Bargain Hunting in Brooklyn: 3 Course Meal, $30

Arugula pizza at Gristmill

Happy hour menus get butts in seats at bars but eating early is often anathema to New Yorkers. Sure, there are pre-theater menus but many of us would never deign to make an early dinner reservation.

Sugar snap peas

Well, Gristmill in Park Slope, Brooklyn has an enticing alternative, and you can eat as late as 7:30. It's 3 for $30 menu, available Monday through Thursday, starts at 5pm, which is still brunch time for some But you can get to the restaurant at 7:15 and have a fantastic bargain priced meal.

For whatever reason, Gristmill, which opened at the same time as a couple of other highly touted Brooklyn restaurants, hasn't gotten the same press.  But it deserves it. The wood-fired oven turns out excellent pizza crusts and breads.

Cucumber and yogurt

On the 3 for $30 menu (which changes frequently) we had a light cucumber and yogurt dish that was not quite a soup, but delicious. It was perfect for a hot summer night. It was studded with nasturtium blossoms. I am a sucker for edible flowers.

We also shared sugar snap peas, enliven by edible violets.

Kale and potato pizza

Then we got two full size pizzas (the only other choice that night was a non-vegetarian burger). One pizza had arugula and cheese; the other, kale and potato. And cheese, plus a spicy jalapeño vinaigrette. The pizzas were more than enough for dinner, but with two appetizers, we had to take half of each home.

And we still had our third course.

That night, the desert options were a blackberry buttermilk pie and chocolate cake. There may have been another choice but I stopped reading at these.  Our waiter packed up a slab of each, and we had dinner for the next night, too, with dessert.