Posted by Adam Kuban, June 27, 2008 at 10:00 AM
Clockwise from top left: Like many places, Egg provides crayons for you to color on the white paper tablecloths; I drew an egg whose color comes from a thin wash of coffee. If you're not an early bird, you'll wait for 40 minutes to an hour with the rest of the worms. My breakfast—two eggs scrambled, toast, a hash brown, and bacon.
Until a couple weeks ago, I had never been to Egg, the famed breakfast-brunch spot in Williamsburg. I live in Park Slope, so it's a little out of my way for the morning meal. Usually I'm hungry and cranky and just want to get something in my stomach to take the grouch off. But the girlfriend and I were in the Valley of the Hipster for the Brooklyn Renegade Craft Fair, so we decided to try Egg while we were in the neighborhood.
It was awesome. And the breakfast I had there is still in my dreams. I hope that blogging it here will keep it from haunting me. Egg's chef-partner, George Weld, really knows how to do up eggs, as you'd damn well expect from the name of his joint. I was lured by the breakfast sandwich but tried the "two eggs any way" plate, opting for scrambled. It's a seemingly simple dish, but it's a true indicator of an eggslinger's worth, because scrambleds are so easy to screw up. Mine were creamy, moist, and perfect, as befitting the heart-shaped pile they made on my plate, which I'm sure was a bit of an accidental Rorschach.
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Posted by Ed Levine, May 10, 2008 at 11:00 AM
Ouest: Another great housemade bread basket (Tom Valenti was trained as a pastry chef) and let's face it, Valenti knows how to make homey, sophisticated food better than anyone. 2315 Broadway, New York NY 10024; 212-580-8700; ouestny.com
Eleven Madison Park: Elegant, delicious brunch served in a classy, quintessentially New York setting. 11 Madison Avenue, New York NY 10010; 212-889-0905; elevenmadisonpark.com
Egg: It will probably be nuts this Sunday, but George Weld makes my favorite breakfast-brunch food in the city. 135 North 5th Street, Brooklyn NY 11211; 718-302-5151; pigandegg.com
Franny's: Pizza, salad, pasta, and terrific vegetables for brunch? Sounds pretty swell to me. 295 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11217; 718-230-0211; frannysbrooklyn.com
Morandi: I don't know if it's been discovered yet, but Jody Williams is doing wondrous Italian things with eggs at breakfast and brunch at Morandi's. 211 Waverly Place, New York NY 10014; 212-627-7575; morandiny.com
Centro Vinoteca: Right down the street from Morandi Anne Burrell is cooking up some fine brunch food at Centro Vinoteca. 74 Seventh Avenue South, New York NY 10014; 212-367-7470; centrovinoteca.com
Momofuku Noodle Bar: David Chang and company don't really do brunch, but what mom wouldn't want to have some of Chang's noodles or pork buns for Mother's Day. 171 First Avenue, New York NY 10003; momofuku.com/noodle
Boqueria: Last time I went to brunch there it was empty. Don't know if that's still the case. I loved the suckling pig hash. 53 West 19th Street, New York NY 10011; 212-255-4160; boquerianyc.com
Telepan: Great bread basket, egg dishes, and burger. 72 West 69th Street, New York NY 10023; 212-580-4300; telepan-ny.com
Pig Heaven: Hey, Mother's Day is Sunday, and I have very fond memories of eating Chinese food on Sundays growing up. Moms like spare ribs and roast suckling pig, too. 1540 Second (b/n 80th and 81st), New York NY 10028; 212-744-4887; pigheaven.biz
Posted by Ed Levine, January 20, 2008 at 7:13 AM
My brother Mike despises brunch. Why? He doesn't much like the inherent limitations of most brunch menus (eggs benedict, french toast, pancakes), and he's not one to wait in line to eat. So when I wandered into Bar Stuzzichini last Saturday at one in the afternoon and discovered I did not have to wait to eat what I wanted off either its brunch or full lunch menu, I knew I had discovered a place my brother could potentially love. I ordered the five small plates for $20 special, which offers a broad range of options. I had slightly crunchy, toothsome fried polpette (meatballs), lovely arancini (rice balls), ceci (chickpea) crostini, three hunks of a nutty, complex Pecorino Grand Cru, and a small plate of perfectly fried, light as a cloud panelle (chickpea fritters). It's a great deal, one which can easily be shared by two people. I can't wait to go back for lunch and/or dinner and try some of chef Paul Di Bari's pastas, which both Bruni and Adam Platt have raved about. One more thing, Mike. It's five blocks from your house.
Bar Stuzzichini
Address: 928 Broadway, New York, NY 10010 (b/n 21st and 22nd St.; map)
Phone: 212-780-5100
Website: barstuzzichini.com
Posted by Ed Levine, December 23, 2007 at 9:49 AM
Holiday season is heavy brunch season, so I thought it would be helpful to mention a couple of fine brunch spots where you can eat well for a fair price in comfortable surroundings, without having to wait on line.
Telepan's brunch is great value for $28, and you can actually carry on a conversation there with your brunch mates without screaming.
The same things can be said about the brunch at Ouest. The housemade bread baskets at both restaurants would be fine breakfasts all by themselves (accompanied by coffee, tea, or ice-cold milk), so be careful not to fill up on all those lovely scones, muffins, and quick breads.
Both places feature unusually well-prepared brunch and lunch dishes, well-spaced tables, and fair pricing. What more could you ask for in a brunch spot?
Are there similar brunch spots in your neighborhood? Do tell.
Posted by Ed Levine, July 9, 2007 at 8:30 AM
Like many New Yorkers, I am constantly on the lookout for good brunch spots. On Sunday I discovered a great New York brunch at Telepan.
It's $28 for two courses plus an insanely good house-made bread basket that includes scones, coffee cake, and killer banana bread.
The sheep's milk ricotta blintzes are lighter than my grandmother's, who of course didn't use sheep's milk ricotta as her filling, anyway. The smoked brook trout was a leaning tower of house-smoked fish atop a blini smeared with sweet-onion sour cream. The Fallen Pancakes Soufflé were silos of featherlight pancake batter studded with brown-sugar bacon and huckleberry syrup.
Even the biscuits and gravy, served with house-made breakfast sausage and poached eggs, were simultaneously homey and sophisticated, a tough culinary balancing act that Telepan achieved with virtually every dish we sampled.
Of course, being the beef and bacon addict I am, I ordered chef-owner Bill Telepan's burger, which is as good a fancy-pants burger as there is to be found in the city. It's served with Nueske's bacon, cheddar cheese, a hillock of housemade pickles, terrific french fries, sourdough onion rings, and pickles. You won't have room for the unnecessary desserts, which cost extra anyway.
I discovered Ouest's great brunch a few months ago, and now that I have discovered Telepan's, I now have two Upper West Side brunch spots to frequent and recommend.
TELEPAN
Address: 72 West 69th Street, New York NY 10023 (b/n Central Park West and Columbus Avenue)
Phone: 212-580-4300
Website: telepan-ny.com
Posted by Ed Levine, May 21, 2007 at 9:35 AM
Besides "What's your favorite restaurant," the question I'm asked most at non-food-related parties is "What's a good brunch spot that I won't have to wait on line to get in"? I call it the "Don't tell me about Sarabeth's" question.
Frankly, until this past week I had only one recommendation, Ouest, where Tom Valenti serves an astonishingly well-thought-out brunch that features the best breakfast bread basket in the city. A couple of weeks ago I made another brunch discovery.
My friend John T. Edge was in town and wanted to go to a pig-centric brunch spot. John T. lives in Oxford, Mississippi, but I must confess that he, an out-of-towner, came up with the idea of going to Boqueria.
I love the food at Boqueria, but I find it to be fairly uncomfortable and very noisy and crowded at dinner. But it turns out that the Boqueria dinner crowd hasn't discovered that Boqueria has an original, terrific brunch with plenty of porcine options. We had:
- Revuelto de baicon: A very fine breakfast sandwich of scrambled eggs, double smoked bacon, caramelized onions, and Spanish cheese
- Huevos escalfados: poached eggs with suckling pig hash, sweet potatoes, and rapini. I would have liked more pig and less sweet potatoes, but you probably knew that
- Croqueta cremosas of mushroom, suckling pig, salt cod. Crisp, greaseless wonders.
Somehow I missed the side orders of patatas rotas, crushed fingerling potatoes, crisp bacon, and Macoun apples, and the double-smoked bacon à la plancha, but if they are on the menu next time I go, I'll report back.
Boqueria turned out to be my idea of brunch heaven; comfortable, easy to talk in, and pig-centric.
Address: 53 West 19th Street, New York NY 10011
Phone: 212-255-4160
Website: boquerianyc.com
