The ambiance at Ambiance can be summed up in one word: green. The walls glow lime green, the wainscoting dark marbleized green, while the bulbs that race around the coffered ceiling shine neon green, making the faces of the diners look like scary Halloween masks. The agreeable waitress will seat you somewhere mid-room, and as you wait for the menus, you'll note odd accoutrements that date from previous establishments: big antique mirrors, fake potted plants, huge chinoiserie vases resting on truncated Ionic columns, and lavish sprays of artificial flowers, now pleasantly faded, making you think of proms long past. The front of the room is given over to a bar, at which a few phantom hangers-on perch, as the bartender mixes greenish cocktails of limeade and Babancourt Rum ($6).
When the menus arrive, you'll discover that there are no apps, no sides, and no desserts. Ambiance—a Haitian restaurant a few blocks from the terminus of the L train—intends to feed you, and feed you well, but is not concerned with the subsidiary frivolities that dominate modern menus. Theirs is a very ancient idea of what a restaurant should be: a place to provide rudimentary yet substantial refreshment to wayfarers, a function that has become all the more important as Brooklyn's Haitian population has dispersed from Flatbush to the farthest reaches of Canarsie.
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