Panzón

Greenpoint Is Where You’ll Find One of the City’s Most Alluring Bar Snacks | Eater NY

"I was astonished recently at Panzón, a new bar at 23 Greenpoint Avenue in Brooklyn, which feels like a contemporary Mexico City bar: mainly a drinks-focused spot offering cleverly named cocktails, craft and Mexican beers, and skin-contact wines, but with a bar-food menu that threatens to overshadow the booze. Chef Alfredo “Fredy” Ilanos, born and raised in Mexico City, fills the deep, narrow space (a bar up front framed by a cactus forest, raised bar tables further in, and two- and four-tops with splendid views of the kitchen—these are the best seats) with abundant art, including strings of ceramic bells, folkloric masks, wall-weavings, and a beatific Madonna clutching a molotov cocktail. The food astonished me: a $6 glistening nest of newly fried onion shreds sprinkled with crumbly cricket salt and served with an orange chile-mayo (tart, almost metallic, and irresistible); an $18 avocado margarita rimmed with chile salt and a cucumber contrast (very mild); a crazy $18 pollo milanesa torta that irrationally piles salsa-dressed chilaquiles atop a floppy chicken cutlet with avocado, black beans, crema, Oaxacan cheese, jalapenos, and purple pickled onions (the crunch-and-squish combo is sublime); distinctive guacamole laced with blistered poblanos served with just-fried corn tortillas that taste like a cornfield; the machete quesadilla ($18) with an earthy mushroom-and-cheese filling though its shape misses the Mexico City original; sticky wings in a tamarind barbecue sauce that are aggressively tart and sweet but maddeningly messy; and a trio of tinga tacos ($18) with shredded chicken heat tempered by a cooling avocado salsa." - Robert Sietsema