The lost meals entries consist of meals that occurred at various times throughout 2012 which, for any number of reasons, escaped my documentation – some due to a cross country move and a new job, some due to the Los Angeles Kings run to the Stanley Cup, and some simply as a result of too much travel. Having enjoyed many of these meals with friends or family and with some of them amongst the year’s very best the reality is that with time my memory has deteriorated and as life moves forward I’ve realized there is little hope to ever “catch up” or document these experiences as well as I’d hope, yet in order to preserve them I present these pictures, notes, and thoughts on the experience.
Public
Passion fruit Iced Tea
Crop to Cup Coffee
Apricot Fennel Scones with Coconut Ginger Jam
Lamingtons Stuffed with Strawberries and Cream
Black Pudding Waffles with Red Wine Poached Pears and Whipped Foie Gras Butter
Sticky Toffee Pudding with Armagnac Ice Cream, Candied Lemon, and Hot Caramel Sauce
The Bowery Diner
Toasted Almond Doughnut from Dough
Caramelized Apple Pancake
Duck Hash with Poached Eggs
Stumptown Coffee
My two proper sit-down breakfasts during this trip to New York were Public – actually a brunch – and The Bowery Diner. Never really as impressed by the New York morning dining scene as I am by that in cities like Chicago, Portland, or even here in Phoenix I realistically went into both meals with modest expectations and for the most part they were met with Public putting on a very impressive showing in cuisine, service, and setting while The Bowery Diner made up for some small shortcomings in the food and overly aggressive pricing with truly outstanding service and hours that literally fit any schedule.
Starting with Public, an early morning with early lunch plans and Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals ahead of me, I arrived just before the restaurant opened to find a warm and sunny patio with Passion Fruit Iced Tea and the New York Times awaiting and the moment the door opened myself and another group of five were whisked inside and seated right away, the space to slowly fill and actually reach capacity by the time I left. Guided by a friendly young man named Edwin who suggested I may have ordered ‘too much’ food I assured him I would be okay and with coffee filled (and refilled almost gratuitously throughout the meal) I was also gifted the morning pastry which was great alone, but better when augmented with housemade jam from the cute pastry table where I also selected the spongy and dainty Lamington.
For the rest of the food, what can be said about a waffle imbued with funky blood sausage and topped with butter rife with the essence of foie gras? Soft more than crisp but entirely savory decadence this is perhaps one of the most unique breakfast foods I’ve ever encountered and mellowed only slightly by boozy pears this this is one of those rare cases where ‘too much’ turned out to be just right and as much as I love sweet breakfast foods this was one worth stepping out of line for…especially when followed by one of the sweetest takes on sticky toffee pudding I’ve ever encountered, the dense cake with great texture from the dates resting in a pool of still bubbling caramel on arrival; a lovely finish to one of the best brunches in the city.
Moving next to the sometimes 24-Hour Bowery Diner I arrived rather hungry having missed dinner after the game the night before and still waking up for my long morning run and with the restaurant empty save for one other patron I was seated immediately by my server, John, who proved both friendly and conversational thoughout the morning, stopping by frequently to fill my coffee and apologize for a seemingly inexplicable delay in my food’s arrival from the kitchen; a situation I remedied by drinking more of the Stumptown Hairbender while enjoying a Toasted Almond Doughnut from Brooklyn’s “Dough” that was actually delivered by a van moments after I sat down at my table.
Noting the food delay, in total almost fourty-five minutes, when the items did arrive they came as a pair and likely indicating a discrepancy in preparation times my savory of Duck Hash with Poached Eggs was slightly cool to the touch with eggs overcooked and the duck a bit try; the entirety of the dish seeming as though it had sat under a heat lamp waiting for the vastly superior savory – a large caramelized Apple Pancake that registered somewhere between a Dutch Baby and an Apple Fritter with a toothsome batter almost cornmeal in texture and quite delicious, though much like the $14 duck hash quite overpriced and certainly not worth the extensive wait when better food is available at a much lower cost throughout both Manhattan and Brooklyn.