Roberta's, Brooklyn

Brooklen, LBT, Jude, and I went one Sunday morning to East Williamsburg in Brooklyn to Roberta's for the the weekly NYC ritual of brunch. Brooklen had been wanting to go because he had tried their pizza at Madison Square Eats events.
When we arrived at the address, at first, we weren't sure we were at the right place. The exterior looked very modest, with a very small sign just above the doorway. Inside though, the space was great with long wooden tables, a red wood burning oven, exposed ceilings, a bar, and where we sat, a garden courtyard that looked into a radio studio.

We had to at least get one pizza. Immediately, we knew we wanted to try Paige's Breakfast Burrito pizza. It came topped with tomato, mozzarella, potato, red onion, jalapeño, egg, and Berkshire pork sausage. The crust on the pie was thin, crisp, and a little chewy with a decent char.
We also shared a tasty sticky bun and buttermilk biscuit. Both were scrumptious.

For our main courses, I ordered the fried eggs with beef tongue, salsa verde and potato hash. The tongue was great, really tender and delicate.
LBT got a breakfast sandwich of a hunk of sausage, egg, and cheese on a potato roll. It was a bit odd that they could not scramble the egg for her.

Brooklen got the ricotta pancakes with brown butter and maple syrup. We shared a small plate of thick fatty slab bacon.

261 Moore Street
Brooklyn, NY
(718)417-1118

Brunch In Brooklyn : Al di là

Brunch at Park Slope's Al di là was good enough that I want to go back to try their impressive dinner menu of North Italian cuisine. We started with a very garlicky fava bean puree that I had no problem polishing off.
My friend got the banana & mascarpone cheese pancakes while I opted for a spaghetti with pancetta and chard. My plate was simple but so delicious. The pasta was wonderful, light and flavorful.

248 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY
(718)783-4565

Sunday Brunch at Simon, Palms Place, Las Vegas

I went to Las Vegas last month for Matador 21 concerts at the Palms with several friends from grad school. We stayed at the Palms Place hotel in a swanky suite that had a tub in the center of one of the rooms. On Sunday, we had sumptious brunch at the Simon Restaurant, owned by celebrity chef Kerry Simon.
It's all you can eat buffet style, and you can order special items off a menu as well. A big plus was that you can just come down from your room in your pyjamas. We opted in on the bloody mary bar- all you can drink bloody marys with a choice of various vodkas, hot sauces, and ingredients ranging from horseradish, gardinera, various pickles and celery.

From the buffet, they offer sandwiches, sushi, breads, and fruit smoothies. I started with a plate of sushi. One of Simon's specialties is a spicy tuna with sesame rice crisps. My friend Verder raved about the yellowtail.

Our table then proceeded to get a variety of items from the made to order menu. There were several items using poached eggs. See got the lobster eggs Benedict version which had the lobster cooked in the bread. Chupacabra got a version with beef, chile verde and potatoes.

I was compelled to order the fried chicken & waffles. I was a little disappointed that the chicken was a boneless chicken breast, but the batter on the chicken and the waffles were tasty.
A big hit was the deep fried brioche French toast See ordered. It was decadent.

We finished out the meal with the Simon Junk Food plate which included all items made by the kitchen including one of the best Snowballs I've ever had. Their version of the Hostess cupcake was also good. I thought the Fruit Loop crispy was too sweet though.
Another bonus for the meal was that we saw singer Neko Case at the table behind us.


4381 West Flamingo Road
Las Vegas, NV
(702)944-3292

Brunch at Elmo's Diner, Carrboro, NC

Had brunch at Elmo's Diner in Carrboro, a really good local diner that stays open until 11 pm most nights. I ordered the special of pumpkin pancakes with apple butter & whipped cream. It tasted like pumpkin pie!

200 N. Greensboro St.
Carr Mill Mall
Carrboro, NC 27510
(919) 929-2909

Western Food in Korea Part Four: Brunch

A recent NY Times article wrote about how brunch is the hot thing in Korea, as result of the mandatory 5-day work week (down from 6) and the perception of brunch's sophistication brought on by such popular shows as Sex in the City.

Our motivation, however, for going to brunch in Korea was because redneckhunter's brother, having been stationed at Kunsan Air Force Base for months, missed real eggs and bacon that weren't rehydrated in an MRE!

We went to The Flying Pan Blue in Itaewon (the ex-pat district). I'm Asian, so I can say this without being racist, but I wondered if the name was a play on the Asian inability to pronounce "r"s...

For the first time in Korea, we had "Western" food that was indistinguishable from what we get back home. Plus it was really really good -- poached eggs with pesto over mushrooms and grilled sourdough, fried eggs over easy with bacon, banana pancakes, fig and ricotta pancakes.

Needless to say redneckhunter's brother was very very happy and vowed to go back every time he had leave off-base and to bring all his basemates. If the Flying Pan Blue suddenly notices an onslaught of U.S. Airmen as customers... well, we'll know why.