Pic courtesy of BakedNYC

All you need is one good excuse to go to Red Hook. It’s just hard enough to get to (if you don’t live nearby) that wandering into the neighborhood spontaneously usually isn’t an option. Pick any of these destinations, doesn’t matter which: the cool Southern-Gothic bar Botanica, The Good Fork restaurant, Ikea (if you must), the Red Hook ballfield food vendors, or Baked NYC. For the sake of argument, let’s go with Baked: worth coming all the way out here for their Coca Cola Bundt cake, a sweet-and-salty brownie, or a peanut butter, honey, and banana tart; even the granola is a knockout here. Then walk across the street to the wickedly well-curated little knicknack shop Erie Basin (the owner designed the new Baked branch in Charleston), and spend the day poking around the Red Hook streets. If it’s a Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday night, end up at Sunny’s, an old longshoremen’s bar down by the river.

Baked NYC: 359 Van Brunt St. between Dikeman and Wolcott Sts., Red Hook; (718) 222-0345. Sunny’s: 253 Conover St. between Beard and Reed Sts., Red Hook; 718-625-8211. The Good Fork: 391 Van Brunt St. between Van Dyke and Coffey Sts. Red Hook; (718) 643-6636. Botanica: 220 Conover St. at Coffey St., Red Hook.

Prices/Features: Baked NYC:  CHP, VGT   Sunny’s: CHP, DRNK   The Good Fork  MOD    Botanica: DRNK.   (See Welcome to Salmaland for key to letter abbreviations.)