As some of you, my readers, I have mixed feelings about brunch. I do love having a relaxed daytime, weekend meal at a restaurant but I dislike the fact of seeing ordinary breakfast food that I can make at home. Thankfully, since I’m in the melting pot of culture and restaurants in New York City, there’s hope for me.
Mercadito’s exterior and interiors
Stumbling upon Mercadito’s email about their brunch* it seemed like a good idea to try a Mexican brunch. I managed to convince my brother to get out of his apartment the past Sunday and meet up with him there.
Standing in front of this narrow restaurant that’s pretty easily standing out from the rest on this part of Avenue B, it’s already filled with diners. And it’s a few minutes past 12 PM.
Mimosa and guacamole
We started brunch with fruit flavored mimosas. (They serve off a prix fixe menu of $19 consisting of a fruit mimosa or cafe con leche, an entrée that comes with rice and beans.) The three featured were strawberry, mango, and pineapple. Both were good, bubbly drinks and you can tell they use real fruit instead of a mix. I would prefer the pulp being puréed or muddled down a bit more so I won’t have a large chunk of fruit in my mouth.
To go along with the drinks, we ordered the trio of guacamoles (traditional, pineapple, and mango) and fresh tortilla chips. All the guacamoles were fresh and delicious. I prefer the traditional but the mango (the brown colored one) was quite memorable for being the pretty unusual (a darker, sweet-savory guacamole). Continue reading “Brunch at Mercadito” »
As a born and bred native New Yorker, I don’t exactly understand the concept of brunch. Brunch to me is basically another way to sneak in more alcohol into your system even though you had your fill of poison the night (or two, if you started on Friday) before and eat somewhat bland food during the late morning to the late afternoon in hopes to get rid of hangover or induce yourself to another drunken stupor. Since I don’t drink that much and I care more about the food, I haven’t encounter brunch food that I truly enjoyed. Until now.
Standing outside the breezy, insanely cold Sunday morning, I was invited by Hagan to join him on his ambitious food project called 93 Plates. Partially, I was regretting saying “yes” to drag my butt out of my warm bed but I refuse to be a flake, suck it up like any other New Yorker (or tourist) who’s walking outside, and travel out to Nolita.
Since I arrived a bit early, I defrosted myself and soak in the interior of the restaurant. Open layout, loft-like, with an Industrial look. It looks Euro-cool to me for some reason.
On weekends when I don’t have to necessarily rush to go anywhere, I like to take my sweet ol’ time going to brunch with a friend or a few (if it’s possible) but I managed to have Helen fairly last minute. I know I’m admitting something relatively shocking but I have never been to Shopsin’s before my visit two Saturdays ago. Yes! Mock me, why don’t you?! As a native New Yorker who’s never eaten here, I know it’s a relative shame despite reading about Shopsin for years. Back to the story… I arrived to Shopsin’s around 12 PM with a shorter line than what you see above. (I took this toward the end of my meal around 1.) It’s just two parties ahead of me. Continue reading “Brunch at Shopsin’s” »
Three Saturdays ago I did have an intense fooding day since I went to the Big Apple BBQ 2008 with Giulia during the early afternoon (which I’m not going to write since everyone wrote about this eons ago and ate a lot more than I had, just Google it and you get a lot of hits) but you may look at my photos for that outing.
As for the second leg of this fooding excursion, I finally went out to Brooklyn! Park Slope to be more specific. It’s been ages since I went to this borough just because it’s a two-hour commute from home in Queens. Even though I do admit that it’s a 20-minute express subway ride from Union Square, so it ain’t that bad. Continue reading “Fooding in Park Slope, Brooklyn” »
The past Saturday Ariel and I went out to brunch at DavidBurke & Donatella. Why in the world would I go to the Upper East Side for brunch? Well, he’s been bugging me about eating there ever since the Momofuku dinner back several weeks ago. I know if his food lovin’ heart is set on something, I have no choice but to tag along and be his dining companion. But then I found out the day before our brunch, he got a cold. And he still wanted to go there! Now, that’s dedication.
I haven’t seen Kim for the longest time and really hang out with her. Why? Because of the chaotic meet up that I had back in July for the South Street Seaport concert didn’t suffice as hanging out since we greeted each other, talked for ten minutes and broke up into our own little groups when the concert started and the crush of the crowds left us to our own. That was cruel and I lost my voice that night…
Anyways, I made arrangements to eat lunch with Kim the past Thursday for two reasons, the aforementioned and because I won’t be able to make it to her birthday party due to LSATs (oh the pain!). Since I don’t really eat in the Midtown East area, I let Kim pick a place to eat for lunch, where she led me to Marrakesh since she’s craving falafels and she said they make a good one here.
As you can tell these past recent weeks, I’m writing pretty much an average about a post a week. It’s going to be like this for a while just because I’m snowballed with school and I’m dreading the LSATs! Good lord help me on the latter. I’m scared the wits out of me for this one test for the sake of law school. Anyways, I’m writing the aforementioned on the title but skipping out on Jean Georges just because that restaurant deserves its own post. Even though you see or seen the photos on my Flickr gallery.
On Saturday, I felt brunch-y and motivated to brave the mythical lines that one would face at Prune.
Hostess checking out the line…
People…
Once I got in the place is pretty much packed. Tables were close together, just barely letting a person fit in between each table. Lively chatter from the diners surrounding me. This place is charming. It has this old French country feel with worn walls, antique mirrors, and the open French doors of sorts where I was sitting. It’s unlike any other restaurant I’ve ever been in, in a good way. Continue reading “Brunch at Prune; Shake Shack, Ninth Street Espresso, and Picnick” »
