A Taste of Haiti, Fiery and Fresh
By DANA BOWEN, New York Times

James Estrin/The New York Times TROPICAL Kombit, a bit of the Caribbean in Brooklyn.

Kombit, the new Haitian restaurant perched between Park Slope and Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, there are two kinds of customers: those who know and love piklis, and those who unwittingly scorch their tongues tasting it for the first time.

The Haitian sisters who run the place — Denise, Maryse and Pascale Félix — are quick to coach newcomers about this fiery condiment. "Piklis comes with everything fried," Pascale Félix explained, pointing to a ramekin of seemingly harmless cabbage-carrot slaw and advising caution. It is hotter than Hades with Scotch bonnets, but cut through the fried appetizers with bright bursts of fresh flavor. Halfway into my meal, I had to have more.

Kombit refers to the Haitian tradition of communal farming and feasting, and so the dining room is decorated with agrarian scenes. The restaurant, intended as a sophisticated alternative to casual Haitian joints, has the look of upscale dining but the soul of a family hangout.

Brooklyn's mélange of accents — Caribbean here, Midwestern there — bounces off the wood-trimmed walls, and house cocktails, like the Sunshine, made of Barbancourt rum and passion fruit ($8), fuel good moods.

The food is homey and affordable, and those new to Haitian food could not ask for a better introduction. True to the cuisine, Kombit's kitchen coaxes flavor out of root vegetables, perfumes dishes with whiffs of nutmeg and clove and excels in fried seafood, which comes with the sinus-clearing piklis.

Dishes arrive with huge heaps of coconut-sweetened rice and cranberry beans, and mild fried plantains. But most tables begin with fritay lakay ($5.95), a generous sampler including plantain, battered sweet potatoes and fritters that deliver a creamy whoosh of yautia, a Haitian root that is sometimes called malanga. There are crispy cubes of pork grillot, marinated in citrus juice, garlic and herbs, then deep-fried to chewy, subtly seasoned bites.

It is wise to balance fried with fresh, and a snappy pile of mesclun with sharp shallot vinaigrette ($4) does the trick. Rara salad ($4) — chopped sweet beets, corn, white onion and green pepper — looks like something from a salad bar, but is refreshing and satisfying.

Kombit, like many traditional Haitian kitchens, has a wonderful way with fish, as long as you like red snapper (it is the only fish served) and do not mind bones, heads and tails. Escovitch (the Caribbean version of escabeche, $14) — an entire fish, fried crisp and drizzled with spicy vinegar — tames the forcefully flavored meat, which yields into juicy pieces beneath the skin.

Milder is whole poisson gros sel ($14), which is rubbed in salt before poaching in a buttery fish stock. Plainer still is fried snapper with sliced peppers, onions and a tomato-concentrated sauce.

This herby Creole sauce — spelled on the menu "Kreyol," the Haitian way — threads through the food, making a meal of onions, peppers and plump shrimp ($14) and adding intrigue to a modest plate of dark meat chicken ($9). It is also the base for traditional lambi ($14), a sweet and briny stew of conch meat. When no one at our table ordered it one evening, a disappointed Pascale delivered a little bowl to share, explaining how the conch are removed from their shells, pounded flat. then simmered for hours. Flavorful? Yes. Chewy? Like stubborn clams.

Sundays are busy at Kombit, when the kitchen whips up special dishes like djon-djon ($4), the black dried mushrooms that flavor sweet peas and white rice. A gigantic bowl of spiced pumpkin soup ($6.95) could feed a small family, its creamy base stocked with simmered-until-sweet cabbage, stew beef, carrots, potatoes and pasta shells (unnecessary and unfortunately, overcooked).

There are a few disappointments, like dry coconut shrimp ($6.95) and bread-crumbed calamari rings ($4.95), out of context and uninspired. And goat tassot ($12), marinated and fried like the pork grillot, was perpetually unavailable.

But after a moist and rummy peach upside-down cake ($4) and juicy sticks of fresh sugar cane ($2), I hardly missed it. If Kombit were to run out of piklis, however, that would be a different story.

Kombit

279 Flatbush Avenue (Prospect Place), Brooklyn

BEST DISHES Fried meat and vegetable sampler; pork grillot; conch stew; fried fish escovitch (Caribbean for escabeche); upside-down cake.

PRICE RANGE $4 to $16; lunch specials, $6.95.

CREDIT CARDS Visa and Mastercard.

HOURS Noon to 11 p.m. daily.

WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Small step up to restrooms.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times