi – Castello relationship, and a bit more about the offerings of Castello Plan:
Heemskerk, who first met Mimi’s owner Mimi Kitami when the two worked across the street as servers at The Farm on Adderley, says that the bar will feature about 110 wines sourced from around the world and 12 Belgian beers. He says there will be an emphasis on small producers from places like Morocco, Uruguay, and Croatia “that maybe don’t get the marketing and hype” of some of their bigger counterparts. “There are very small producers who are really dedicated to the art of wine making,” says Heemskerk, adding that he’s particularly enamored of the charms of Massaya, a Bordeaux blend from Lebanon, and Burgundy from Simon Bize. Glasses will run $7 to $12, and Belgian beers will start at $4.
The bar, whose seating for 40-50 people will be augmented by a backyard garden in the spring and summer, will also have a seasonally driven food menu from Chef Natasha Pogrebinsky. Pogrebinsky, who originally hails from Ukraine and has worked extensively as a private chef, has created 17 dishes that include pickled mushroom salad with sunflower oil, Spanish morcilla sausage with yellow lentils, and rabbit stew. Pogrebinsky plans to expand her repertoire to eventually include late-night and brunch menus; the Russian-Spanish-French-influenced dishes, she says, will be “sophisticated but very simple, focusing on natural, seasonal flavors. It will be comfort food that’s excellent with wine and talking.”
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
Our local hummus joint appears on a Brooklyn-heavy list of the year’s best new inexpensive restaurants.
“This sunny cafe serves dishes — not just hummus — that bear traces of the chef’s family history in Israel, Morocco and the Kurdish region of Iraq,” the paper writes.
Monday, December 14th, 2009
We completely agree with the New York Magazine, that Mimi’s Kuba Soup is amazing. It’s a hearty soup, so go hungry. If you’d like to know what it looks like, its the second soup from the left on the second row of images.
Kuba Soup
Mimi’s Hummus
Chef Mimi Kitani’s tangy take on kuba, one of the various soups she grew up eating as the Israeli-born daughter of a Moroccan mother and Iraqi father, features robust beef-stuffed farina dumplings afloat in a vibrant broth that’s light in body but rich in fresh beety flavor ($11; 1209 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Westminster Rd., Ditmas Park; 718-284-4444).
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Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
Mimi’s proprietor Avi Shuker emails with the good news: Starting Friday, November 27, they’ll be serving wine and beer.
Friday, November 20th, 2009
The food blog Blondie and Brownie gives brunch at Mimi’s some love:
Mimi’s Hummus in Ditmas Park is so much more than their namesake dish, in fact I’ll be bold and just say that it’s one of my favorite new Brooklyn brunch places in recent memory…
Mimi’s brunch reminds me of brunch at Miriam when it first opened. Miriam was my first exposure to the wonders of the Israeli brunch–shakshuka, burekas, Israeli salad, and labne. Mmmm, labne. Lawman and I were early adopters at Miriam and it’s still a favorite though the prices have creeped up over time–what once was a sub $10 brunch with coffee is now $11.95. The brunches at Mimi’s don’t come with coffee but the dishes are all under $11 with most going for $9….
Read the whole thing here.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
Yet another rave for Mimi’s Hummus, this one from New York Magazine’s Underground Gourmet, and another reminder of how lucky we are in the ratio of quality to quantity of local restaurants:
The high-ceilinged space is cramped but cute, even stylish, you might say. A perforated wooden scrim of sorts nicely frames the open kitchen, and the sweet-natured servers prove equally adroit at maneuvering around the tightly packed tables and pronouncing the trickiest of Semitic-language words (zhoug, for instance—the fragrant Yemenite hot sauce). For that, credit goes to Israeli chef-owner Mimi Kitani, who mines her Iraqi and Moroccan heritage for unusual specials and puts her own expertly spiced spin on the cuisine’s classics. Her hummuses (hummi?) are thick and rich, glossed with oil, scattered with parsley, and served with a basket of hot, puffy pitas. You can’t go wrong, whether you choose the one crowned with a scoop of favas or the cumin-scented mushroom version, or the even more substantial meat hummus, distinguished by a layer of cinnamon-scented ground beef flecked with pine nuts….And yet, there’s more to Mimi’s than mashed chickpeas. Take, for instance, the cauliflower salad—sweetly caramelized florets flavored with homemade tahini. It’s the best thing to happen to cauliflower since Dévi’s cracklike Manchurian version. The rice-stuffed grape leaves, too, have much to offer, flavorwise, albeit in small, nugget-shaped packages. Crunchy Israeli salad, the thick spice-dusted yogurt cheese called labneh, and a sprightly tabbouleh are textbook renditions, but palates accustomed to smoky baba ghannouj might be taken aback by the flavor profile of a honey-enhanced eggplant “caviar,” and a similarly sweet note characterizes the megadara, a mix of lentils, raisins, and bulgur. The ground-lamb pie, though, baked in a skillet, studded with pine nuts, and frosted like a cake with a layer of tahini, is an unequivocal success, and the tart tomato-and-onion salad that comes with it a refreshing foil. Counterintuitive as it might seem to order hot soup in August, the kuba, a lemony broth floating slivered beets and farina-dumpling pockets stuffed with beef, is worth breaking into a sweat over.
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Monday, July 13th, 2009
It is diminishing to call Mimi’s a hummus joint, even though that’s what it calls itself. That’s because the tiny, charming spot is capable of so much more (not to take anything away from the hummus, which happens to be nutty and rich, creamy and delicious, in all five variations; $8 and $9). Our best advice: Heed the specials. Especially if they happen to be a ground-lamb pie baked in a skillet and strewn with parsley and pine nuts, served with a tangy tomato salad; or a tart and lemony Iraqi beet soup showcasing plump farina dumplings filled with beef. Mimi herself has become a neighborhood fixture, especially among the toddler set, who seem drawn as much to the chef’s sunny disposition as to the jar of homemade peanut-butter cookies she keeps on the counter
.
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Monday, May 11th, 2009
Starting at noon today, May 11, you can order from Mimi’s Hummus and have your food brought to you.
That is if you live within the following boundaries:
Between Parkside Avenue and Avenue H, Ocean Avenue and Ocean Parkway. They did promise to deliver to 2022 Beverley Road as well.
Delivery is daily, 12:00 noon till 10:00PM. Call: 718 284 4444
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Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
A great piece in the Times today on the Israeli trend, come to New York, of Hummusiot, or “hummus parlors.”
The Times reviews four, and concludes:
The newest of these hummusiot also happens to be the best.
Mimi’s Hummus opened in February on Cortelyou Road, the Restaurant Row of Ditmas Park.
The tiny square shopfront is sunny and airy, with only eight tables. Perforated wood planks, swooping up to the ceiling, are a clever update of Middle Eastern latticework.
The owner, Mimi Kitani, is Israeli, but her mother grew up in Morocco and her father in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Culinary traces from each country surface in her well-edited selection of small plates.
The menu notes “All dishes are homemade,” and that’s evident in the vibrancy of the flavors. Ms. Kitani’s aunt grinds the za’atar spice mix by hand in Israel. Crimson-stained turnips are fished out of a pickling jar brimming with garlic cloves.
The velvety hummus takes five forms ($8 to $9). In one version, bright with lemon, it serves as a bed for whole chickpeas that have the bite of beans properly soaked overnight. In another, the same hummus base turns earthy and fragrant when finished with cinnamon-laced ground beef and pine nuts.
As a complement, the stuffed grape leaves ($6) are moist but sturdy, collapsing only once in the mouth. Cauliflower, not the sexiest of vegetables, gets a swagger from a bold toss of parsley and tahini ($5). It nearly upstages the hummus, and could inspire a following of its own.
Congrats on the well-deserved honor.
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Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
Only in Ditmas Park:
A New York Times photographer shoots a couple eating lunch at Mimi’s Hummus…who just happen to be Times favorites Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan, eating across the street from their soon-to-open Purple Yam.
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Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
(Click to enlarge.)
We all stopped by Mimi’s today, and it’s really extraordinarily good.
I’d vaguely expected a standard falafel joint, but instead it’s much less greasy, more creative, and only slightly more expensive. (And doesn’t even serve falafel.)
We’ve tried about half the small menu at this point, and liked most of it. The fava bean and meat hummus — made fresh in front of us — were tasty and filling; the shakshuka eggs and rich tomato stew were a meal unto themselves; the beef in filo dough was fragrant and light. Of the salads, the cauliflower was a favorite.
The chocolate coconut balls were sweet and mild, and kept the kids very happy.
Other good things: the space, though tiny, is warm and comfortable. They’re open from noon until midnight. And they’re doing takeout.
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Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
Mimi’s Hummus, on Cortelyou between Argyle and Westminster, opened at 4:30 today, and I poked my head in to the small restaurant a little later.
It looks great, and fits more tables — five, I think (?) than you’d think possible. The menu was affordable and had more varieties of hummus than I’m used to, including “meat hummus,” and lots of other tasty-sounding Middle Eastern food. My neighbor Jed, who was there with his family, gave it the thumbs up.
But one downside of the space is that it wasn’t the sort of place where you could stand around taking pictures and copying down the menu, so I don’t have either yet. They’ll have takeout menus — and takeout food — starting next week.
In the meantime, send pictures or reviews if you stop in.
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