Omelettes & Asteroids

The City Grill

269 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
(212) 873-9400
thecitygrillnyc.com

Empire
2642 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
(212) 663-6004

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER brunch, another Street Fair.

My mom and I wove our ways through the sea of white tents and tube socks towards the promise of The City Grill and another brunch of bellinis and Bloody Marys. We were again rewarded for our efforts. And it was a reprise of smoked salmon as well, this time wrapped in egg whites with chives and cream cheese. Filling, similarly priced, but far from the nearly flawless display of egg excellence at Serafina.

We then spent our afternoon wandering the halls of the American Museum of Natural History. The Museum's featured exhibit of the moment, Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids, was a sprawling survey of tall tales from the around the globe, the buzzkill of debunking tempered by a kind spinning of the stories into accepted traditions. And, of course, we didn't miss the dinosaurs, meteors or every schoolchild's dream: exquisitely crafted agricultural dioramas.

Pink unicorn, shiny rocks, space rocks, and some sweet, sweet diorama action

Mint and her Dad joined us a little later and a little further uptown for dinner at Empire. The Chinese-Japanese joint serves all the standard fare you'd expect at such a spot, perhaps with just a bit more panache, and an array of vegetarian mock-meat dishes. The home style bean curd is worth trying, and the salt and pepper shrimp is light and perfectly peppery. The service is generally miserable.

Of course, no visit to the Upper West Side would be complete without a Steph sighting, so we swung by Dive 75 for a few drink with Steph and a round of her favorite game, Apple to Apples. A lot of days end with drinks and good times, but this City reminds you it's okay to start with them too.

Early Breakfast, Late Dinner (Happy Birthday Kat!)

Brooklyn Label
180 Franklin Street
Brooklyn, NY 11222
(718) 389-2806
www.brooklynlabel.com

Ollie's
1991 Broadway
New York, NY 10023
(212) 595-8181

TIME FOR CONFESSION: it's true, yes, that I arrived at work a little before 11:00 a.m. today on account of breakfast. I'm sorry? Well, no, I'm not at all, really--it was damn delicious.

Mint's work schedule usually grants her either Saturday or Sunday off-work, though this week the schedule Gods (Mitch and Nick, admittedly, not being names normally befitting of deities) conspired to give her neither, offering Tuesday in trade. So, with the prospect of having no free time together for the rest of the week, I decided that I was in absolutely no hurry to get to work myself. Breakfast at Brooklyn Label was in order.

Not surprisingly, the normally- packed weekend brunch spot was nearly empty at 9:00 on a weekday morning, save for a trickling crowd of coffee counter customers grabbing morning cups to-go. We grabbed a table in the corner and the service was, needless to say, quite attentive. The kitchen, too, was in its prime, being frequently subdued in both quickness and quality on a busy Sunday morning. Mint's eggs were a perfect accomplishment of over-medium, and mine, soft-scrambled with tomato, basil and aged cheddar, showcased all of their flavors with notable perfection. We were also happily offered home fries, made at the whim of the kitchen, not normally residing on the menu, which were deliciously just too crisp and served with BL's house label "Chef's Revenge" ketchup and hot sauces.

Oh, so delicious--just be careful if you bring one home...

Fast-forward eight hours. After meeting up post-work with Mint and killing a few hours with Steph (drinking, wrapping gifts for Kat, and playing Photohunt at Dive 75, then drinking and grabbing a snack at City Grill's bar) we continued wandering south through the Upper West Side, down to meet Kat & Co. at Ollie's Noodle Shop just above Lincoln Center for dinner and birthday festivities.

Now, Ollie's is many things to many people; sitting smack across the street from the Sony Lincoln Square movie theater it's a go-to spot for pre-movie munchies. Blessed with unusually large amounts of space for little more than a glorified Chinese takeout joint (including a covered public atrium with tables for those who want to forgo formalities and order from the counter), it's one of the few cheap places in this city large enough to house a dozen people at one table:

The St. Marks kids are alright; the tofu has been better

The food is what you expect, rarely much more--the lo mein is competent, the red bean buns steaming and stuffed with, yes, red bean paste, the scallion pancakes somewhat larger than elsewhere. The "sizzling" tofu platter managed to disappoint by being bland and not at all sizzling. The service is usually poor; tonight, a male waiter stalked our table as we pieced together the check. I cannot express how much I dislike that type of treatment.

But the service and the food is a footnote to Kat's birthday, her twenty-first, and an opportunity for Mint to buy her a 22-ounce can of Sapporo along with assorted Hello Kitty trinkets and a bottle of glucosamine (hey, everyone knows that arthritis really kicks in at twenty-one). And anytime a double-digited number of friends show up to celebrate your birthday, it's bound to be good time.

MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: Brooklyn Label should (finally) be announcing its new summer/debut dinner menu soon; you're better off grabbing take-out and sitting in the "outdoor" atrium rather than braving Ollie's similarly backwards idea of "service."

Yes, That's Right, Malted Milk Ball Ice Cream!

The City Grill
296 Columbus Avenue
New York, NY 10023
212-873-9400
www.thecitygrillnyc.com

STEPH AND I spent the afternoon at The Morgan Library. For $12, it's one of those random New York museum experiences that reminds you simultaneously how old and young this city is. The Morgan name should sound familiar: J.P. Morgan has been offering financial services for those who can afford if since, well, a while ago. The library and museum in NYC houses all of the family's books, Gutenberg Bibles, Mozart manuscripts, and medieval art pieces. You know, the stuff any family has laying around after a few hundred years of financial industry dominance.

This reminds me how young this city is because five hundred years of history just doesn't cut it on the world scene. You walk into Morgan's white marble foyer, turn into his study (complete with Renaissance-painted wood ceiling panels) and wonder just what is this is doing in New York? You're trying too hard, literally, if you need to import your ceiling from the Renaissance. Yet, it's beautiful and you'll admire it anyway.

Was there food involved in this?

Steph and I went back uptown afterwards and ended up having dinner sitting at The City Grill's bar while watching Ohio State beat Georgetown en route to the national championship game. The enormous crab cake sandwich was fantastic; the game was better. The dessert, however, does deserve a few more sentences:

Why do you want this dessert? Keep reading to find out!

We ordered two desserts, actually. The first was a grilled pound cake listed among the daily specials with vanilla ice cream, sliced peaches and strawberries. A good idea, but the pound cake was obviously grilled on the same grill as everything else in the restaurant. This gave the pound cake an odd taste neither of us much liked--we split one of the two slices and abandoned the other.

Our second dessert was a simple brownie sundae ($6.50), but instead of vanilla ice cream it came with malted milk ball ice cream, which was, yes, as amazing as it sounds. Whipped cream and chocolate syrup were also involved, the brownie was excellent on its own, but I'll repeat--malted milk ball ice cream! Seriously, I'd pay full price next time just for that.

MIKE EATS NEXT TIME: Do I have to say it again? Malted milk ball ice cream!