Diagonal from Chris’ house in the west village is a small Scandinavian restaurant, Smorgas Chef. Whenever I walk by the place, I always think it’s a really run-down restaurant because the outside looks unkempt. During the summer, I see couples eating late meals outside (so it can’t be that bad) and we decided to check it out for brunch. Since it was too cold to eat outside, we opted for a nice seat indoors (next to the wall of glass bottles). The exterior of Smorgas Chef:

Well, I think it looks rundown…maybe that’s the look they’re going for.

Smorgas Chef has a prix-fix option for brunch (for $17.95, you can order one main entree, an alcoholic drink, and a coffee) or you can just order the entree by itself (they run from $11 - $20).

Chris ordered the standard eggs benedict:

The standard egg yolk oozing out onto the ham and English muffin make eggs benedict a great artery-clogging breakfast food. Smorgas Chef makes a pretty good hollandaise sauce (although I still prefer Balthazar’s) and the salad on the side was also pretty good.

I ordered cooked eggs with Jarlsberg cheese, spinach, ham, and tomato:

Underneath the cheese, veggies, and ham was a single piece of wheat toast, soaking up the yolk:

The bread was really solid and didn’t fall apart when the yolk flooded the dish. It was a really good; the Jarlsberg cheese was perfectly melted (not too mushy and not too firm), the spinach added a great flavor, and the ham bits were a nice salty compliment to the dish.

My dish and Chris’ dish came with a side of Jansson’s special potatoes:

They’re potatoes au gratin, but they just tasted like plain potatoes to me. Good thing they were free!

Smorgas Chef was a surprisingly good meal for a quick Sunday afternoon brunch. The food was good and the service was friendly….they also take reservations! I’ll definitely be back.

How to get to Smorgas Chef:

Smorgas Chef
283 W. 12th Street
New York, NY, 10014
212-243-7073

When I meet new people, I always ask where they like to eat brunch. Brunch is a staple of the New York diet; it’s a great chance to catch up with friends, people watch, and drink alcohol in the morning to cure the previous night’s hangover. A girl I met on a recent flight to Detroit told me that Five Points has one of the best brunches in New York, so I went to see if it was any good. We were seated after 20 minutes or so (not bad at all, especially for brunch on a great Sunday afternoon). The menu wasn’t out of the ordinary but there was one dish I was really excited about: banana stuffed french toast! The waiter said that it was a really sweet and indulgent thing to order, but it’s a specialty:

The caramel sauce was really creamy and smooth but the french toast was too runny (it tasted more like scrambled eggs than french toast). They should use a sturdier bread next time so it can hold up to the egg/milk mixture. The bananas were inserted in the middle of the bread and tasted really good; the dish would’ve been a success if they just went with a better bread!!!

Chris ordered the eggs benedict:

The red sauce, a marinara, RUINED the dish. The biscuit was too tough AND the hollandaise sauce didn’t taste good. WHY do they use marinara with eggs benedict? There were just too many flavors in the eggs benedict and together, it just tasted really gross.

The decor in Five Points was very festive for the fall weather with lots of tree branches put into vases that lit up the center of the room. Other than the decor though, there’s no reason to have brunch at Five Points - UNTIL they fix their French toast!

How to get to Five Points:

Five Points
31 Great Jones Street
New York, NY 10012
212-253-5700

Norma’s, an open space restaurant in Le Parker Meridien, houses a brunch that is out of this world. I didn’t even know Norma’s existed until Metrodad recommended the restaurant. I love trying new brunch spots in the West Village, but Chris and I finally trekked up to midtown to sample Norma’s offerings.

I made a reservation through OpenTable and received a confirmation with detailed instructions of what I should do before going to Norma’s:

• 24 hrs to go—print out the menu http://parkermeridien.com/eat.php
• 24-12 hrs to go—show off the menu and seek advice on what to order (yeah, they’re all jealous!)
• 18 hrs to go—aerobic exercise and strength training (preferably the Quickie) http://www.parkermeridien./gravity/
• Lunch the day before—remember, you’re in training, so have a protein shake
• Dinner the day before—no eating after 7pm—only bread and water allowed
• Night before—dream sweet dreams of beautiful food floating through your subconscious
• Morning of—do a full yoga session with Swami Ramdev Ji http://www.divyayoga.com/freePranayamTraning.htm
• Arrive on time and tell me that the “Swami sent you”
• You’ve made it, now time to eat!

What the heck - aerobic exercise to prepare for a brunch?! After an initial glance at the menu, I could kind of see why (lots of sweets and other fatty brunch foods) but seriously, a workout?! After seeing a couple of table’s food choices, I could see the reasoning behind a workout to prepare; Norma’s portions are HUGE and they do NOT mess with brunch.

Chris and I ordered two sweet brunch items - the Waz-Za and the Waffling Toast. The Waz-Za is a waffle with fruit on the inside and fruit on the outside with a crackly brulee top:

When we were ordering, we saw a waiter walk by with a huge waffle and a pile of fresh berries and whipped cream and immediately thought that was the Waz-Za. I think we were initially a little disappointed when the actual Waz-Za appeared, but I took a bite and it was seriously…pure bliss. Let’s start with the waffle - not too crunchy and not too soggy; especially impressive for a waffle that’s smothered with so much pink sauce. The fruit was mixed into the waffle mix and you could taste little bits of blueberries every once in a while. The pink sauce on top of the waffles was a puree of sour cream and berries (I think) that was topped with blueberries and bananas. All together, it was already perfect, but then Norma’s adds another kicker by adding a crunchy topping:

Every bite was better than the last and after scarfing down half of the Waz-Za, my turn was up - it was time to trade for the waffling French toast:

A great idea - it’s a piece of bread that’s dipped in an egg batter mixture that’s pressed in a waffle maker. The French toast was infused with lots of citrus (not in a bad way) but I simply couldn’t eat my one and a half pieces. By the time it was my turn to try to conquer the waffling French toast, my stomach had already called it quits and I couldn’t finish. The French toast tasted great and I feel like I didn’t give it enough of a chance since I was so in love with the Waz-Za. French toast: 1, Grace’s stomach: 0:

Norma’s is a little on the expensive side (around $17/plate) but it’s definitely worth the trip. It beats Clinton St. Bakery in terms of taste AND they accept reservations. My only regret - I didn’t wear elastic pants.

How to get to Norma’s:

Norma’s
118 W. 57th Street between 6th and 7th
New York, NY 10019
212-708-7460

Prune is one of those places you want to go to because you’ve read about in magazines, you’ve heard your friends rave about the food there, and when you actually make it there, you realize it HAS to be good because the host declares it’s going to be a two hour wait and there are at least 20 people standing around with their fingers crossed (at least the host doesn’t pick favorites; Parker Posey and her friend tried to get in but the host, Dan, said it would be close to a two hour wait…well, can you really call Parker Posey a celebrity?). My brother, Chris, and I headed to Prune, hoping to score a table in the little restaurant that only seats about 20. Luckily, we only had to wait an hour and a half (yes, we were the fortunate ones).

The menu is simple and has staple brunch items - steak and eggs, eggs prepared in any way you’d like, pancakes, and bloody Mary’s prepared in 10 different ways. Since we added my brother to our usual brunch festivities, we were able to order a third dish to try (and for me to write about - yay!).

I started off with the pancake:

More like a cake than anything, it’s one huge piece of dough that is topped with blueberries and sour cream (with syrup on the side). It was a pretty huge piece of cake - not bombarded with sweetness, but it gets its point across. The sour cream and blueberries complemented the pancake well - they probably used a lot of buttermilk because the cake was slightly tangy. I thought the pancake was excellent - but it’s no Clinton St. Bakery (which, in Prune’s defence, I don’t think they’re trying to be).

David ordered the steak and eggs:

Dry aged steak with eggs (any way you want them) and a hash brown. The steak was a worthy competitor of any steak house in New York - very juicy, very tender, and VERY delicious. The steak was topped off with a butter and scallion mixture (I usually take it off because I don’t like anything interrupting the flavors of the steak, but in this case, I made an exception). David’s steak and eggs were huge, but somehow, we managed to finish/

Chris ordered the eggs Benedict:

I had half of Chris’ order and I must say - I LOVE Hollandaise sauce! I mean, what’s not to love about the fatty sauce that you drip over EGGS, HAM, and an ENGLISH MUFFIN? The side pancake style blob is a piece of hash brown (piece - is that the right terminology?) Slightly burnt, in my opinion, but very crunchy and VERY delicious. Chris liked the dish, but he thought that his order size was a lot smaller than expected.

Prune is a solid brunch spot that I’m sure people will want to try - I don’t see myself going back anytime soon because I just don’t have two hours on a Sunday morning to spare (sleep is important!). Parker Posey, on the other hand, may have time to go back during the week, when everyone else is working.

How to get to Prune:

Prune
54 E 1st St between 1st and 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
212-677-6221

After hearing great reviews about the Little Owl, a small restaurant in the West Village that sits below the apartment used in Friends, Chris and I decided to check it out. Does this place look familiar?:

I read that you can have the perfect meal at The Little Owl; the host is attentive and gracious, the chefs pay attention to detail, and the menu options are creative and delicious (what’s not to love?). I also read that getting a table at the restaurant is hard to do - the restaurant only seats 28 people and online reservation systems like opentable.com don’t always have availability. Chris and I decided to try The Little Owl for brunch one Sunday afternoon and were surprised that the restaurant was practically empty - around 12PM - PRIME Sunday brunch time! We were seated right away (there were only 3 or 4 couples in the restaurant) and were able to get a look at the menu right away.

After glancing at the menu, we realized that there weren’t that many options for brunch. Maybe everything on the menu was so great that they only needed a couple things anyway, right? I decided to order the corn pancakes with berries and clear syrup and Chris opted for the hamburger. After the waitress painstakingly asked how Chris wanted the burger to be prepared, she went off to the kitchen and put in our orders. Five minutes later, she came back and declared that she forgot the kitchen had run out of beef. Seriously?! Did the restaurant really run out of one of the FIVE options for brunch? We were taken by surprise but looked at the menu again and decided to go for the eggs Benedict with greens.

My corn pancakes:

The corn pancakes tasted nothing more than corn bread with some syrup. It wasn’t even MOIST cornbread - it was dry and the corn bits in the pancake were too sweet. I read online comments on how great the clear syrup was, but there was a dead fly in my syrup, so…I don’t see what’s so special about clear syrup. The consistency of the pancakes was too grainy because there wasn’t enough milk or egg whites in the pancake mix, leaving much to be desired.

Chris ordered the eggs Benedict with greens:

After one initial bite of the greens, we knew that we shouldn’t have ordered the dish. When greens are cooked, it’s understandable that they should change color….but these greens were brown! We ended up sending the dish back because the greens tasted like they were a week old!

To top off our disastrous meal at The Little Owl, the air conditioners were loud (there were THREE of them) and it was still uncomfortably warm in the restaurant. When leaving the restaurant to grab burgers at the Corner Bistro, we overheard a girl ordering iced tea, only to be turned down because the restaurant ran out of iced tea.

How to get to The Little Owl:

The Little Owl
90 Bedford St between Barrow and Grove
New York, NY 10014
212-741-4695