Molly Spilane’s
211 Mamaroneck Avenue
Mamaroneck, NY 10543 (Map it!)
Attendees: Shelley, Pat, Reid, Jeffrey, Andrew, Sylvia
In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, the WBC decided to give Irish brunch another whirl. This year we chose Molly Spillane’s in Mamaroneck.
Molly’s is a large, bright pub-style restaurant. (I say “pub-style” because I envision a real pub to be much darker and hazier than Molly Spillane’s.) We were able to get a large table near the window, allowing us to enjoy the Sunday brightness. The focal point of the restaurant is the large bar in the center, which has numerous TVs around it. There are also TVs attached to each wall. The TVs on the wall were tuned to ESPN, and were on mute. The main event this morning was the rugby game playing on all the TVs at the bar and blaring through the stereo system throughout the entire restaurant. Want to know what I learned about rugby? Nothing except that it’s loud, and, apparently, represented by the song “Use Somebody” by Kings of Leon (which played at least once at the stadium on the TV). Every so often we’d get a brief moment of silence when there was an interruption in the satellite service, and in these moments we WBCers could actually hear each other. But these moments were woefully brief and few and far between. Get the picture? The rugby game was loud.
Anyway, the brunch menu at Molly Spillane’s is less Irish than, by comparison, the menu at Katie’s Cottage (our St. Patty’s brunch destination last year). This was fine by me, and I chose a basic omelette. The omelette came with two fixings, and I decided to add in a third for an extra dollar. My fillings of choice: cheddar cheese, spinach, and peppers. The waiter asked if I wanted white toast or something else, so I chose wheat toast in an attempt to be somewhat healthier.
I can’t for the life of me remember how long it took for our food to arrive. All I remember of our wait time was the loud, loud rugby. But eventually our food arrived and everything looked appealing. The taste didn’t disappoint either. My omelette was delicious, well cooked, fluffy, with a generous distribution of the three fillings. I rather liked the homefries. They weren’t the small greasy kind. They were more tater tot-like instead of homefry-like in shape and flavor, except without the crunchy exterior of a tater tot. The toast was toast, toasted to my liking (not too dark and not too light; just right). We were all intrigued when our waiter asked if we’d like to have some butter and jam, but were let down when he came back with a small plate containing those gold foil packets of soft butter and some pre-packaged apple jelly. Not a jam in sight. Sigh.
Some of us shared a dessert. I picked the most Irish-sounding dessert off the menu: the Irish creme chocolate cheesecake. It was nicely presented, a reasonably sized triangle of chocolate cheesecake (with an oreo cookie bottom–brownie, er, oreo points for that!), served on a rectangle white plate with dollups of whipped cream, a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and a sliced strawberry. The cheesecake was good if all you expected was a basic chocolate cheesecake. I personally couldn’t detect any Irish creme flavoring in the cheesecake.
The prices were quite reasonable. The omelette (including the extra $1 for the third fixing) was about $10, and factoring in dessert, tax, and tip, my contribution this morning still remained under $20. Once again, we had an enjoyable meal in Mamaroneck. It’s shaping up to be a good town for the WBC and with many more intriguing restaurants along the main street just waiting to be tried, I feel confident to say that the WBC will soon be returning to this town near the harbor.
What I Had: Desa Yuno Quesadilla
What It Cost: $10.95 plus tax and tip
Worth It: Probably
The Rating: 3/5
The Details: The Menu at Molly Spillane’s, an Irish pub on the Main Street strip in Mamaroneck, describes the Desa Yuno Quesadilla as follows: “Scrambled spicy eggs, Monterey Jack cheese, bacon, and tomato in a flour tortilla served with guacamole, salsa, and home fries.” So far as I could tell, the accurate parts of that description are “Monterey Jack cheese,” “bacon,” “flour tortilla” and “eggs,” which puts it around 50%. The eggs were fine, but they were not even remotely spicy. There were no tomatoes but for those chopped up in the salsa (which came in a little plastic cup on the side, like the guac and sour cream did). I will say, when I put all the pieces together, and topped the quesadilla with the sour cream, fresh guac ,and salsa, the taste was delightful, if just a little more timid than I might prefer.
The hash browns were crisp, fried cubes that were perfectly golden-brown and provided a fun texture and a pleasant taste (though they cried out for salt when I took my first bite; I happily obliged). The service was slow. I didn’t try the coffee.
A note of caution: It was very loud in the bar. There was a rugby match on and the commentary and crowd noise were pumped in at a decibel level approaching the pain threshold of human beings. Conversation was not easy.
The Bottom Line: Don’t go out of your way, but a solid brunch option for locals who don’t mind a bit of noise with their eggs.
Happy St. Patricks Day! Okay, maybe we’re a little early, but who’s keeping track? We traveled down to Mamaroneck to Molly Spillane’s for some good ole Irish breakfast. Last time we did that was last year at Katie’s Cottage. I don’t remember liking it too much. Let’s hope this place is better.
We get there in good time, even though we were running a little late. Reid grabbed a nice table close to the window for some natural light. Andrew was walking from the train station. Once we all got together, nice conversation started and then turned inappropriate quickly. It was bad enough to not mention it in this post.
Food time! I ordered the Irish breakfast. I ordered the Irish breakfast last year too. Molly’s Irish breakfast had black and white pudding, which I guess has blood in it. Reid didn’t like the idea of it, but whatever. I’ll eat anything. I liked it. It also had sausage and some sort of ham cut. On the side were potatoes and 2 eggs that I ordered sunny side up. Thrown on top was white toast. The food was plenty and tasted good. The meats were tasty and cooked right. The potatoes were nothing to write home about, but if you put some salt and pepper on them they were good. Ketchup would add some flavor too, but it looked like Andrew was having trouble with it so I didn’t even try. Eggs were cooked a little too much. I like my sunny side eggs a little more raw, but that’s forgivable.
Molly Spillanes’ is a nice Irish bar with a more Americanized brunch menu. The brunch was delicious and I left satiated. The cost wasn’t too bad. I think I dished out around 20 bucks. But I also had dessert and an iced tea. Also, there was a really large amount of food. I’m happy with it.
Molly Spillane’s is just like any other Irish pub you could find while wandering the streets on Manhattan. Only Molly Spillane’s is in Mamaroneck and it is a much larger place than most pubs. Irish pubs make great watering holes, so why we were there before 2pm is, at best, a lapse in judgment. Nevertheless, our name “Westchester Breakfast Club” implies that we patronize an establishment before noon or so.
Too early for a Guinness, I order a coffee. It’s dark in color just like a Guinness and that’s where the similarities end, thankfully. The coffee turned out to be perfectly fine much the the incredulity of my fellow WBC club member who was unconvinced of the suitability of the coffee.
Being brunch, I ordered the Irish breakfast. The Irish breakfast has a certain appeal over all the other breakfast choices on the menu in that it is the one choice with the most meat. I can’t help but order it every time I find myself in an Irish pub before noon. This Irish breakfast does not deviate from the accepted norm of Irish breakfasts: eggs, ham, sausage, potatoes, toast. It was missing beans, but I hardly noticed. I ordered my eggs over easy, which came out perfectly, a viscous runny yolk enveloped in a firm white pancake . The sausage, which came in two types, regular and blood sausage, also came out perfectly cooked.The sausage itself was not particularly flavorful, but soaked up the runny yolk. A shot of red devil would have complimented the sausage and egg perfectly. The potatoes were small fried cubes of potatoes. nothing stood out about them. Ketchup goes great with them though.
Overall the breakfast was satisfying, nothing about it required any additional flavor enhancement, but also would not suffer from the addition of your favorite hot sauce. In my mind, this is a success considering Irish breakfasts are often more miss than hit. Without the inclusion of a mimosa, or some other alcoholic breakfast drink, $15 is a little steep for the meal, but where else can you squint at a rugby game and wonder what is going on while you try to pick through the announcer’s thick accent for a clue as to what down it might be?
The meal was good, but I wouldn’t order it at 11:30am, I would order it at 11:30pm after my second Guinness.
Since St. Patty’s Day was coming up, the WBC gave the Irish breakfast another go. Some of you may remember our outing last year to Katie’s Cottage; this year we decided to try Molly Spillane’s located on the main drag in Mamaroneck.
The brunch offerings were pretty standard except with the addition of the Traditional Irish Breakfast. It’s a little meat intensive, which isn’t a problem for some, but the dish is not really my thing! I ended up with Molly’s Frittata, which had potatoes, spinach, corned beef, and Swiss cheese. To go with my meal, I had a very watered down unsweetened iced tea.
As we waited, we listened in on a Rugby game playing on the televisions over the large bar in the center of the restaurant. It was pretty loud, you can’t not listen to it. Sound system works…check! The restaurant itself seems to be modeled after an Irish pub, except the ceilings were too high and the room too roomy. It felt more like a gastropub than a pub. Not that I’ve been to many pubs, so I could be totally wrong. Otherwise, the space was very nice, and I bet even better during the night time hours when you are supposed to be in a pub.
By the time the food arrived, I was famished. The frittata looked great and came with two slices of white toast. I didn’t realize it came with toast, so I kind of wished the waiter had asked if I wanted another type of bread like he did for everyone else, but the white toast was good. It was lightly toasted and not buttered. Although the only choices to dress your toast was either butter or apple jelly.
The frittata itself was great. I don’t know if it was because I was just especially hungry, but it hit the spot perfectly. The edges were deliciously crisped, and it was cooked through just enough so that the egg held its form as I cut into it, but not so overcooked so that the edges were rubbery. The corned beef was chopped into small pieces and distributed evenly, and didn’t overwhelm it at all. I just wish there was a touch more spinach and a little less Swiss cheese. Not that the Swiss cheese was a thick layer, I usually like about half the amount of cheese usually sprinkled atop dishes. The potatoes were the homefries variety mixed into the frittata, and it offered little pleasant bites of potato. I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Being the WBC, we do practice dessert post breakfast. So, we chose the Irish cream chocolate cheesecake for our dessert. It looked great, garnished with chocolate sauce, a single strawberry, and a scoop of ice cream. The combination was pretty good, although to me it tasted more like a chocolate cheesecake rather than an Irish cream chocolate cheesecake. But still good!
The service was okay, and a bit slow. But it was Sunday, so I guess it’s okay to linger. When we had arrived at 11:30, the restaurant was a bit empty; however when we left a little before 1, it was filling up quite fast, and they were starting to take names on the waiting list. It seemed pretty kid friendly and there were a few families there with small children.
The czar says: Another solid restaurant choice along Mamaroneck Avenue in Mamaroneck. I wouldn’t mind going back to enjoy some of their pub fare when the mood strikes.