Westchester Breakfast Club

:a_Top:

Summer is a great time for the WBC to bust out of the county and wander the streets of Manhattan. Our trip this time took us to Community in Morningside Heights, a favorite neighborhood of at least one member of the WBC.

Sitting in for Pat this week was Whitney (Reid’s sister), who put us all to shame by actually taking notes about her meal…during the meal! We could take some pointers from her. (Professionals we are not, but hey, our hearts are in the right place.)

Community served as the perfect location to discuss apartments, chafing, and jerks.

Oh yeah, we ate breakfast too. And enjoyed it! Read on, hungry masses, read on.

2893 Broadway (btwn. 112th and 113th Streets)

New York, NY 10025

(Map) 

Attendees: :jump_to_Shelley:, :jump_to_Sylvia:, :jump_to_Reid:, :jump_to_Andrew:, :jump_to_Whitney:, :jump_to_Jeff:

:a_Shelley:

Three factors contributed to the selection of the WBC’s latest dining adventure:

1. Summer is a perfect time for the WBC to have a Manhattan dining excursion.

2. Morningside Heights has a special place in my heart. I spent 4 years in that neighborhood as a young college lass.

3. There’s a new restaurant in Morningside Heights called Community that I’ve been wanting to check out (it’s run by same owners as Clinton Street Baking Company, which you’ll recall the WBC has visited several times).

See where this is all going? Put all those things together in a blender, add some ice, and you get the WBC’s Saturday brunch at Community in Morningside Heights.

Community was very busy this late morning. We had planned to all meet a high noon, but Sylvia, Jeff, and I made good time on our drive down (with me once again behind the wheel) and arrived at about 11:45. Be forewarned: Community is one of those restaurants that won’t seat you until your entire party is present. But no worries, the three of us plunked down in the bright orange chairs by the front door and waited for our remaining members.

This gave me time to scope out the decor, which is pleasantly minimalist. The full length windows in the front of the restaurant provide a cheery afternoon brightness to the interior, which is mostly shades of gray with pops of color provided by the bright orange chairs. Eventually our remaining diners trickled in and we were shown to a table in the back.

 After scanning the choices on the brunch menu, which included pancakes, French toast, a Country Breakfast, salads, and sandwiches, I decided to try the egg sandwich. It looked particularly intriguing, promising eggs, white cheddar, and sausage served up on a hearty biscuit with a side of carrot and potato hash browns and something called tomato jam, which I asked to be served on the side. I selected a fresh squeezed lemonade as my beverage.

As we waited for our food to arrive we had a very grown-up conversation centering around real estate, stocks, and Andrew’s chafing spots. One of those topics didn’t really belong at the brunch table, but I won’t tell you which one.

I can say without a doubt that this was the heartiest breakfast sandwich I’ve ever had. The biscuit was large, not like those puny little things you’d get from a fast food place. There were at least two well scrambled eggs (perhaps even three) perched atop the bottom biscuit, with a modest sausage patty underneath and a subtle layer of white cheddar melted on top. The side of carrot potato hash browns was generous and thankfully not at all greasy.

The lemondade was the perfect beverage on this hot summer day. It was freshly made, but not too pulpy and struck the right balance between sweet and zesty.

This meal made more of an impact on my wallet than I usually like, with my sandwich coming in at a not cheap $14. However, in consideration, it was some breakfast sandwich, very fresh and well prepared. I don’t think I’ve had a better breakfast sandwich, so all in all I’d say it was worth the splurge.

Afterwards we walked over to Amsterdam Avenue to visit an old favorite of mine, the Hungarian Pastry Shop. I remember loving their 7 layer cake, and guess what? My love has not faded. The slice I got today lived up to the memory, although here’s a note of caution: eating a chocolate-based slice of cake in the sun is not a great idea. Think Icarus with his wax wings. My hands were soon covered in chocolate, but, like my breakfast sandwich at Community, it was worth it. And we had plenty of napkins to clean up with.

Community is a lovely restaurant in a great neighborhood. The food is delicious, very fresh, which makes it easy to swallow the somewhat higher prices. I left thinking, though: If Community was this busy on a weekend during the summer, I can only imagine how crowded it must get when college is in session. (After all, there are at minimum 847 colleges in Morningside Heights alone: Columbia, Barnard, Manhattan School of Music, Union Theological Seminary…the list goes on and on.)

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:a_Sylvia:

In Westchester, it is rare to see so many people around my age congregated in one spot before noon.  When dining in-county, our fellow diners are generally older, most established and settled and mostly with families.  At Community, there was one kid spotted, but everyone else was younger, and out with friends (kind of like us).  Not to say I am that much younger, but definitely not as established and settled as the people we usually see at breakfast time up in Westchester.  Which now begs the question, where do the young professionals of Westchester go for breakfast?   But, I digress.

Community is owned by the same crew who own Clinton Street Baking Company, so a few of the menu items look familiar, but overall, the menu is not the same.  I was torn between a lot of things and here was my though process:  Should I get pancakes?  Na, I’ve had them at Clinton Street, I should choose something more unique to Community.  How about the Biscuit sandwich?  Also a Clinton street item, although it does have everything I’m in the mood for (biscuit, egg, sausage, hash…greasy food).  How about something more healthy, relatively speaking. The Veggie Scramble looks good, it has avocado on it, and I love me some avocado.  But am I really feeling like something healthy?

After some hemming and hawing (I really wanted some biscuit and sausage!), I stuck with my guns and went healthy.  I ordered the Veggie Scramble (egg whites with market vegetables and avocado wedges with seven grain toast) which also came with carrot hash. To drink, I ordered an iced green honey drink (which was organic green tea, honey, and mint).

The plate of food presented in front of me looked delicious.  The egg whites were beautifully white with sprinkles of color provided by the zucchini, yellow summer squash, peas, and spinach that were scrambled in.  The peas were large and tasted excellent and super fresh judging by the amount of flavor present (not the tasteless frozen pea variety).  The rest of the veggies were plentiful in the scramble, and the eggs were cooked perfectly.  It needed a little shake from the salt and pepper shaker, but that was more than fine by me.  You can always add salt, but you can never take away.  The carrot hash was excellent as well.  A hash with shredded carrot mixed through was seasoned well, and the texture was the way I love my hash.  It was nice and crispy on the edges with a smoother texture on the inside.  The slice of seven grain toast was toasted well, although they did not offer me any jam or butter to go with it.  I didn’t ask, they never offered. I guess we were both at fault.

After cleaning my plate, I was satiated and not weighed down.

After breakfast we followed Shelley to a Hungarian bakery located a few blocks over.  There, I had a piece of baklava (with walnuts), and got a walnut Hamantash to share later after dinner.  Eating such a large piece of baklava on a bench in the middle of the Columbia University campus is not a clean operation. (The squirrels were watching my every move.)  But it was worth the mess.  It was a good way to end a nice breakfast in the city.

The czar says:  A nice place to breakfast in the city.  Parking was easy (thanks to summer in a college neighborhood), the food was delicious, and the wait for a table was minimal (which is rare, based on my personal experience of brunching in the city).  Service is quick and pleasant.  It is definitely not as hectic as places further south on the island.

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:a_Reid:

The Case: Community Food & Juice v. The Westchester Breakfast Club

The Venue: Manhattan’s Upper West Side, near Columbia and Lady Columbia. (Editor’s Note: It’s called Barnard College, not Lady Columbia. Yes, there are ladies, and yes it’s very, very strongly affiliated with Columbia. But they don’t sell sweatshirts in the bookstore that say “Lady Columbia.” At least not the last time I checked.)

The Facts: Though the name of the establishment seems more appropriate for a soup kitchen than a restaurant, I found Community Food & Juice surprisingly devoid of homeless people. This was probably for the best, as no breakfast, regardless of the quality, should be worth $30 to a homeless person. Hell, just a glass of iced tea set me back $6.00! What sense would it make for a homeless person to spend $6.00 on a glass of iced tea? What sense did it make for me to spend that much on what is just water with leaves soaked in it?

However, I will forgive CF&J’s misleading marketing to the indigent, and the surprising price tag on its iced tea, because the meal I had was quite good. To start, the iced tea was actually quite delicious, almost to the point of justifying the hefty price tag. (Almost). The muddled plum did not overpower the inherent flavor of the tea, but gave it just a hint of fruity sweetness, as well as some free floating pulp which gave the drink an interesting texture to go along with the flavor. The chicken-apple-rosemary sausage was super savory, but so long as I ate it in small bites, it did not become overpowering. The blueberry pancakes were moist and fluffy, and provided the interesting philosophical question of the meal.

Apparently, CF&J is operated by the same folks responsible for the Clinton Street Baking Company, which faithful readers of this blog (hiya, Henry) will remember from two previous Westchester Breakfast Club excursions. However, I didn’t know this little tidbit until Sylvia mentioned it immediately after asking how I was enjoying the pancakes. I had started to respond with fully positive, though rather undetailed praise: something along the lines of “quite good, thanks.” However, by mentioning the CSBC, Sylvia put me into a whole new critical framework. Rather than judging the pancakes solely on how I was experiencing them in the moment, I suddenly imposed this curve which ranked the aspects of the CF&J pancakes to those of the CSBC (or at least how I remember those of the CSBC; see my second CSBC review, dealing with nostalgia ). Whereas prior to the revelation I was focused on the fluffy and moist texture of the pancakes, suddenly I found myself focusing on the flaws. Namely, the dearth of blueberries, and their (wholly relative to my memory of CSBC) lack of flavor.

Is this a better frame of mind to be in when reviewing something, whether it be food, or a play, or a movie? Every time I read a book, should I compare it to Catch-22? Must every movie I see be compared to Fargo? Ought every pancake I eat taste like styrofoam compared to the CSBC pancakes? Is it even fair to measure every X against the best example of X you can remember? Or is that kind of a sad way to experience life, constantly finding everything new to be disappointing merely for not being the best?

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:a_Andrew:

 

With organic eggs, meats, and vegetables

that are all locally sourced, so they say.

Biscuit, hash, sausage, cheese and egg scrambles;
wash it down with fancy iced tea gourmet.
The biscuit’s smooth texture was inviting.
Eggs and cheese seasononed well were delicious.
The chicken sausage needed no tweaking

Summed up, the biscuit sandwich was flawless.
With conservation of mass holding true,
whatever I gained from Community,
flowed out from the cash I had just withdrew.
Altogether I walked out less thirty.
Come here to impress your neighbors and friends.
It’s not a bad way to spend your weekends.

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:a_Whitney:

Hello readers! As WBC member Reid’s sister, I have long heard about The Westchester Breakfast Club’s adventures, but this time my little brother let me tag along. Of course, there was a caveat to my invitation.  As Reid put it, “if you eat with us, you have to write a review- that’s the rule.”  So, here goes. . . the short and the long of Saturday brunch at Community Food & Juice. . .

• Bright and fresh atmosphere (and though busy, the wait was virtually nonexistent for Saturday brunch on a beautiful day)
• Decent Iced Coffee
• Good French Toast (yummy maple butter dipping sauce and toasted almonds, but it could have used whipped cream and more strawberries)
• Would I go back?  Sure.

Being an UWS Manhattanite, I pretty regularly brunch at places like Sarabeth’s (81st and Amsterdam), Good Enough to Eat (84th and Amsterdam), and Popover Café (87th and Amsterdam).  Located at 111th and Broadway, Community Food and Juice is several blocks north of those other famous brunch establishments, but its proximity to Columbia/Barnard (the Barnard nod is for you, Shelley) places it on a charmingly attractive block.

It was a warm, sunny day and though Community was certainly busy, there was no crazy long out-the-door-and-down-the-sidewalk line that I’ve become so accustomed to standing 20+ minutes in on Saturday afternoons at the aforementioned “mid-80’s” restaurants.

The décor is pleasant; the whole front of the restaurant is floor to ceiling windowed, so a ton of light streams in from outside.  The interior walls are white-painted exposed brick, the ceilings are very high, and have exposed air ducts.  The tables have country-style distressed wood tops, but the chairs are much more contemporary looking, while the hanging artwork adds splashes of bright blue and green.  The combination results in a bright, clean, fresh atmosphere that is reminiscent of a downtown NYC loft.

I ordered an Iced Coffee and Brioche French Toast.

The iced coffee was satisfactory.  I tend to prefer my coffee flavorful, but mild (for example, Starbucks always tastes burnt to me and I have to load it up with milk and sweetener).  This coffee was not overly strong or bitter, but it wasn’t particularly special either.  They never offered me a refill.

The menu described the French toast as: Brioche French Toast: Fresh strawberries & whipped crème fraiche, roasted almonds, warm maple butter $12

When it came, there were three diagonally sliced half pieces of toast.  On the large white plate, the portion looked pretty sparse and measly when compared with the giant portions of the savory egg and potato dishes I saw being served around the restaurant.

The whipped crème fraiche had melted into a thin ribbon of white glaze on the top piece of my French toast.  Interestingly, before I ordered, Reid commented that he always finds whipped crème fraiche disappointing because it just doesn’t measure up to whipped cream.  When the food came out, I discovered that (at least in this case) he was absolutely correct.  I think the dish would have been better served with a small side dish of real whipped cream.

The French toast itself was perfectly enjoyable.  The brioche was eggy and fresh.  I could tell that even pre-French toasted, the bread was probably delicious to eat.They fried the French toast’s edges to a crispy caramelized goodness (which I expect from great French toast).  I did, however, notice that the bottom two pieces were slightly drier in the middle (presumably from the custard bath not soaking all the way through) than I would have preferred. However, any dryness from insufficient custard soaking was easily remedied with a quick dip in the delicious melted warm maple butter provided on the side.

As described in the menu, my toast was also topped with fresh strawberries and roasted almonds.  The roasted, crushed up almonds were lovely and added a great nutty, crunchy element.  The tart strawberries also enhanced the dish by adding a cool brightness and cutting some of the heavy candy sweetness of the maple butter.  Unfortunately, there weren’t enough strawberries to get a piece of strawberry for every forkful of French toast.  If I were to come back here, I’d ask for extra strawberries (though I think for the prices, the restaurant should be more generous with their toppings).

I finished the whole plate (which speaks to the relatively small portion size because I can almost never finish a whole plate at Sarabeth’s).  On the other hand, I also wasn’t left hungry, so perhaps the quantity was just right.

One last shout out for the maple butter- Good Stuff!

If I were to come back here (and I would definitely come back here) I would probably try something new–perhaps one of the tasty looking egg dishes.  However, I wouldn’t discourage a friend from ordering the French Toast.

In the end, I had some good food and good company (I very much enjoyed hearing about Shelley’s love life).  Thanks so much to the Westchester Breakfast Club for having me as their guest!

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:a_Jeff:

New York City is so far. Why do we do these excursions? This had better be worth it! (Editor’s note: Jeff wasn’t even driving. In fact, he took a nap on the way home. So I don’t know why he’s complaining about the 35 miles to Manhattan.)

Community is snuggled right next to Columbia University. It’s a nice place not too far from the entrance to Barnyard (Editor’s note: for the last time, people, it’s Barnard!), which is where we parked. Our little jaunt down the street was a nice one on this sunny day. We arrived at the restaurant to find out that they don’t seat the party until the entire party is there, which is fine. No one was particularly late. We were seated quickly and were ready to order.

I ordered the Country Breakfast, which consisted of two pieces of ham, eggs (sunny side up was my choice), and potatoes on the side. All together, the food was decent. The eggs where slightly over cooked, I like my sunny side up yokes to be almost cold, but the potatoes were well seasoned and the ham was nicely grilled. The only thing I have to say badly was that I left still feeling hungry. I don’t really know if it’s a bad thing, but I usually like to be full after Breakfast Club meetings.

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