There is a little place in Brooklyn, NY called the Brooklyn Ball Factory. It is a restaurant and the balls in question are meatballs. The restaurant is located in the middle of a block of old brick buildings that has seen better times – if they saw them even then. Google map it at 94 Montrose Ave, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY to see just how humble the area is.
The fare is simple, tasty and affordable. The decor is a cross between early 20th Century Industrial and the kind of fusion restaurant decor you would find in pricier places west across the River in Manhattan proper. The owner took out the sun roof and put in stairs to a roof deck patio he built himself.
It seems like a nice place to go after a gentle practise of qigong and Tai Chi.
…Tai Chi has its roots in the country villages and temples of old China. The Tai Chi of today is mostly practised in crowded mega-cities and their not much smaller relatives. Brooklyn is a “little” place compared to its bigger sibling on the other side of the East River. It is like the cities of long ago and far away where the buildings weren’t all that tall and the bamboo groves and country fields not all that far away.
I know there are Tai Chi studios in Brooklyn. Patience Tai Chi is one such group and has a venerable history associated with Prof. Cheng. I wonder if they ever go to the Brooklyn Ball Factory after practise. Very often, talking about practise over a nice meal and cups of green tea is as good as practise itself.
Sometimes…even better.
*Read the review and see more pictures in The New York Times:
taichiandco 