After a night of drinking, my friends and I needed some filling, not-fancy grub. Weeks before, I’d been to the Big Daddy’s in Gramercy Park just for a giant strawberry daiquiri after dinner and had been interested in basically the entire menu, so I led the way to the retro diner for some of the heartiest breakfast foods around.
My friends ordered things like pancakes dripping with melted chocolate chunks and omelettes practically exploding with meats and cheeses, but I went for the biggest, nastiest, kitchen-sinkiest thing on the menu: the Bow Wow Wow.
It’s a buttery waffle sandwich filled inches-high with a slab of scrambled eggs, American cheese, Canadian bacon, and hash browns. For the person who’s drawn to sweet breakfast items but never quite gets the satisfaction of savory items from them, like me, this is the perfect compromise: there’s all the cheesy saltiness of the filling, but there’s always the syrupy sweetness of the waffle. And a side of tater tots to boot. The waffle was super-crunchy on the outside but doughy on the inside, just the way I like it, and the sandwich was so stuffed and stuffing I had to eat it with a knife and fork and take half of it home (and you know I like that, too).
Everyone else ordered shakes to accompany their meals to overwhelmingly positive reviews, but I had to get the frozen hot chocolate to see how it compares to Serendipity 3‘s (the most famous in the city) and Dairy Queen’s (my personal favorite). Nothing will ever compare to the thick, rich, ice-creamy version that DQ does, but the Big Daddy’s version was eerily similar to that of Serendipity.
Which is to say not that impressive. I always expect the milkiness of my mom’s homemade hot chocolate with ice and ice cream blended in, but it’s like some terrible mom used a packaged hot chocolate mix in some water and just added ice. It’s thin and watery and wimpy. But it tastes good, I’ll admit. I just need to remember to ask for a scoop of vanilla on top. And probably some peanut butter, too. Also marshmallows.
Big Daddy’s is my kind of diner. It’s open 24 hours, it’s big enough to seat a party of eight with no problem, and it’s not the usual drab neighborhood joint you only frequent because it’s convenient; not only is the food so comforting it’s worth going out of the way for, but the decor is something you only find in places owned by Branded Restaurants (the folks behind City Crab and Duke’s, another favourite of mine for really over-the-top, fattening stuff); it looks like a 1950s kitchen, but the walls are covered in giant logos for Atari and PanAm and Kool-Aid, displays of throwback products from my childhood, and framed photographs of TV stars too bygone for me to recognize. It’s worth a visit, drunk at midnight or otherwise.
As a fairly new food blogger originally from three states away, I sometimes feel out of the food-blogging loop. And as a pig farmer’s daughter, I really love me a good pork roast. So it was a delight to be invited to eat a whole suckling pig at The Breslin Bar & Dining Room with one of my favourite food bloggers, Chubby Chinese Girl, and her pals Henry from Ramblings and Gamblings, Tia from Bionic Bites, Addie from Gypsy-Addie’s Food Diary, and other friends who actually eat things without blogging about them.
The first thing you notice about The Breslin is just how gastropubby it is. It’s a bar, but it’s the kind of bar where the bartender’s serving more burgers than beers. Every inch of wall space is covered in something farm-related–mostly ceramic animals in all shapes and sizes–and all of the fixtures are old-timey. The place is dark but for the bright light coming from the sparkling white open kitchen in the back. And we especially loved the use of what appears to be the original ceiling, which was cracked and peeling and beautiful.
I’m really not an appreciator of salad. I get that some people like light, fresh foods, but I’m going to chase my oysters with a big buttered steak every time. Our first course was a salad even I could’ve eaten as a meal, though. The Caesar dressing was just so flavorful, the dried herbs so crunchy. The anchovies weren’t fishy at all, really, but just added some salty depth. I would order this again in a second.
And then the pig arrived as the entire restaurant spontaneously broke into applause.
Its little piggy face was right in front of me, its eyeless sockets staring at me and its puffed ears floating alongside its head, begging to be popped like balloons at a county fair dart game. It was much smaller than I’d expected, but I guess we were feeding a table of nine and not a whole neighborhood of smalltown Ohio hillbillies.
Our pig-carver deftly removed the legs from each side and then tonged shoulder, belly, loin, and butt onto our plates.
My plate of crispy skin and shoulder was heavenly. The forkfuls alternated between completely falling apart and so crunchy I couldn’t cut them. It was all of the best things about pork with the benefit that I could sample all of the cuts in one dish.
My boyfriend’s experience wasn’t quite as good as mine, because the skin he got was floppy rather than crispy. I had to give him a piece of my skin before he understood why everyone was salivating over it. I guess that’s one of the side effects of EATING A WHOLE PIG.
It was served with sides of potatoes roasted in duck fat, roasted fennel, broccoli rabe, green sauce, and red sauce. The potatoes were the star with their extra crispy/extra fatty exteriors and soft insides, but really, all of the accoutrements held their own. The garlicky broccoli rabe and tender fennel were both spicy to accent the sweetness of the pork, while the chunky red sauce of peppers and tomatoes only added to its sweetness by tasting wildly of apple pie.
The apple that had been roasted in the pig’s mouth, on the other hand, was funky. My first bite was just nice, mushy apple, but my second bite was freaky, pig-saliva-flavored mushy apple. Lesson learned.
We spent an hour or so really ravaging that carcass, peeling back the cheeks and breaking off the ears, making excessive mentions of the butt meat and trying the doubly-flavoured neck meat.
Even my boyfriend, the salad-lover, found himself ravenous.
In the end, only this
and this remained.
And that’s when they brought the chocolate tarts
and ice cream.
The tart was very good, especially the parts with course salt sprinkled on top, but the ice cream was the really delicious part. I don’t want to pretend like I have any idea what to compare the flavor to, but the ice cream was extra sweet and just had a really wonderful smooth texture. I wondered if there was Marshmallow Fluff or something mixed in.
This was a difficult rating for me. On one hand, I really appreciate the novelty of being able to eat an entire pig in a fairly small NYC restaurant. I appreciate the work and care that had to go into preparing it. The side dishes were all better than expected and were flavorful enough not to become just afterthoughts next to the pig. I’m still thinking about that ice cream. But at the end of the day, if I’m going to spend $85 for a plate of food, I’d rather have it be an uncommon preparation made with ingredients I have to Google before I leave for the restaurant. Had this been anything but a whole pig, it would have been much less expensive, and there wouldn’t have been any floppy skin to deal with.
But my boyfriend said, “I mean, I just ask myself how much better they could have done with that, and it seems like, for what it was, that’s about as good as you could expect,” and I think that’s reasonable. It was a really neat experience, and I’m very glad I got to be a part of it. I found out that for me, eating an animal that still looks like itself isn’t weird at all! And I met some great people in the process.
My boyfriend and I ate at La Silhouette last month and enjoyed their tasting menu of citrus-soaked daurade, veal that melted in our mouths, and the biggest chocolate soufflé I’ve ever seen. I gave the food 4.5 donuts but mentioned that the kitchen was still running a little slow with only two weeks of service under its belt, so co-owner Sally Chironis invited us back for a second chance.
Ironically, we had been looking for an upscale brunch spot only the Sunday before but had found every restaurant we thought of closed. Had we remembered that La Silhouette is now serving brunch, we would’ve been treated to:
I love a good bread basket, and this one had some real high points. The chocolate-banana muffin was the major one thanks to the crunchy sugar topping and the crust of chocolate chips. The buttery croissants flaked apart in our fingers, and the trio of fruit spreads that accompanied the basket were all delicious with the soft marbled pound cake.
This cocktail put your usual brunch mimosa to total shame. It was super sour and loaded with peaches, raspberries, blueberries, pineapple, and what my boyfriend thought was rhubarb. Rhubarb!
Unsurprisingly, I don’t drink bloody marys, but my boyfriend assured me this was a good one. He loves a little protein in his cocktails and welcome the baby shrimp, which even I tried and liked when swiped through the Old Bay Seasoning on the rim of the glass.
It’s funny that the menu called this the “classic” croque madame, because it tasted quite different than others I’ve had. I don’t think I even knew what a croque madame or monsieur was until a few years ago, and now it’s hard for me to imagine anyone eating anything else at brunch. It’s basically just a grilled cheese sandwich. Filled with ham. And then covered with more cheese. With a fried egg on top. What could be better, right? The difference with this one was that where most croques I’ve had have been mostly cheese-flavored, this one was heavy on the ham. Instead of a single slice, there was a big pile of thinly-sliced ham between the buttery slices of crunchy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside bread.
The other plus was the side of Dijon mayo for dipping. I actually thought it was some sort of wasabi mayo, but of course a French-influenced restaurant went the Dijon mustard route. The chef noted the European fondness for mayonnaise on French fries but wanted to add a little kick to it. Oui!
My boyfriend has been wanting smoked salmon for breakfast lately, so this dish was perfect for him. Even I, usually so wary of the extra-seafoodiness of smoked fish, thought the flavors were very well-balanced. The smoke wasn’t overpowering thanks to the lemony Hollandaise, and I liked the way the firm English muffin provided a substantial base.
The night before, we had been to Serendipity 3, arguably the most famous dessert restaurant in the city, and we thought this sundae not only stood up to the one we had there but surpassed it in some ways. There’s a time and a place for over-the-top, brimming-with-every-topping-imaginable sundaes (more often for me than most people!) but Sunday afternoon is not one of them.
This felt like a sundae for adults. A sundae with lighter, better ingredients. It started with the crunchy pink meringue on top, which we later found tiny chunks of throughout the sundae. There was the Chantilly (vanilla) cream, the large slices of beautiful strawberries, the dark chocolate syrup, and the thick vanilla bean ice cream, too. I’m not usually one to praise desserts that don’t knock me over with richness, but this was just a great way to end brunch.
It doesn’t take much to make me happy when it comes to cupcakes, but these were just so-so for me. I didn’t think the cake portion of the red velvet one was moist enough, but the cream cheese icing with its bits of cake topping was incredible. The coconut cupcake was fine but not memorable. I loved the peanut butter cake of the chocolate-peanut butter cupcake, but the icing was like eating straight shortening. Peanut butter and chocolate are two of my very favourite flavors in the world, but this was my least-favourite cupcake.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t a huge fan of the cookies, either. I’ve been thinking about blondies for a couple of weeks now, so you can imagine my pleasure at receiving these. Only they were waaaay too dry for me. The double chocolate chip cookie crumbled in my mouth, as well. The coconut macaroon was the best part of the plate with its chewy interior and chocolate-dipped exterior.
La Silhouette was such a nice departure from the overcrowded, two-hour-long wait you get at the usual brunch places in the city. The sunken dining room was filled with natural light highlighted by a wall of electric candles, the noise level was low enough that we could enjoy quiet conversation, and our server was kind, professional, and impeccably dressed. I would certainly order the croque madame, eggs Benedict again, and even the $18 bagel with smoked salmon seemed like a deal when we saw how much fish was on the plate. I would skip the cookies and cupcakes, though, and order two of the La Silhouette Sundae instead.
5 donuts: transcendent experiences
4.5 donuts: extremely awesome meals
4 donuts
3.5 donuts: good eats
3 donuts
2.5 donuts: food I could have made
2 donuts
1 donuts: dinners not fit for the dogs
