Perry St Brunch Round 2

After a wonderful Perry St brunch with Gabe a month and a half ago, I recommended it to my girl friends as a girls day out sort of thing. We went yesterday prior to watching the Sex and the City movie (Note: I really enjoyed the movie, but no we did not get all corny or dressed up for the event).

While trying to decide what to eat, we ended up choosing a bottle of Torrontes, 2007 (Sagra, Argentina) for $20. This was a wonderful white wine and absolutely perfect for brunch on a hot, summer day. I never knew what kind of wine would be appropriate for brunch, but now I do. It was very slightly sweet, pleasant, and easy to drink.



After we finally decided on what we were going to order, we were given an amuse-bouche of cold cucumber soup with some kind of foam. I want to say it was a parmesan foam, but I could be very wrong with that. I'm not sure what my friends thought of it, but I actually really loved it. Probably more than the sweet pea amuse bouche soup I got here last time. It was tangy and refreshing with a hint of salt.



For my first course, I got the House Made Mozzarella with Pickled Rhubarb and Black Pepper. The mozzarella was really good with the black pepper and the slightly syrupy sauce it came with. The pickled rhubarb contrasted the subtlety of the mozzarella really well, but the strong pickle taste had to be muted with some bites of bread every now and then.


For my second course, I got the House Made Gravlax with Poached Eggs and a Toasted Brioche. I really loved this one. Normally I don't like dill, but the accent of dill on this dish was nice. It was certainly rich with the eggs and buttery brioche, but was not overwhelmingly so. I wouldn't have minded another slice of the gravlax, but in any case, this was a great brunch dish.

I got the passion fruit sunflower dessert that Gabe ordered last time, so I won't bother to repost the picture.

Overall, brunch was pretty good, but for some reason, I wasn't as wowed this time around as I was the first time I ate here. Our waitress seemed a bit aloof, and sometimes it took awhile for the busboys to get rid of our plates and give us new bread.

Now that I've been to Perry St twice for brunch, the next step is to have lunch at Jean-Georges...

Perry St
176 Perry St
New York, NY

Marco & Pepe

Once upon a time, I could not fathom the idea of good eats outside of Manhattan. When I moved to Astoria, I realized that there certainly is some amazing and authentic ethnic food in Queens (Note: I<3flushing). What was even more beyond comprehension was the fact that there is good food in Jersey City as well. Yeah, I said it. Jersey City. One of my girl friends wanted to do a girls brunch plus shopping in Jersey City. I was curious. We ended up going to Marco &Pepe, which is in the Grove St area. Just from stepping out of the PATH station, the neighborhood seemed pretty nice and even heading towards yuppie. I was really impressed with the brunch menu here. There were certainly some interesting items, such as rabbit sausage, Fish&Chips (the fish being monkfish), and what seems to be their famous macaroni&cheese.


I opted with the macaroni&cheese, and I'm pretty sure I never want to eat Kraft again. Their Mac&Cheese was made with aged gruyere, bacon, mushroom, marscapone, and aged goat cheese. I got their smaller portion for $10, but I was definitely pushing to finish it. This was definitely a mature take on mac&cheese, and I was seriously wowed by it. Every ingredient went so well together. It actually inspired me to make some fancy mac&cheese of my own, but I still have yet to do that. What I liked about it is that it wasn't so heavy. The cheese wasn't as thick as I thought it would be, so to me, it was almost more just like eating pasta for brunch.

I also got the Chicken&Truffle sausages as a side for $4. It came with 2 almost bratwurst sized sausages. Considering these aren't your average breakfast sausages, $4 is a pretty good deal. While it certainly smelled like truffles, I honestly couldn't taste it which was a bit of a disappointment. The sausage had too much spice that it covered the taste of the black truffles. I'm pretty sure the black specks I saw in there were black truffles, but I could be wrong. If I come back here (which I'd love to do for brunch), maybe I'll try the duck&pork sausage instead.

Not on the topic of food, but Jersey City also has a bunch of really cool boutiques, though some of them are pretty expensive. I think I have to do more shopping in Jersey City too. :)

Marco & Pepe
289 Grove St
Jersey City, NJ 07302