S&D; No Go-Go; Ony; Supper

I got lucky and experienced a Brooklyn Pastoral on that crisp, sunny Sunday last weekend. Wandering the streets there was a woman who needed help loading a piece of furniture into her car. She got it. Then a wheelchair-bound man needed a push across Atlantic Ave. I was there for him too. On every block families were coming from church, hands to hats because of the autumnal gusts, leading flocks of well-scrubbed children more comfortable in their Sunday best than they'd been in months. There was a house tour in Prospect Heights that afternoon, so renovated brownstones were decorated with colored balloons and "Welcome" signs. And a swath of the neighborhood smelled like spicy barbecue.

The responsible party was the proprietor of Washington Ave.'s S&D Jamaican bakery, making jerk chicken in an oil-drum grill on the sidewalk. He does this Saturday nights as well. The meat smokes under a closed lid, with an exhaust chimney perfuming the block. In the daylight, such culinary extroversion seems a little out of place. West Indian restaurants don't usually market to potential customers not from the region, no matter how good their food is. S&D's sign, for example, just says "Bakery," though there's always something to eat for lunch or dinner there. Its Saturday-night cookout scenario is so Jamaican it can feel like a private party, even though it isn't at all. But the Sunday version drew every kind of person who doesn't go to church. Some of us practically floated in on a trail of mouthwatering smoke, like hungry cartoon characters.

We got a portion of old-time religion as well. See, the grill man works on Sunday, but he's not one to sneeze at God's Sabbath. He tunes in a Christian station on his store's boombox and turns it up until he can hear the preaching out on the sidewalk. Waiting for the jerk chicken to be ready, I heard a sermon about King Solomon, sex addict. The radio man had an hypnotic, new-age style. His voice was impossibly resonant. The box must've had its bass still cranked from reggae the night before. There was so much depth to the broadcaster's tone, I found I could focus on its extreme low end and hear an abstract sort of dub version of the sermon. "?wisdom of King Solomon" became "?bom-bom ba Bee Bom-bom-bom." It was sort of intense.

S&D has been in place a little over a year. It competes with the older Natural Blend restaurant a little farther south, and with the new Trinidadian Roti Shop directly across the street. Brooklyn's West Indian sphere of influence is expanding eastward. Two more avenues and it'll meet Park Slope. If God has any sense of humor, there'll be oil-drum barbecues on 7th Ave.'s sidewalks by 2004.

My four-dollar portion of fresh-off-the-grill jerk chicken must have weighed about a pound. For smokiness S&D gets top marks. The man uses fancy charcoal from Western Beef, and he's expert at flame control. The sauce he applies is only okay. It's a mixture of fresh ingredients and pepper sauces with supermarket honey-barbecue goop. There was the familiar slow burn, but not the notes of ginger or cinnamon you get when a jerk cook relies on a preparatory dry spice-rub as much as post-grill slathering. Overall it was pretty Brooklyn. What it was, really, was country. Jamaicans use that word to mean "untainted by moral turpitude," and that's really how Brooklyn felt that day.

S&D, 667 Washington Ave. (betw. St. Marks Ave. & Prospect Pl.), 718-622-3160.

Go-Go No Go

I've had more disappointing sushi experiences in the last year than in the previous five. Not at any of the top places. It's the midlevel that's sinking. And sushi's bottom rung is dangerously close to the dirty floor. One encounter in particular requires me to take back a positive review I wrote last year. Sushi A-Go-Go might still be one of the best places to grab a quick meal before a show at Lincoln Center, but the restaurant has definitely slipped. Currently it's a tossup. At best, a Go-Go platter will hit par for the course: a few wonderful slices of fish, a few not so wonderful. The rice and service are still above average.

One time this summer, however, Sushi A-Go-Go served me some thoroughly disgusting tuna. It stank. Have you ever tried to send sushi back? It tends not to work so well, possibly due to the importance in Asian business culture of saving face. That's my experience, anyway. So I let it lie. Only later did I realize I'd not only told readers to eat at this restaurant, but praised its tuna specifically, so it would have behooved me to inflate my repugnance into as dramatic a story as possible. Sorry. You'll have to settle for this correction.

Sushi-A-Go-Go, 1900 Broadway (betw. 63rd & 64th Sts.), 724-7340.

Sumo Soup

But there is a new Japanese restaurant with fine sushi! It's just not a sushi restaurant. It only serves a few rolls?no sashimi or nigiri pieces. Still, it's great to have a chance to get your sushi on someplace new, so start with an appetizing maki when you visit Ony Japanese Noodle Bar.

I'm confident you'll find yourself at this restaurant soon if you haven't already. It fills a huge gap in the cheap-and-wholesome category for the area around the W. 4th St. station. Most of the tourists and basketballers in the vicinity are afraid to enter the place because it's so Asian. But the casual sort of place it is is extremely common on the other side of the world. Unlike its one-notch-fancier east-side competitor, Soba-Ya, Ony isn't near any other Japanese businesses. Its sibling restaurant is up on E. 55th St. Downtown, where Ony has been since February, it's an island. And it's almost nationalistically upfront about its authenticity.

The name stands for Original Noodles for You. The menu features several stirring testimonials from the owner about the quality of his ingredients, and you get a customer-survey questionnaire with you check. Even if those amount to corporate boilerplate, at least it indicates seriousness about food. The menu also provides explanations, which are helpful despite such claims as, "Hakata Ramen?is especially popular among the Hakata people for its strengthening quality."

You can choose from a menu of noodle soups or invent your own, choosing broth, noodle type and any from an array of meats and vegetables. Base price is $4.75, and fixings range from 50 cents each for tofu, seaweed or shiitake mushrooms to $2 for salmon or eel.

I went with Original Menchanko ($7.75), because I understand chanko truly is "the primary source of energy for sumo wrestlers" (but don't they also need "strengthening quality"?) and it's rare to see it on a menu here. "Men" before "chanko" means Ony adds noodles. The restaurant also offers variations for vegetarians and fishatarians. With Original, you get ramen, various textured soy products and some veggies in a seafood broth, with a couple of pieces of shrimp and chicken for good measure. It did feel strong. The broth was hearty, rich in flavor though neither thick nor very salty. The addition of some of Ony's remarkable red-pepper paste brought dimensions of smoke, heat and tang.

The noodles were absolutely perfect, doughy yet toothsome. It's like the bagel principle coming into play when noodle consistency is so right. It spoils you for inferior products, and makes you loyal to the more careful cook.

Ony Japanese Noodle Bar, 357 6th Ave. (betw. W. 4th St. & Washington Pl.), 414-8429.

Supper

If there really is some mechanism of cosmic balance at work in the restaurant scene, some Newton's Third Law of New York Dining, I hate to think what we may lose along with decent midpriced sushi. Because the Italian food in Manhattan just keeps getting better.

Recently I made it to Supper, the latest East Village brother of both the renowned Frank and this year's "Best New Restaurant," Lil' Frankie's Pizza. Supper is more Northern Italian and bigger than the other two. But it's every bit as extraordinary. Again, the game is simple, robust, traditional dishes, moderately priced and flawlessly executed. Counting Frank's Ave. B annex, Max, restaurateur Frank Pisinzano is now four-for-four.

A tagliatelle with butter and mint tasted like it contained the Platonic forms Butter and Mint. Supper did it again with another modest pasta, inciting a sensual experience with just lemon and little fresh parmesan. Starters of warm eggplant and tomatoes, cured salmon and even simple sauteed mushrooms on toast had everyone poking forks on everyone else's plate. Why can't we make food like this ourselves, at home? We should be able to but we can't. It's flabbergasting.

The veal Milanese was flat, tender, wine-kissed, coated in spices and garnished with ripe tomatoes and arugula. The dish haunted my memory for days. But the absolute most amazing thing about supper at Supper was the grilled asparagus appetizer. It tasted as good as anything possibly can. And it was just asparagus.

If you come as a party of two, be ready to sit at a big communal table, or wait a long time. We had to linger for a drink or two on the way to a Friday-night table at Supper, but in contrast to Frank, the younger restaurant has some room at the bar. Supper's bartender seemed happy to help our party navigate the evening's diverse menu of wines by the glass, and we were all pleased with our selections. Things only got more fun from there.

Supper, 156 2nd St. (betw. Aves. A & B), 477-7600.