Tag: Brunch

It’s already March and I’m not sure where the last two months have gone. Time seems to have flown by but I don’t recall doing anything fun or interesting lately. It’s been a warm winter but between a very lackluster Lunar New Year and now, nothing has really excited me. There’s been more work (i.e. projects for friends and former colleagues) that’s taken up most of my time but I do try to go out and get some air once in a while.

What I really need to do is catch up with friends, though it’s been hard. I did meet up with my friend M over the weekend for brunch at Public.

I’ve walked by Public so many times over the years but it was the first time I ever stepped inside it. The restaurant isn’t on ground level so I could never quite get a sense of how big it actually is from the outside. I do love the big windows that look onto the street and the skylight above that let in so much natural light.

When we were handed the menus, the choices weren’t quite what either of us expected. It was slightly different from the menu on their website but we did find good options on it. I debated between the Eggs and No Eggs sections of the menu and in the end, settled on the quinoa pancakes with poached pears, pomegranate, sunflower seeds, Devonshire (clotted) cream and red wine syrup.

The pancakes were delicious and I like the use of the Devonshire cream instead of butter. The sunflower seeds sprinkled on top also gave it a nice texture. I can never say no to pears since they are one of my favorite fruits, and they were a little spicy but not too boozy, which works better for me.

M chose the spiced avocado toast with Maryland blue crab, pickled chiles and cilantro. At one point (according to the photos seen online), the avocado toast contained poached eggs but now don’t. The eggs would have been nice but there was extra protein on our table since I also ordered a side of bacon. The avocado toast looked really good and the bacon was delicious, one of the better ones we’ve had at restaurants.

Neither of us ordered hot drinks; we were both interested in the cold drinks. I ordered the cucumber and thyme fizz and I think she had the mint charcoal limeade. My fizzy drink was pretty refreshing and for once, I didn’t miss not having a nice cup of hot tea to go with my breakfast plates.

Though I will admit, M did need her coffee fix and we ended up at a coffee shop in the neighborhood afterward.

Weekend brunch has been pretty rare in my life these days. I can’t even remember when the last time I got together with friends for a fun weekend meal and good conversation. My foodie life seems to be centered on lots of afternoon or evening get-togethers this year, the former with those who have flexible non-9-to-5 hours and the latter mainly on the many, many after work drinks with former co-workers as everyone’s been moving on from our old company.

I love hanging out with a lot of my former work colleagues and one great thing is that many of them are foodies. Who doesn’t like trying new restaurants? Four of us were trying to get together recently but with conflicting schedules, it was just me and former coworker and friend, C. I suggested going to Little Park down in Tribeca and that’s where we ended up.

Little Park was on my list of places to visit during my birthday week. Since I ended up elsewhere at the time, it was still on my to-visit list and the online menu looked really promising. C and I met up this past Saturday and were treated to a lovely, lovely dining experience.

It was difficult to choose what to order since there were so many delicious items on the menu. Once nice thing is that there were plenty of vegetarian options so there’s something for everyone, whether one is a meat eater or not.

I ended up with the eggs my way (over easy), which came with fried garlic potatoes (sooo good) and toast (the waiter suggested multi-grain). I also ordered a side of their smoked bacon, which was just as tasty. It didn’t look like much food when it arrived but all of it was so filling and I needed a very long walk afterward just to feel better. C wanted to get the coconut and spelt pancakes but had a week full of carbs, so she chose the Heirloom Grain Porridge instead. The porridge was served with mushrooms (hen of the woods), poached eggs and pine nuts. It was a much lighter meal than mine but just as tasty and she liked it a lot.

Everything was wonderful and she and I both want to visit again. The food and service was excellent and I definitely want to check out the menus for other meal times and of course, dessert as well. Here’s hoping my next visit won’t be long in coming.

After a round of last-minute emails back and forth with my friend Queenie, I suddenly had brunch plans for Sunday. It’s been a long while since we last met and our schedules just hadn’t worked out for a meet-up earlier this year. There was an errand I needed to run in Chinatown that morning so she suggested a restaurant (that won’t be named here) in the general vicinity. We were planning to meet just before noon so lines to get into this restaurant were to be expected, but it was absolutely ridiculous to find out the wait time for a table for two was an hour.

Absolutely not. I don’t mind waiting for things at times but not for this. And yet, there were plenty of people who had put their names down and didn’t seem to mind standing outside in the cold to wait for a table. Since I had arrived early, I let Queenie know and met up with her at the train station and we went looking for a different restaurant. The night before, I did some research and came up with a list of back up places in case things didn’t work out but we didn’t use the list at all. Instead, she suggested a few places on the Lower East Side so we just began to walk over; there are plenty of good restaurants in that area so we were bound to find something decent. Where we ended up was El Rey Coffee Bar and Luncheonette.

El Rey is one of those places I’d always wanted to visit but promptly forgot about. It wasn’t even on my current “to visit” list (yes, I do have a list saved in Google Drive), so I’m glad that Queenie suggested it. And we were fortunate enough to arrive and snag two empty seats in the really tiny café.

There aren’t many items on the lunch menu but most of the dishes looked pretty good. It was easy for me to decide what I wanted: the Avocado ‘Del Sur’ with poached eggs and flatbread. Queenie settled on the Kale Salad with egg and avocado, and we both ordered hot tea to go along with our food.

Not only did my dish look pretty but it was so damn tasty! I especially loved the za’atar bread, especially when dipped into the runny yolks and chimichurri sauce on my plate. I almost considered ordering an extra side of the flatbread—that’s how much I liked it. And extra bonus points for being a healthy dish that sated my hunger but not leaving me overstuffed.

Queenie’s salad looked delicious too. The salad comes in two sizes and she chose the large. Several people who came into the café after us eyed her big bowl and ended up ordering it as well.

There was a display case on the counter full of baked goods that looked interesting. I didn’t get close enough to see the labels but it seemed to be mostly slices of tea cakes or pound cakes. The ironic thing is that by the time we finished eating and getting ready to leave, exactly an hour had passed since I put my name down at the other restaurant. And look what we accomplished in 60 minutes: crossing from the west to the east side, sitting down and finishing a meal. I’m kind of glad things turned out the way they did and I would very happily return to El Rey for lunch again.

December has been pretty a crazy month for me: between the insanity at work (deadlines and being short-staffed is a really bad combination) and taking a trip (more to come on that in a future post), life has been a not-so-fun roller coaster ride. With so many commitments, it’s been hard to actually get anything done. One thing I did make time for was brunch with my friend (and former work colleague) T, who has taken a job on the West Coast and has been dividing her time between here and there the last few weeks as she is preparing to permanently move out to California.

We met last Sunday at Coppelia, a 24/7 Latin diner in Chelsea that’s been on my to-visit list for ages. One of her other friends, M, joined us as well and it was definitely much more merrier and interesting with three people in for food and conversation (sample topics of discussion: work, travels and how reality television makes one dumber).

It was really hard to pin down our brunch order; everything on the menu looked delicious. In the end, we settled for some guacamole and chips, hot chocolate and sangria (for them; I passed and stuck with some nice hot mint tea), and some really good breakfast dishes. I also enjoyed the bread basket, which made a nice change from the standard toast, baguettes and croissants.

Alas, I didn’t take photos of everything and only have a picture of my own main course, the Hash de Costilla. It was a short rib hash with potatoes, red peppers and a fried egg. Pretty darn tasty. I wavered between that and about a half-dozen other dishes, which means I need to revisit so I can try everything else. And we were all so full that we had no room for any dessert course afterward.

After trying and failing to meet during the weekend of Labor Day, I met up with M for a Monday brunch at The Breslin. Being that it was a Monday, it was hard to know for certain what restaurants would actually be serving brunch on the last day of the long weekend.

It wasn’t too bad at 11am, our meeting time, and the restaurant was busy but not crowded. We both ended up ordering the same thing: English Breakfast. It was a toss-up between that and the Strawberry-Cornmeal Pancakes but I think we did make the better choice. One of the tables near us ordered the pancakes and though it looked good, it didn’t look very filling. I also considered ordering a scone as well but I’m not a big fan of blueberry pastries. Had it been strawberry, I would definitely have gotten it.

I love English Breakfast and honestly, I think I’ve gotten better ones here than across the pond (unless I finally make it to that one place in London that’s known for their English Breakfasts). And that’s also assuming one doesn’t count The Hawksmoor, which has an awesome breakfast spread (for two people) that is so much more than the standard English Breakfast fare and makes the regular breakfast plate seem more of an appetizer (I think my sister and I still dream about that meal sometimes). Meanwhile, the one at the Breslin comes with the usual foodstuffs: eggs, pork sausage, blood pudding, bacon, roasted tomato and mushrooms. It was all fine except the blood pudding was a bit more gritty and loose than I would like. And I wish there was a bit of buttered toast and some baked beans to go with all of it.

But it was more than enough food to get us going and we walked off the calories with some window shopping afterward.

The nice thing about having friends who are running races in the morning is that we can meet up afterward for food, whether it’s breakfast, lunch or brunch. The earlier the race ends, the better, though not always so: some restaurants aren’t even open yet by the time racers have crossed the finish line.

In this case, the timing worked out pretty well. The race was up in the Hamilton Heights and Harlem area and that meant we could go to Red Rooster as soon as it opened. I arrived just after 10am and there was a line out the door; it turned out that many of the racers had the exact same post-race plans. Fortunately, the line moved pretty quickly and when I got in, I saw my friends (or rather one friend and a former coworker) already seated at a table.

It was hard to decide what to eat but the three of us ended up with different dishes. I settled on the Red Rooster Scramble, M had the Bloody Mary Eggs and U the Brioche French Toast. Everything was so delicious! I particularly liked the biscuit that came with my dish and U gave me a piece of the French Toast (also very, very tasty) while she had some of the sausage from my plate. Also of note was the black tea I ordered; co-owner Marcus Samuelsson created custom tea blends with Harney and Sons, so the tea served came from that collection. The one I chose that day was the Safari Breakfast. One can receive a free tea sample if the bill is paid with a Mastercard (we didn’t but it was fine; I have more than enough tea at home).

Finally, another restaurant crossed off my to-visit list!

Nearly one month to the day of my first visit, I was back at Ladurée for brunch again. It was a different friend this time but almost the same meal as before: we both ordered the Champs-Elysées set but this time, I opted for two eggs with bacon instead of scrambled eggs. And I washed it down with a pot of Earl Grey. The service had improved only slightly and I was again seated in the front room (there was a private party in the nicer back room and the garden did not open until the following day). But at least the food was better on this second visit:

I think I prefer the eggs with bacon over the scrambled eggs; Ladurée makes a good version but I’m not much of a fan for the scrambled variety at any restaurant. And this time, I did get the fruit salad that was missing previously. All in all, another very good meal. Next up will ideally be cake (or some other pretty pastry) and tea in the garden. Anyone want to join me?