New York minute

The “I was warned”: Colonie in Brooklyn Heights, where my consort and I ducked in after Sahadi’s on a Saturday outing to terra incognita and where the underwhelming food seemed less underwhelming because our friend in the neighborhood had flagged it with yellow lights. The space is quite impressive, with front and back bars (the latter overlooking the stoves), and greenery both visible out the back windows and on the wall between front and back rooms. And the staff was almost hyper-hospitable. If only what we faced down on our plates had been at that level. I of course had to order the duck hash, which was more like a warm potato salad sans acid: halved fancy baby potatoes, a few chunks of bland meat, an oozing poached egg that neither added nor subtracted from the final assemblage (not being a runny-yolk fan, I was almost disappointed that this one just lay there like a lox). It was enough to send me home to the dictionary to check if I’d lost my mind, but yes, “hash” should involve browning. Bob’s “shrimp and grits” also missed the concept, with two huge grilled crustaceans laid onto the creamy grits. It was yet another marriage of partners not communicating. WIGB? Not when we passed other tempting places the farther we got on our stroll over to where Atlantic Avenue hits big-box city.