There’s a version of Brooklyn that exists today only in the movies. It’s the one where kids play stickball in the street, grannies in housedresses rest their elbows on pillow-padded windowsills, and people sit on their stoops for hours, occasionally getting up to go chat with a neighbor on another. Visit Brooklyn these days and this scene is next to impossible to find, but that Brooklyn was real once. I know, because I lived there most of my life.

Whenever I go back, I’m amazed at how the borough’s transformation doesn’t seem to let up. There’s a lot of really good, fun stuff there that wasn’t before, but it often feels too much the same: the same huge beer gardens popping up in former industrial lots, the crop of awesome but nearly indistinguishable third-wave coffee shops, the same cocktail bars executing the same twist-garnished Old Fashioneds, the same farm-to-table-restaurants-with-craft-beers-on-tap (though, if we could get just one of those in Jackson Heights, I’d be stoked).

Which is why it’s good to remember that vestiges of the old Brooklyn remain, if you make an effort to notice them. In fact, in some areas, the Brooklyn of my youth is positively thriving, especially when you venture out of the gentrified neighborhoods closest to Manhattan. Well, except for the stickball…I haven’t seen anyone play a pickup game of that since the ’80s.

To that end, here is my personal list of destinations for a truly old-school Brooklyn eating experience. Before diving in, I need to be clear about one thing: This is not a list of the “best” restaurants in Brooklyn, whether newer ones like Roberta’s or older ones like Totonno’s. Those lists already exist, in triplicate, in just about every publication in the land. No, these are the places that most remind me of the good decades I spent in one of the greatest cities in the world—because, yes, Brooklyn is a city unto itself, no matter its political designation—and all I can do is thank the heavens they’re still there, carrying the torch.

Of course, it wasn’t all quite so charming. One of those stickball kids from my block in Carroll Gardens used to yell the same greeting every time he saw me and my sister. ” Then he’d jump on his bike and chase us, threatening to whack us with his broomstick bat. We’d flee to the safety of our stoop and taunt back, “We’re on private property, you can’t get us.” And, for whatever reason, he’d respect that and ride off.

It’s hard to square my feelings about my home borough with how it’s changed. Some things are better, like having good coffee within walking distance of just about anywhere, and the fact that you’re now far less likely to get your head beaten in on the street (in broad daylight, in fact, and so badly that your eardrum ruptures and you can whistle air out of it, to the amazement of your friends).

But then, some things are worse. A lot of strong communities, many of them enriched by immigrants, have become shadows of themselves, drowned out by Brooklyn, the Brand. It’s also a heck of a lot more expensive. So much so that, after more than 30 years of living there, I decamped for Queens. Along with a hefty serving of rice and plenty of peppery jerk sauce to squeeze on top, a large order is more than enough for dinner and lunch the next day. If you go, make sure not to miss the sea moss, a classic sweetened West Indian drink. Also called Irish moss, it’s thick and frothy thanks to carrageenan, a type of seaweed, along with condensed milk, nutmeg, and vanilla. (It also lends itself to one of Jamaica’s many great ice cream flavors; see above for more on that.) Along with a hefty serving of rice and plenty of peppery jerk sauce to squeeze on top, a large order is more than enough for dinner and lunch the next day.

I lived most of my Brooklyn life in Prospect Heights, and I fell hard for the food of the West Indian community there. My family was friendly with a Jamaican chef named Patrick (memory tells me his last name was Smith, but I’m not certain) who ran a restaurant around the corner from my mom’s place. He eventually opened another spot, called Crispy Cream Quisine, on Vanderbilt Avenue, and he’d often be out there on the sidewalk with his offset smoker, cooking up big batches of jerk chicken, fiery-hot and fragrant from a complex rub of Scotch bonnet peppers, allspice, and more. He and I would talk for a while, and I’d eventually head home with a dinner of the chicken, or sometimes a tray of fatty, tender, and deeply beefy braised oxtail in a rich brown sauce, which was completely irresistible.

Patrick passed away very suddenly many years ago, so his restaurants are gone, but you can still find plenty of sources for jerk chicken and oxtail in Brooklyn, though not nearly as many in Prospect Heights as there once were. One of my top picks for both dishes is Peppa’s Jerk Chicken on Flatbush Avenue in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, a worn and dim takeout place where they grill the bird over flaming charcoal briquettes while eager customers queue up, waiting their turns to grab smoking-hot pieces right as they come off the grate.

If you haven’t eaten Jamaican ice cream, you haven’t fully lived. Jamaicans were creating innovative flavors before most other ice cream makers had graduated from chocolate and vanilla. Remember when everyone went gaga over Momofuku’s Cereal Milk ice cream several years ago? Well, the Jamaicans got there first, churning out Grape-Nut ice cream—yup, you read that right—way before it became the hot topic of the food world. And remember when it was trendy to make grown-up ice cream floats with stout beer in place of soda? Jamaican ice cream stores already had that beer-flavored concept covered, too, with their pleasingly bitter “Guinness” option in the freezer case.

Those flavors are all must-tries when you visit this ice cream shop on a corner in Flatbush, but my favorite has to be soursop, based on the floral, tangy tropical fruit that’s called guanábana in much of Latin America—mixed into a custard with cream and churned until frozen, it may be one of the greatest ice cream flavors on earth. (Honorable mention goes to Irish/sea moss flavor; more on that below.)