I should be doing real work, but do I ever do what I should be doing? Or eat what I should be eating? Unless humans are meant to consume fries and deep fried pig ears as their first sustenance of the day, then yes, I do eat what I should be eating.
It was lovely Michele's last day in NYC, so of course we went to a restaurant who is famous for having just roasted a whole pig for their 2 year anniversary. If you remember from the Wondee Siam outing, my one non-brunch post, Michele does not eat meat matters. It's cool, there was something for everyone.
Resto is a Belgium/pork-centric "gastropub" (god I hate that word). It has a lovely atmosphere - light, bright, and airy. We began with some libations, bloody mary and various Belgium beers. The bloody mary was fine, lighter in texture and tomato flavor than what I usually prefer. The beers were great and came in all different kind of cute glasses. The cutest being the Kwak.
Can't go to a Belgium place without getting fries, right? So we got 2 orders, just to be on the safe side. Each order came with a choice of sauce. We chose lemon w/smoked paprika and gribiche. Both sauces were great. The smoked paprika balanced out the bright acidic flavor of the lemony mayo. Gribiche is kind of similar to tartar sauce, with caper berries and other stuff. My brain stopped listening after "mayo based" and "caper berries". I love both things, all other ingredients are just gravy. My only gripe was that they were damn stingy with the sauces. The fat fries came with maybe 2-3 tablespoons of sauce (don't hold me to that, I suck at measuring stuff by eye). Definitely not enough to generously coat the fries, or even ungenerously coat them.
The fries themselves were good. Crispy on the outside, soft and carby on the inside. They were also very well salted - this is key in making french fries. Salt your fries liberally! If you're eating fries, what's the point worrying about hypertension! I prefer thinner fries cuz I like high crispy to carby ratio. But they were still good and we chomped thru them all. Fast.
I got the chicory salad with crispy pig ears, coco beans, soft egg, and tomato confit. I love pig ears. I love the cartilage-ness and pigginess of them. I'm happy to see non-Chinese chefs start getting in on the act. These pig ears were cut into large pieces and fried to a crisp. They were delicious when hot, but after soaking in the salad dressing for a bit, they got cold, uncrispy, and oily. Eat them fast, grasshoppers, eat. them. fast. The rest of the salad was good. I'll pretty much eat anything drenched in runny yolk. So eat I did.
Kim had the Belgium hangover pasta with vermont ham, gruyere, sunny egg, and black pepper. This is basically a version of carbonara. The pasta was mushy. Enough said. That was enough to kill the entire dish. Sad. It was pretty though! Okay, I guess I won't eat just anything drenched in runny yolk. Not mushy pasta anyway.
Jason got the gruyere burger with fried egg, red onion, pickle, mayo, and fries. This was delicious! The soft buns held up the tasty patty really well. I think every burger should come with a fried egg. It just adds to the overall flavor, or heft, whatever. Also, it kind of tricks you into thinking it's breakfast - hey look! it's an egg dish!
Michele had the greek yogurt with granola and fresh fruit. The fresh fruit was bananas. Lame. At least throw in some berries. It tasted fine, but I was sad about the lack of fresh fruit.
J-me's grilled cheese was yummy but the picture I took was not. So just take my word for it. We also got a dutch baby to share. I thought we were getting the dutch pancake thing, but no. So now I know: dutch baby = a really eggy flat french toast, like crepe flat. Resto's version came with too little powder sugar. But overall, it was yummy, especially with fresh lemon juice squeezed on it.
Would I go back to Resto? Maybe for dinner to try their pig stuff. Brunch was fine, but our service was not. The waitress seemed annoyed and very fake. Like you can tell she's rolling her eyes once she turns her back. Oh well.
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