Juniper
575 Warburton Avenue
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY 10706(Map it!)
Attendees: Shelley, Sylvia, Jeffrey, Pat, Reid
I suggested Juniper in Hastings-on-Hudson as this week’s breakfast destination. The brunch menu on its website, while small, looked intriguing and the prices were reasonable. Plus, I’ve never been to Hastings, despite having lived in Westchester for most of my life. We all agreed, and so down the Saw Mill I went for brunch at Juniper at high noon. I somehow made the trip in record time and arrived on Warburton Avenue just in time to see Sylvia feeding the meter. I had to drive slowly to look for a spot, but found a lot a little way down the block from Juniper. Hastings has old-school parking meters, the kind where you have to turn the little lever after you insert your coin. This confused me at first, Where were the digital numbers showing the time?
Warburton Avenue is a simple little street, with a couple of delis, a couple of restaurants, some coffee shops, a card store (that also sells ice cream), and a store called Hastings Video. (Video store? What’s that?) Juniper is a bright, pleasant-looking restaurant with large picture windows at the front and a relaxing colorscheme and decor inside. The interior is serene, with bright natural light streaming in. The main colors are white, light blue, and silver, and there are dark wood tables and chairs. This is a colorscheme I really like. Several abstract paintings and some photographs of produce adorn the walls. There’s an open kitchen located in the middle of the dining room. It’s a small place, with maybe 10 or 12 tables and the restaurant wasn’t very full when we first arrived. I felt happy as I sat down and looked forward to a good meal.
We got off to a slow start since some members trickled in as late as 12:15 and we didn’t wind up placing our orders until about 12:30. The brunch menu is a one-sided 5×7 piece of paper. It includes a couple of egg options, french toast, pancakes, some sandwiches (including an intriguing-sounding burger that had gruyere cheese), and a zucchini soup. I chose what I know and ordered two scrambled eggs with sausage and multigrain toast. After the waiter left with our orders we started in with our usual round of jokes and verbal swings to fill the time as we waited for our food. We waited. And waited. And joked. And waited. And joked some more, and waited some more. I had time to compose the beginnings of what’s sure to be a Grammy and/or Tony Award winning song. It’s called “Tire Fire”. Soon to be available on iTunes. About the time that I finished the difficult task of composing “Tire Fire,” we were starting to wonder where our food was. We noticed that two women at the table next to ours, who had arrived after us, had their food. We watched as the people at the table behind us, who had also arrived after us, received their food. About that time, I started to get annoyed. We all got annoyed. The jokes stopped.
Finally, finally our food arrived. The first thing I noticed was the very large piece of sausage on the plate. I’ve grown so accustomed to the measly, Jimmy Dean-like sausages that we usually receive at restaurants, that I’d forgotten what a real sausage is supposed to look like. (OK, OK, get all your giggles out of the way, kids. I’m done talking about large sausages.) The next thing I noticed were the eggs. I had been hoping for fluffy, seasoned, well-cooked scrambled eggs (like at Cafeteria several weeks ago). What I saw instead was a pile of runny, yellow mush. I know, I know, I should have just sent the eggs back to be cooked a bit more, and for a split-second that’s what I was going to do, but given how long it had taken for our meal to arrive I was worried that asking the kitchen to do that would take another half hour. So I picked at my eggs and ate all of my sausage, potatoes, and toast. The sausage was well-seasoned and flavorful, as were the potatoes. Neither were too greasy. The toast was well-toasted and lightly buttered. I realize that sausage, potatoes, and bread could be a meal in and of itself, but if that’s all I had wanted, I would have just ordered sides of sausage and potatoes and called it a day. And let’s face it, it’s not saying very much about an establishment if they can toast bread well but not cook eggs properly.
I was looking forward to Juniper and it let me down. While it gained points for the pleasant atmosphere and the good sausage and potatoes, those things weren’t quite enough to make up for the unreasonably and inexplicably long wait time and the poorly-cooked eggs. My meal cost $9, and fortunately, Pat picked up my tab.
Since we had been sitting for so long, we decided to stretch our legs and walk around a bit. After popping into a small coffee/tea shop, we made our way to a farmer’s market, which was next to the Hastings Library. The farmer’s market was on a hill overlooking the Hudson River and the Palisades on the other side. I purchased a bag of chocolate chip cookes for us to share and we sat at a picnic table enjoying the refreshing breeze, the beautiful view, and, of course, the cookies. This was the best part of our outing.
Upon entering this cozy establishment, I became very excited of what may be in store. The open kitchen and simple decorating scheme was welcoming. The menu was simple with a few entrees to choose from, while the specials were listed on a blackboard on the wall.
The special of the day was a creamy polenta with two eggs and a homemade sausage, served with multigrain toast. That and a cup of coffee was to be my breakfast of the day. Our orders were taken, and after what seemed like an excessively long wait, without a check in from our waiter, our meals finally arrived.
Presentation was not a strong suit, almost like they were trying to save on plates. The scrambled eggs were kind of piled in the center of the polenta, and because they were about the same color, it was hard to differentiate between the two. Otherwise, the food was quite good. The eggs were just eggs, but the polenta was very good. It was creamy but the flavor and texture from the cornmeal came through wonderfully. The sausage was also very delicious. The toast came with a dollop of butter smeared on one slice. The toast was great, and was useful to mop up some of the polenta.
Looking at the menu, the breakfast choices are rather limited, and unimaginative. The special was very good, and I would highly suggest it.
The czar says: Lunch and dinner seem more interesting, unless they have this special again, and they need more attentive service.
Juniper! Smack dab in the middle of Hastings! I was excited to go. It had been a while since I had a real breakfast. A good one anyway…
We walk into this little shop and grab a table for 5. They were very accommodating, even gave us a nice table by the window. The décor of this place was very nice. There were various pictures and things on the walls including a chalkboard listing a couple of specials. So far so good! Time to order, OKAY! I was going to get the polenta and eggs, but Sylvia ordered it and Shelley told me to get the French toast. So I got the French toast with a cup of coffee.
It took a really long time for the food to get to the table. Who knows why? But we finally got our food. Reid had an issue with his food. You can probably read about it in his review. My French toast was presented on a large plate, but with only once slice of French toast on it. One slice! What’s the deal with that? It wasn’t even a thick slice. The singular slice was good as I ate it, but it still didn’t hide the fact that it was only one slice. Also, the coffee service was lackluster. Maybe it was just me, but I finished my coffee and I waited a very long time before someone came by and refilled my cup.
Afterwards, I was still hungry and I decided to buy a muffin from the pastry shop next door. I ate half before I gave up on it. Luckily, we walked over to a farmers market where I was able to buy some peaches. Millions of peaches.
I love peaches, so I had to buy some for the week. I ate a big one and that was enough to subdue my appetite.
So, should you go to Juniper? I don’t know. I guess. Maybe the service we got was just a fluke. I would avoid the small portion of the French toast. At $9, It didn’t seem worth it at all.
What I Had: Two Eggs Over Easy, Potato Hash, Sausage, Multigrain Toast, Coffee
What It Cost: $11.00 plus tax and tip
Worth It: If we hadn’t waited so long
The Rating: 3/5
The Details: I suspect you’re going to read wildly disparate opinions about the quality of the meal we ate at Juniper, a restaurant along the main strip of stores in the Hudson River town so cleverly named Hastings-on-Hudson. For what it’s worth, I found the environment pleasant and the food very good. Sadly, the experience was marred by sub-par table service and a painfully slow kitchen.
I knew we were in for a rough brunch when I sat down, ordered a cup of coffee, and waited five minutes for the server to bring it out to me. But that was merely a teaser for the waiting that was in store. A table of five, we placed our orders at about 12:25. I ordered two eggs over easy with sausage, potatoes, and multi-grain toast. We received our food more than thirty minutes later, which is simply an unreasonable delay. At no point was our delay explained. Our table was only visited once during that delay, about five minutes before we got our food, by a waitress we hadn’t seen before offering to fill our water cups. Her arrival was so unexpected and so untimely I had to stifle a laugh upon her arrival.
There is always a reason for delays like this. The restaurant, small though it is, appeared understaffed that Saturday morning. Perhaps the chef mixed up the tickets. Nevertheless, by the time we received our food, everyone else in the restaurant had come in after us, and everyone else in the restaurant had their food. That’s simply unacceptable.
That said, I found the food expertly prepared. The house-made sausage was delicious (superior to the one I had at the Cookshop in Chelsea). The eggs were perfectly over easy, and the potatoes were well-seasoned. Even the coffee was of a higher quality than one traditionally receives at similar brunch locations. At nine dollars, it certainly wasn’t unreasonably priced, and the slight uptick in price made perfect sense, given the quality of the ingredients.
The dining room is bright and simply but pleasantly designed. Occasionally, smells from the open kitchen waft into the dining room, which would have accentuated the experience had we been eating our food, but instead became a sort of olfactory torture. I would have preferred some recognition of the delay from the servers, who instead carried on as if nothing had happened. Upon leaving, I glanced at the lunch and dinner menus, and found an intriguing menu with reasonable prices. I don’t know if my fellow WBCers would agree, but I was sufficiently intrigued by the quality of my meal to consider a return visit at another time.
The Bottom Line: I’d go back for the high quality of ingredients. I’d expect better, more timely service, or I wouldn’t go back again.
The Case: Juniper v. The Westchester Breakfast Club
The Venue: A nice glass-enclosed cafe in Hastings
The Facts: I submitted this review late in honor of the service at this week’s cafe. I ordered a bacon omelet. Three and a half weeks later, they came with some sort of vegetable-filled egg-cake, with greens and a side of bacon. Look, I understand that “bacon omelet” was not technically an item on the menu. But “omelet” was. As was “two eggs, any style w/ bacon, ham, or sausage.” So you know what, a bacon omelet shouldn’t be some impossible leap. But then again, there I was, staring at something entirely unappetizing, a pile of leaves, and a side of bacon. On the bright side, the bacon was fine.
The Verdict: If you don’t mind waiting up to an hour for three strips of good, but not great, bacon, than this is the place for you, I guess.
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Patrick
September 16, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Honestly, I feel like that picture is costing us hits. I need to feed my family, Jeffrey.