Posted on: January 24th, 2012 Shark Burgers At Trini-Flavored Island Burger In East Flatbush Brooklyn
Shark Burgers At Trini-Flavored Island Burger In East Flatbush Brooklyn
For $9.50, their shark burger will make you feel like you’re on vacation in Trinidad.
That’s what the two sisters who own Island Burger had in mind when they opened the East Flatbush fast-food restaurant at 915 Utica Ave. 18 months ago.
Picture Maracas Beach, where shark sandwiches are sold in huts right on the sand. Or Port of Spain, where sidewalk vendors serve hamburgers with a slice of pineapple, garlic sauce and cole slaw heaped on top.
“Shark is beach food,” said Linette Beckles, 34, who with her big sister Tracy Agarrat, 40 owns the takeout joint and six-seat eatery that dishes up a boneless filet of the fearsome fish.
The restaurant’s three chefs turn the terror of the deep into a tasty morsel by seasoning it for 12 hours before frying it and topping it with chadon beni — a sauce made of a pungent herb, culantro — tamarind sauce, cole slaw, lettuce and tomato.
After Beckles and her boyfriend were wowed by burgers they bought at a street stand during a visit to Port of Spain, she returned home to Mill Basin and told her sister to forget about the clothing store they’d talked about opening.
“Let’s sell burgers and fast food made the Trini way,” she said to y Agarrat of Crown Heights.
There are scads of West Indian restaurants in Central Brooklyn competing for customers with roti and peas and rice.
But the sibs couldn’t find anyone doing Trini burgers, and thought they could make a go of it.
To save money, they rented a storefront with a stove and other restaurant equipment the previous tenant left behind.
They’d worked in Manhattan food businesses — including a decade Agarrat spent as a restaurant manager for food-industry bigwig Stephen Hanson’s BR Guest.
