no eggs were harmed

Despite a fondness for jerk, Jamaica’s true national dish – the food expats crave to a degree so obsessive that’s it’s canned and shipped around the globe – is something called ackee and saltfish. Ackee is a fruit which when ripe splays open in an act of self-immolation to reveal a shiny black seed the size of an olive. Only then is the flesh fit for consumption and still it first needs to be boiled. Once cooked it has the deceptive texture and appearance of firm scrambled eggs, which might be one reason why the dish is a popular staple at both breakfast and brunch. Another is the fact that salt fish is the Caribbean’s answer to smoked salmon, and here it’s sauteed with sweet red peppers, onions, a healthy amount of allspice and the boiled ackee. Like a good plate of hash it satisfies the palate’s craving for savory and sweet, while the starchy ackee functions like potato, soaking up the residual cooking flavors while pleasantly tricking the eye.

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brunch is a four-letter word

Upstairs at The Kimberly, brunch can best be reduced to a couple of four-letter words: “view” for the unexpected cityscape that comes with being thirty stories up in a rather unremarkable part of midtown, and “slow” for the utter disregard bestowed on diners by an inexperienced if not completely inept wait staff. (somebody please promote the bus boys – my water-glass was never less than three-quarters filled). When a new restaurant’s finding it’s legs one can forgive the front of house faux pas if the kitchen can come up with the goods. Disappointingly, a four-top of Eggs Benedict, Belgian Waffle, Scrambled eggs with Merguez, and a Kobe burger turned out to be something akin to brain surgery: 45-minutes after ordering half our plates hit the table hot and the other half ice-cold. (Is there anything more unappetizing than a puddle of cold congealed Hollandaise?) Come on people, this is brunch, not proper restaurant food. If they can’t get it together to send out a warm plate of eggs to a half empty restaurant things don’t bode particularly well for the evening rush. Still there is that view. And certain people might even consider the languorous pace of things a luxury. In the Meatpacking District we’d have been handed a check and ushered out the door in a fraction of the time spent waiting for eggs to be reheated.

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creative leftovers: eggs romseco with chard

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dish of the week (end)

Oeuf Forestiere at DBGB Kitchen & Bar:  two eggs “en cocotte” with wild mushrooms, gruyere, and fine herbs.

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