Petite Crevette

46. Petite Crevette
144 Union Street (Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn)





Crossing the overpass across the BQE, we were led onto a small, quaint block that housed two TONY spaces around the corner from each other, Petite Crevette and Ferdinando’s Focacceria (see the post on Fernando’s next week). Petite Crevette, meaning “little shrimp”, is, in fact, quite petite and with a party of six traveling around Brooklyn we asked for our selections to go so as not to crowd their space. The menu is hand-written on the wall just above the counter displaying fresh seafood. Though all of the selections sounded very enticing, we ordered the TONY-recommended corn and crab chowder ($8) and after finding some plastic spoons at a nearby bodega we were ready to sample. On a scale from Manhattan clam chowder to New England clam chowder, the soup was probably a 20/80 split as it was creamy but not as thick of a stock as New England clam chowder tends to be. Yes, it’s pretty much just corn chowder with pieces of crab in it and for $8 I would have liked some more fresh seafood, but it’s still a quality offering. Rich and creamy with a considerable amount of corn for texture and flavor, the soup is big enough to share and is probably too rich for one person to finish an entire serving anyway. With the entrée selections as compelling as they are, I could definitely see myself returning for some cioppino and another corn and crab chowder.