Relax, there’s obviously brunch involved. The pilgrimage was to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, which is a nice stop to make when your grandparents are visiting, though probably more worth it when the cherry blossoms are on the scene.
It’s a simple sitch. Brunching in Nolita has become a THING. Everyone and their mother is taking over my coffee shops and go-to spots, which leaves me roaming the streets of Chinatown, fishy scent lingering in the air, hunger pangs consuming me throughout, and a sense of desperation in regards to the upcoming source of my sustenance.
I rarely venture into the TriBeCa hood, but when I do, I likely have a destination programmed into my Google Maps.
Zak the Baker, doing baker things.
In an era where fast casual dining is taking over, Zak is striving for the opposite. “I wanted a slow casual place,” said Zak when I asked to tap into his secret sauce-y life. “I’m not trying to be the next Chipotle. We have 50 employees, we don’t make very much, but it’s perfect.” That was almost as cute as his honey butter toast.
Shit happens, and suddenly one day it’s 46 degrees and sunny out until Mother Nature is all like naaa girl, you ain’t even know what’s coming. Then I wake up, it’s 18 degrees, and I can’t breathe because the heat in my building (which I cannot control) is on full blast and my mouth is so dry I feel like I ate an entire cotton field. Or a container of cinnamon, IDK.
Run to Santina immediately and chug the coconut iced coffee while slowly inhaling everything else that comes on the beautiful hand painted plates you kind of really want to stash in your purse.
I imagine that if Flava Flave were reincarnated as a dish, it would be something at Bodega Negra. I was skeptical about ordering another quinoa/kale salad at this point in my life, but NO.
So I met a long lost cousin for the first time ever over a bowl of mussels and a bottle of Sancerre last October in NY (Flex Mussels, if you must know). It was a quick business trip, until she decided to move to the city for a few months, AKA now.
For those instances where planning brunch is as stressful as studying for the SAT’s…you should probably just go to Hundred Acres. This may just look like an ordinary farro salad but…it ain’t.
