Hodgepodge at Tom's

Brunch at Tom's on Washington Avenue. Dan and I started with egg sandwiches - mine with bacon, his with beef salami. He didn't quite like his, so we switched. I love bacon but I also love salami and eggs.


We also did a short stack of chocolate chip pancakes, a side of fries and a lemonade to share. Tom's had a couple butters that were new to us, including a peach walnut.


When we were first seated, I noticed the four-top next to us kind of gave us a look when we sat down. It wasn't until they were getting up to leave that I noticed the two ladies were Asian and the two guys, white! We were seated in Yellow Fever alley!

I wanted to punch the group that was seated after they. They seemed fresh out of college, led by a guy who was the only one who had eaten here before. His way of puffing out his chest was to call out Tom's for posting a Best Breakfast award from way back in 2005. Who cares if they got that award in 1975? What exactly is your problem, Mr. Did-You-Really-Come-to-Tom's-as-a-Group-of-8-and-Expect-To-Be-Seated-Together? We overheard some other really dumb things, which I can't remember right now but maybe DMR can chime in. Oh wait, now I remember one of the other gripes he had. He and some of his other friends who weren't present at the table didn't like how Gus and the rest of the Tom's crew were so friendly and liked to pat patrons on the back. WTF?

Noo Na First Taste

I've been avoiding NooNa. The review were not the best when it first opened about a year and a half ago and so we've stayed away. Plus we've got a Korean place Sushi Okdol down the street that does the job for the most part. But my last meal there was really disappointing and sometimes a girl just needs her kimchi, so NooNa got the delivery call.

I ordered the duk mandoo guk - a really homey soup of beef dumplings and rice cake slices. Did I mention I was suffering from the worst cold ever that last like three weeks?

The dumplings were obviously homemade, which was nice to see since so many places rely on frozen product. There were three rather large, plump mandoos and a nice portion of duk. However, the meat filling in the dumplings was way too sweet. This is apparently a trend here. Also, I like to toss kimchi pieces into the soup to slightly cook them and also spice up the broth since this is one of the tamer Korean dishes you'll find. Very bummed to find no banchan included with the delivery order. Come on guys, throw me a plastic container of the stuff!

Dan got a mini hamburger topped with kimchi and some kimchi fried rice.


I had a bite of the burger and the meat once again was overly sweet. The bits of bulgogi that dotted the kimchi friend rice suffered from the same mis-seasoning. Otherwise it was a pleasant meal that pretty much it the spot. I doubt we'll be doing delivery from here again any time soon since the bill came out to be about double what we normally spend.

wake up maggie (and franny) i think i got something to say to you

I've figured out why it took nearly three years to try Franny's for the second time. As my (sometimes...seriously, where are you?) co-blogger the CLC would say, "I'm just not into them." I remember feeling pretty disappointed the first time we tried Franny's, which I think was around the time they first opened. Years pass and the near-universal acclaim piles up yet, I have never felt much of a need to go back. Well I finally did over the weekend and I think it's safe to say that Franny's is simply not my type.

DMR, the CLC, Balgavy and I headed to Franny's after downing mint juleps and derby pie at Commonwealth in Southgreenslopeset. I won zilch, thanks a lot Paul Lo Duca. Having not had any time to read up on the horses, I went with Captain Red Ass' Trifecta Picks. Sure, he wound up picking the winner but at 4-1 odds it was nothing like his bingo call of Giacomo a couple years back. DMR and I actually started the afternoon with a couple of tacos from Tacos Nuevos Mexico (aka Jack's). I got a spicy chicken and queso taco and they were easily the best I've had from there. The green sauce on the queso was SPICY!

Anyway, back to Franny's. We get seated after a 30 minute or so wait and delve into the menu, which looks great. The restaurant's environmentally conscious philosophy is admirable but it confused me that it appears they print new menus out every night. I guess when the market dictates your menu you need to do this? Surely they can find an alternative, maybe even a few whiteboards as they use at Superfine in Dumbo?

We began with a couple of starters: the trio of house-cured meats and house-pickled vegetables. The waitress informed us that bread was not served with the meats and wondered if our order would that be enough food for us. I'm not quite sure why they don't serve bread since there are crostini variations on the menu. There's also uh, you know, a nice, hot oven in the kitchen where a thin round of pizza dough could be fired up and cut into wedges to accompany the meats. Our waitress was also not nearly as good as she thought she was. She forgot to bring Dan's beer and went out of her way to tell us that she wouldn't be pressuring us to order more food and drink. Thanks, we appreciate it.

I'll start the least appetizing of the house meats. The proscuitto (although the website lists pancetta, so now I'm confused. I thought the menu that day was offering proscuitto, but I may be mistaken) looked and tasted like uncooked bacon strips. It was fatty and chewy and not overly appetizing. The soppressata and coppa, on the other hand were delicious but our waitress was right, there wasn't enough of it. I think we paid about a dollar per small slice of meat. The vegetables used for the house made pickles were an interesting mix, ranging from kohlrabi to baby fennel. They each had different brines, some were sweet and tangy and some packed a bit of heat.

Our table decided to split three pizzas among the four of us. We went with two tomato, buffalo mozzarella and house-made sausage pies and one with clams, chilies and parsley. The pizzas failed to live up to the hype. Where was this magical light and thin crust? We got bready, puffy crusts that reminded us of Bobolis. Granted, it was fine, but not what was expected and certainly not amazing. I was pleased with the number of little briny bellies that dotted our clam pie, but there was something missing. Some garlic would have been nice. The chilies that were promised were barely there and the parsley dominated each bite. The sausage pie was too much outer crust, with the tomato sauce populating too small an area. I remember not loving the sausage last time because it tasted too gamey to me. Had the same thought this time around too.

Despite the promise of "Brooklyn's best panna cotta," we chose to skip dessert. I don't know if that's a line our waitress was told to say or if she truly believed it, but we wouldn't bite. I had no reason to trust her. The bottom line: the pizzas are good, but not that good to make us want to shell out $16 for a pie. The bathroom is very nice, however.

The following day DMR and I went to Maggie Brown's for brunch. We had nice experience dining on the outdoor patio the week prior, even if the service was spotty. I think our waiter disappeared halfway through our meal never to be seen or heard from again. I again went with the Beryl Evans - corned beef hash with a biscuit on the side, along with delicious raspberry butter. We should have branched out because it was just not Maggie's day. My hash came sitting in a pool of oil so it was barely eaten. DMR ordered the Maggie Brown, which is a scramble of cheddar, horseradish and chives. The kitchen forgot the cheddar. He also ordered a side of yogurt with fruit and honey, only first we realized the honey was missing and then we realized the yogurt was missing! Our server, despite seeming super harried, was super apologetic and even took 15% off the bill, which was definitely unexpected.

I could probably write more, but it's taken me like 5 day to write this so I'll just wrap things up now. Plus, I want to post about dinner the other night at Craftsteak in the next day or so.

Yesterday's Brunch: Gen Japanese Restaurant

While the husband was off pondering over baseball players for the first of his many fantasy drafts, I met up with the CLC and Jimmy-John for some Japanese brunch at Gen. I first noticed this place because their logo is similiar to the Korean word for Hong and because I don't think I ever saw it open. Also, it sticks out on a relatively unattractive stretch of Prospect Heights, flanked by wholesale liquor stores and hiddeous new construction. The CLC had recently tried their newish brunch with her mom and was all raves. I know some people might be turned off by the idea of brunch at a Japanese restaurant, but mostly folks are just probably misinformed and scared.

You can order Japanese dishes and sushi a la carte or go with the prix-fix brunch, which is what I did. At $13, it's quite a deal. To drink, you can pick from a selection of teas or Cafe Du Monde coffee. On top of that you get a choice of juice (orange, cranberry or tomato) or cocktail (sake mimosa or cranberry sake spritzer type beverage). I went with coffee and the spritzer, the CLC barley tea and cranberry juice and Jim, who did not go with the special brunch ordered a ginger ale with a splash of cranberry.

All the brunch bentos begin with the soup of the day. On Sunday it was a savory chicken vegetable (potato chunks, napa cabbage ribbons and lima beans!) Not terribly Japanese, but tasty nonetheless.



To accompany your main course, you also get the following: a piece of green tea pancake with a dollop of sweetened red beans, mini-chirashi and a mini-omelet with king crab, parmasaen, tomato and onion. The mini-chirashi was built with a mound of seasoned wild rice as its foundation. Pieces of whitefish, salmon and smoked salmon sashimi were draped over it and then topped with salmon roe and green tobiko.

I had a tough time picking my main but ultimately went with the salad with tuna two ways. I know Sunday isn't the best day to order fish, but I took a chance and it worked out fine. The salad was composed of pieces of fresh tuna and pressed, deep fried tuna and avocado slices over a bed of lettuces, tomato, red cabbage and carrot strands. Served on the side was a salty and tart yuzu caper dressing. At first I dipped my salad into my dressing, but then wound up just pouring it over everything which worked out just fine, thank you.



I ate it all, although I did share some of my pancake with Jim. It was delicious and such a nice alternative to full sized omelets and home fries. I liked getting a little bit of sweet to go with my savory. I liked the lack of bread, which I eat way too much of anyway. The only non-plus was the service. It wasn't a minus since she was quite attentive (there was only one other table eating), but she was kind of strange. Jim had finished eating his oyako-don but there was still a little bit of food left. When the waitress came to clear his plate, she seemed a little annoyed that he hadn't eaten everything. Also, she seemed to be having a contentious conversation with one of the sushi chefs about the way the menu was written out. Although they had nothing to do with each other, it didn't help matters when Beth loudly complained about girls with schmatas on their heads since our waitress was wearing a headwrap herself!

I hope some of this appeals to DMR since I plan on eating brunch here EVERY WEEKEND. Just kidding, we can alternate with Bonitas.

I also thought that I was picking up menu #2 for the new apartment (The Smoke Joint being menu #1), but turns out we'll be 2 blocks too North for their delivery range.