Cook Shop
156 10th Avenue
New York, NY 10011 (Map it!)
Attendees: Sylvia, Pat, Andrew, Yuee, Reid, Shelley, Jeffrey
When it comes to brunch in the city, expectations are set a few notches higher, mostly due to the elevated costs and the promise of more fancy city variations of otherwise staid brunch staples. Cookshop delivered on providing a fresh variation on brunch but without veering too far off course. For the costs, the portions were generous, which in a way helped justify the elevated costs.
We had arrived before Cookshop officially opened, but they opened the doors a little before 11 and started seating those who had reservations. We had reservations, but were not all present at the time. So we had to wait. We waited until we were about 86% present (the last person was stuck in traffic), and then I asked if we could be seated. The hostesses were incredibly chipper for a Sunday morning, which was a refreshing change from the more sedate staff we sometimes encounter.
Our table was in the back, near the kitchen and the bathrooms. We joked around about it with our hostess, and she explained that it was the only area where a large party can be seated comfortably without being run over by people. So note…if you have a party larger than 4, you’re in the back!
As we settled in, our water glasses were promptly filled, and drink orders were taken. Coffee wasn’t on the menu (but was available from what I observed), nor were any juices…but that didn’t matter much to me since I saw the tea offerings, and at $4 a pop, had the feeling that it was the good kind.
Not so much. I ordered the Indian Market Chai Tea, and what I got was a fancy pot filled with pre-brewed tea. I took off the lid of the pot to investigate if there were tea leaves steeping, but the poor lighting did not allow me to make an assessment. But even with my second cup, the tea was still as thin and weak as the first, so I guess there was no tea bag, no tea leaves, but an urn somehwere in the kitchen filled with pre-brewed, improperly steeped tea. I think Stash makes a chai teabag that has much more flavor than that.
However, our bakery basket arrived, and we made a grab for it. I think we were all a little hungry post-golf lesson! The first thing that got plucked and divided on a saucer (like Sweetgrass, no plates!) was the coffee donut, which I heard was excellent, but unfortunatly I was unable to partake. I did get to divy up the pecan sticky bun. Still very good, but I was also informed that it was not as good as the donut. Sigh…should have exercised my czar-ship and taken a piece!
Now, the main attraction. I ordered the walnut raisin french toast with vanilla marscapone cream and strawberries with a side of white chedder grits.
The french toast was really yummy. There were walnuts and raisins in every bite, and with the vanilla marscapone cream, no syrup was needed. The slices were nice and thick. Although, I feel like if I had this just as toast, I would have been slightly happier. There were some soggy parts to it, and it wasn’t as crisped up as I would have liked.
The grits were good. The white chedder really came through and complemented the grits well. I like my grits more “al dente,” or as I say, grittier, but these were pretty good, and mostly due to the almost perfect balance of white chedder flavor.
The czar says: A good place for a filling brunch before hitting up the rest of the city.
Side note: After brunch we ventured over to the next avenue and visited Billy’s Bakery. A very cute little bakery that smelled incredible upon entering. Besides the usual offerings of cakes and other really yummy baked goods, there were the cupcakes we had come for. I had the red velvet with cream cheese frosting. I ended up eating mine as we walked back to the car, in the heat. Needless to say, the cupcake started melting a little by the time I finished it, but it was scrumptious. A bit too much frosting for my taste, but not as much as Magnolia can put on top. The cake was moist and the sweetness of the frosting complemented it well without making it overpoweringly sweet. I also tried a bite of Jeffrey’s banana cupcake with cream cheese frosting. I think I’ll get that one next time!
What I Had: Two Poached Eggs, House-made Pork Sausage, White Cheddar Grits, parts of a Bakery Basket, Earl Grey Tea
What It Cost: All told, $25.00
Worth It: Almost
The Rating: 3.75/5
The Details:
Cookshop is an elegantly designed eatery on the corner of 20th Street and 10th Avenue. The brightly designed interior coupled with the large picture windows makes it a bright and cheery place to have a meal…at least, in the front of the restaurant. Where we sat, towards the back, there was a distinct lack of overhead lighting and with the glare from the windows across the restaurant, it at times was hard to see the faces of the six fellow brunchers. But the first impression upon entering the restaurant is a good one, and raised my hopes for a good meal (the first in a while for the WBC).
The best part of the meal came first in the Bakery Basket, which, at $12.00, also constituted the best deal of the morning. Perched atop the basket, which also contained a muffin, currant scone, banana bread, and a pecan sticky bun, was a light, fluffy, scrumptious doughnut covered in raised sugar and filled with a rich coffee cream. It was as delicious as any doughnut I’ve ever eaten (even though I only had a quarter of one) and one of the best things I’ve eaten with the WBC. The currant scone and banana bread, both freshly made in house, were also outstanding.
From there, the quality declined. It wasn’t a precipitous decline, but it was noticeable and disappointing (no one wants the appetizer to be the best part of the meal). I ordered the poached eggs with house-made sausage atop white-cheddar grits. One of my eggs was slightly overcooked, though that’s a minor complaint compared to the eggshell I bit into halfway through my meal. The sausage was tasty but unappetizingly cold in the middle. The grits were the best component of the entree, smooth in texture and flavorful, and they did a wonderful job elevating the flavor of the eggs and negating the slight sourness of the sausage.
The Earl Grey tea I ordered was a waste of four dollars. It may as well have been Twinings. It was served in a fancy individual pot. But the temperature cooled rapidly and it was room temperature before I finished my second cup. The service was friendly but a little slow.
The Bottom Line: Decent brunch option
I had the ham hash with skillet potatoes, spinach, baked eggs and
cheese served in a cast iron skillet. The eggs added very little to
the extremely salty dish. Couldn’t taste any of the pork, just
squisky pieces of meat that tasted of salt. The potatoes were
unseasoned, and the spinach was fine. The eggs came out over easy, but
really added nothing to the dish. It was very disappointing. While all
the ingredients they used might have been fresh, it was poorly put
together and over seasoned with salt. the dish was listed at 16
dollars, which was about 6 dollars too expensive for what it was.
Yuee:
Yuee had the chef’s salad with fish (16 dollars)
The chef salad consisted of lettuce, arugula, cook string beans and
other greens, topped with salted fish and salted shrimp. and flaked
Parmesan with some kind of olive oil. The fish was and shrimp were too
salty, they were some kind of preserved or pickled ingredients and
totally dominated the flavor of the salad. the greens were fresh
although it did not provide enough of a contrast with the soft cooked
beans and the soft fish and shrimp. This dish was definitely not worth
16 dollars, using salted/preserved fish and shrimp on top of a simple
salad and unimaginative dressing. It was a disappointment
Overall
Andrew/Yuee: Cannot recommended, just too expensive for the quality of
food served
The Case: The Cookshop v. The Westchester Breakfast Club
The Venue: A nicely spacious restaurant on Manhattan’s far-west side, near Chelsea Piers.
The Facts: When I arrived at the table fashionably late, some of my clubmates had already received their tea, served in delightful cast-iron kettles. They had also ordered a sampler of breakfast pastries for the table, which I certainly appreciated. I ordered myself a “blood orange” tea, and helped myself to some of the baked goods.
The tea was very good, though I would probably have liked it a little stronger. We were not given the tea bag, and therefore had no control over steepage. The gem of the pastry basket was the “coffee cream” doughnut, which was delicious and surprisingly unsweet; you really tasted the coffee, and much less the cream. There was also a good cranberry scone, a tasty cinnamon roll of some sort, and banana bread which was fine, though unremarkable.
For my main course, I had the “cookshop scramble,” which consisted of scrambled eggs, onions, creme fraiche, and applewood smoked bacon, served on a buttermilk biscuit, with a small salad on the side. The salad was, at best, an afterthought of some lettuce leaves and thin carrot slices (or, in Shelley’s case,* radishes). The scramble itself, however, was fantastic. Somehow, I suppose through the use of the creme fraiche, rather than being merely a bunch of egg with small bits of bacon and onion, the whole thing came together as one savory taste experience. The bacon and onion flavor infused the whole dish, and the eggs had a solid consistency while really melting in your mouth. The biscuit, likewise, was excellent. It was soft enough to meld into the overall consistency of the scramble, while stiff enough to hold together on the fork, and added a sweetness to the whole dish.
The Verdict: It’s a little out of the way, both from Westchester and my apartment on the Upper East Side, but I’ll definitely make it back here at some point.
* This will be funny to law nerds, because there is an olde-timey legal doctrine called “The Rule in Shelley’s Case.” The pun was not intentional.
I woke up earlier this past Sunday than I usually wake up for work during the week. Was it worth it?
Well, let’s find out.
The reason for my early morning wakeup call (literally–Jeff called me at 6:30 as I was stumbling out the door) was that the WBC and friends had purchased passes to a discounted 8am golf lesson at Chelsea Piers. Our instructor reminded me of Jane Lynch and I felt like I was in a Christopher Guest movie for the first half of the lesson, during which we sat in a room and looked at a diagram of a golf course and, I kid you not, a stick figure of a golfer.
After sending some golf balls into the Hudson River (or at least trying to) and relaxing on the High Line, it was time for brunch. A block away from Chelsea Piers on 10th Avenue and 20th Street is Cookshop. We had reservations for 11am, opening time. After a brief wait we were shown to our table in the back. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t seating outside to accommodate the seven us. Even though Sunday was a hot day, it was pleasant in the shade and it would have been nice to enjoy some more of the fresh air. Oh well. The inside of Cookshop was bright and airy, with a minimalist wood-based decor. The waitstaff were all attired in charming plaid shirts. But let me say, right off the bat, the number one reason why Cookshop was great: whoever picked the background music must be my soulmate because for a minute I thought someone had taken the ipod out of my purse and plugged it in. The playlist was pretty much my ideal playlist (except for that Sugar Ray song mixed in). Seriously, person at Cookshop who picked the music, if you’re a single straight man, post a message on this blog (which I’m sure you’re reading right now).
Moving on.
After our early morning we were in need of a brunch appetizer. Enter the bakery basket. Everyone else has already sung the praises of the bakery basket, so I won’t say too much. That coffee creme donut was pretty awesome. I’d like to point out, for the record, that Pat was at first going to just cut the donut in half and it was I who insisted it be cut into quarters, so that the bounty could be shared by more in our group. I’ll also mention the butter, which I don’t think anyone else has mentioned. The butter was the most delicious butter I’ve ever tasted. It had a sweetness to it that enhanced our various baked goods nicely. I particularly enjoyed it on the portion of blueberry muffin that I had.
I had looked at the Cookshop menu online before Sunday and had already pretty much made up my mind on what to get for my brunch entree: the Cookshop Scramble. Now, the description on the menu said that it came with a biscuit, carmelized onions, a choice of bacon or smoked salmon (I went with bacon), and creme fraiche. What I imagined was a dollup of creme fraiche on the side of the plate, which seemed an odd idea to me–what would I do, I wondered? Dip my scrambled eggs in the creme fraiche? Spread the creme fraiche onto the eggs? Craziness. However, what I got was so much better than I had possibly imagined. The creme fraiche was cooked in with the scrambled eggs, giving the eggs a moisture (not runniness, mind you, but moisture) and fluffiness that I have not before encountered in eggs. The bacon, onions, and creme fraiche were all seamlessly blended into the three eggs (yes, three eggs!) to create a magical breakfast flavor explosion. And the biscut was perfect. It had a delicious blend of saltiness and sweetness, and was oh-so-filling. The scramble was served with side salad (not mentioned on the menu), which I felt was an unnecessary accompaniment. Between the three eggs all the filling and the biscuit, the scramble is filling enough on its own and I barely touched my salad. Plus, as Reid has noted, there was an odd distribution of radishes and carrots in the salads. My salad had exactly one carrot slice and about 78 slices of radishes; Reid’s, on the other hand, was more carrot than radish, and he chose to ignore my subtle yet persistent hints to share some carrots. We also ordered a side of spiced fries which were not spectacular. Thin, salty fries–not much to make them uniquely “spiced.” They came served in a large bowl, with small cups of ketchup and something that we thought was either mayonnaise or aioli.
This was one of our pricier meals. The Cookshop Scramble set me back $14, and factoring in my contribution for the bakery basket, fries, and tip, I was out about $24 by the end of the morning. But, going back to my original question, was it worth it? Yes. It’s not every weekend that I dine in Chelsea, and my meal was delicious. The service was good, the music was great. My only regret is that I wasn’t able to finish all of my Scramble. I guess some things in life are just unattainable no matter how much you may want it. (Put that in a fortune cookie and eat it.)
As Sylvia mentioned, after brunch we walked over to Billy’s Bakery on 9th Avenue between 21st and 22nd. The stroll helped my brunch settle and by time we arrived I was ready for a cupcake. At Billy’s, I got one of the better cupcakes I’ve had. I chose a basic vanilla buttercream cupcake. My cupcake came with charming purple buttercream frosting (there was a variety of pastel-colored frosting on the vanilla cupcakes). The cake was not overly sweet, taking a backseat to the frosting, but the two complemented one another well. The cupcake was a reasonable size, filling enough to satisfy my sweet tooth but not so large that I felt like a glutton.
The next time I find myself in Chelsea, I’d definitely be inclined to have another meal at Cookshop. And maybe grab another cupcake from Billy’s. It was a good Sunday morning. And when I got home, I took a nap.
After an uneventful, and pretty much useless, $35 golf lesson, breakfast was scheduled at Cookshop. With a bit of time to wait between the lesson and breakfast, the group decided to head upstairs to the High Line. This reclaimed stretch of elevated railroad track has been converted into a park where people can lounge around high above the traffic. It was a hot day, so we searched for a spot in the shade. Once shade was found, we relaxed in the occasional breeze. The group splintered as half went in search of coffee and the rest of us relaxed. We were to meet at the Cookshop promptly at 11.
11 o’clock! Let’s be seated! We were put in the back, probably because they don’t want pedestrians to overwhelm the staff with requests to sit next to me since I’m so gosh darn good looking. Oh well. It’s the public’s loss.
What to order? The Scramble sounded really good. I was set on ordering that, but the waitress decided to come to the table and announce specials. If i have a weakness, then it would be the specials. First off, they’re special, hence the name. Secondly, they’re announced. Something about food being read to me turns me on. What? Anyway… The special was some sort of ham hash with baked eggs. It was served in this big ole cast iron plate that obviously sat in the oven. It was hot. Very hot. The meal, not so hot. I mean, yes, the temperature was high, but I was not impressed with the meal. There were very few potatoes and too many chunks of ham. This threw everything off. It felt like I was eating a plate of ham cubes more then I was having breakfast. I feel almost cheated out of my breakfast potatoes.
This place is a nice place, and I would recommend it to people if they found themselves around Chelsea in the morning, maybe after an all night bender. The music was nice. Shelley said it sounded like they stole her iPod. I’d agree, but that just means Shelley has good taste in music. The hostess also had a good sense of humor. I joked about being seated in the back and them not wanting us to be seen by the public. She agreed. At least, I hope she was joking.