Kitchen At Cobble Hill
“We recently held our post-wedding brunch at Karloff, and the place and its owner – Olga – are just phenomenal.”
“The chicken soup with meat dumplings is divine, and cheese blintzes are a must!!!”
“The Latkes came along with the traditional sour cream and this amazing homemade apple sauce.”
Kitchen At Cobble Hill
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Wheelchair Accessible: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Two other tables of diners on a weds night for dinner. With seating were asked if we want flat or seltzer water so we opt for seltzer. What the waiter doesn't tell us tho is its $3/glass, we found out with the bill.
Now on to the food. Started with the soup of the day (roasted red pepper and cauliflower vegan purée). Texture was nice, lots of red pepper flavor. Latkes were pretty delicious, I'd describe them like thin cut hash browns loosely shaped into pancakes. They were crispy and went well with caramelized onions and thick sour cream.
Watermelon salad was small cubes with too much feta and a good amount of arugula. Mint flavor and dressing were good, just didn't impress me and wasn't as refreshing as I imagined. Beef stew was comforting like Babushka would do.
Service and food came out slow but overall I'd try again with a new menu.
Perfect meal would remind me of home if I were from Eastern Europe. I had chicken soup with something like kreplach floating in it. Reminded me of great homemade matzoh ball soup base. Fantastic pirogies, borscht, and chicken liver sandwich with salad. Small portions make this place affordable for trying lots of things. Recommended highly. Olga will make sure you have all you need. My vegetarian fiancee loved the vegan borscht. We were visiting NYC for 5 days and this was our favorite meal among many fabulous dining experiences.
Karloff is one of those places that you always pass by, but never notice. I've actually had it on my to-do list for years but couldn't even picture what it looked like.
Luckily, I was able to finally make my way here for dinner on a Saturday night. It wasn't full, but it was still lively inside. A lot of the other patrons were definitely Russian or Eastern European, which is a good sign.
For a starter, I shared the vareniki platter, which was a sample of all three types – cabbage, beef/pork, and potato. It's a little up there at $24, but you get a ton. If every person gets an entree, it could easily be an appetizer for 3-4. If I had to complain about something, it's that they were all on the same plate jumbled together and not organized, so it was a surprise figuring out what was what. I had like 4 cabbage ones and just 1 meat dumpling. Oh well, they were good anyway.
For a main, I had the lake trout, which came over cauliflower and kasha risotto. The cauliflower was delicious. Never had kasha before, but it looked like quinoa, and tasted like quinoa with less flavor. But the fish was seared nicely.
They also have some interesting cocktails, mostly made with vodka (duh). I went with the Fall Fashioned,m which was a rye cocktail with pears and walnut syrup. It was entirely too sweet, but it was pretty strong. They also have one of my favorite beers from my teenage years, Baltika #9.
The good was a good smattering of modern European dishes. It seemed slightly overpriced for the serving sizes. Wine list was mediocre with fair prices. The cocktails looked nice, but didn't try one on this visit. No need to make a reservation on a Tuesday night — there was no one there when we walked in. By the time we left, maybe 5 tables were filled. The latkas were really good, wish there had been three instead of two for $9! The chicken soup was decent, but the dumplings were not that great. The modified strog was good, small portion though. We had a question about the AMAZING brussel sprout side and how it was prepared, and the owner came out and answered us and thanked us for our patronage.
Went back here for dinner, service was a bit worse, they seemed a bit overwhelmed. Otherwise, the food was mostly quite good.
Drink: Baltika 6, I think it was 7 bucks. It's an honestly good Baltic Porter (as in a sweet Eastern European style Porter.)
If I had to add this as part of the review, it's a 3.5/4 star beer (for it being a good Russian beer) at a 4 star price
Appetizers:
Had: Varenikis: Smashed Potato Dumplings | creamy mushroom sauce | 10
OK Varenikis, reminded me of some smaller places with similar texture/flavor. Mushroom sauce was a step up from the normal though. 3.5 Varenikis, 4.0 sauce, 3.75 dish. There were 6 of them for the price which is reasonable (for Cobble Hill.)
Tried:
Vegan Borscht | 6
Oddly did not come with any dollop of sour cream. OK flavor. I've had better Borscht before but I have definitely had worse. Refreshing.
3.7
Dinner/Side:
Had:
Chicken Liver Sandwich | creamy chicken liver pate, shaved egg whites on toasted dark rye & pickle | 11 Same as before just 2 bucks more
No real difference in terms of size. If anything, I don't mind it being 2 bucks more as it was still definitely worth it. I think they should add a mini-pickle or something on the side to cut the richness but it is so good.
4.7
Crispy Brussels Sprouts: 7
Excellent, super crispy, good portion. 4.3
Tried:
Pan Seared Idaho Trout: lake trout, caramelized cauliflower & buckwheat kasha risotto | 19
I don't like trout much but the fish here was cooked really well. Didn't try the cauliflower but the kasha is delicious, super nutty.
4.0
Grilled Vegetables & Goat Cheese Sandwich | grilled zucchini, portabello mushrooms, yellow squash,
carrots & goat cheese on toasted dark rye | 10
Tried it, was pretty good. Bread as before worked well for the sandwich contents. Good vegetables.
Did not try: Chicken and Avocado Sandwich, I didn't try it as I don't like avocado. He enjoyed it.
Dessert:
Well, I kinda got dessert
I ordered the "Russian Honey Cake," aka Medovic. it came with poached pears and was 7 bucks.
Instead, I got a cake for 9 bucks with a berry sauce, which was listed as Smetmanik (which is a sour cream cake.) I love the former dessert while the later was OK. They also said it was honey cake which is weird since I know exactly what honey cake is, as there is an amazing Russian bakery near me called Taste of Home (yelp.com/biz/taste-of-ho…,) which has 2 different types of honey cake.
I'd probably give the Smetmanik a 3.0, though this is probably more the situation rather than what happened. I mean, if it wasn't that it was clearly posted that it came with poached pears, I would have assumed it was the secondary type of Honey Cake sold at the other place.
The place is still around a 4 for dinner, maybe a bit less than 4. I'd say to stick with lunch/brunch though.
We love Karloff! They really care, which you can taste in the delicious food and tasty drinks. It took us a while to try the place, and now we go back almost every week for brunch. (The bloody mary is divine.) Surprisingly huge variety of gluten free options too-with a very chill vibe. Go!
Not sure how long this has been Kitchen but this is no longer Karloff and it's been redecorated. What remains though is a similar menu and WiFi access that contains its name (and that's the only clue you'll get).
The stroganoff was a little bland and dry but the meat was tender. Not sure if it was the absence of sour cream, mushrooms, noodles or what but something seemed to be lacking.
They were out of the beef and pork dumplings for my chicken soup so I agreed to substitute the cabbage dumplings which were actually a good choice and complemented the excellent soup. I am not a big fan of white meat chicken as it tends to be drier than dark meat but it was not the case in this perfectly balanced classic. One thing that I have to note is that I expected an eastern European dumpling meaning some kind of dropped leavened flour/bread ball in the soup but there were dumplings like the Chinese kind with a filling. Wonder why it wasn't described on the menu as pelmeni or kreplach which would have been more accurate given the Russian/eastern European theme to the menu. Think Cobble Hill can handle Russian and Yiddish terminology.
The deviled eggs were good and satisfying. Hard to have fresh eggs handy for an appetizer that tastes like they were just boiled but these were. The filling was creamy and appealing.
Our dessert was Steve's key lime pie, a good Brooklyn standby. The dollop of whipped cream was how I like it, unsweetened and plentiful. I would be curious to try their chocolate tart or honey layer cake next time though.
The service was good and not horrendous as reviewed by others but this was a slow Tuesday night and not a Sunday brunch. I was not disappointed at all with the service which was attentive and engaging.
For a local restaurant it is adequate and certainly can satisfy different cravings with other choices like a $22 steak frites, salmon and roast chicken. I would be willing to come back or order delivery on another night when I am too tired to cook.
Came here today for brunch and I wasn't quite as wowed as some of the other reviewers here. We ordered the potato and meat varenikis (dumplings) and the latke and egg breakfasts. The latkes were very good, but the eggs were dry. And the varenikis were just OK- I've had better at other Russian restaurants.
I know Karloff does dinner very well, so I'll be back and hope to update this review with one more star- stay tuned…