1. Blue Bottle Coffee Co

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. If I ever leave the office to go get a coffee beverage of sorts, it’s probably not the best day. I REALLY needed a pick-me-up. This particular day and this particular coffee drink was the worst kind of dashed hopes disappointing day. But as you can imagine, I (gasp!) got through it and am still alive. And a little coffee drink helped. Actually, to make matters worse, Blue Bottle is for real coffee aficionados, of which I am not. They didn’t have any chocolate of sorts and this beverage, while sweet, did not do the trick for me. But it sure was pretty!

2. Stumptown Coffee Roasters

I love me some Stumptown. And I love me some Ace Hotel lobby, in which Stumptown is located. I get my dad different kinds of coffee beans every Christmas and he really liked the Stumptown varieties, so the last time he was in town, I made sure we checked out the Ace Hotel. Enjoyed our beverages in the lobby, where there is always some quality people-watching, and then surprised him with tickets to that night’s Rangers game. That was a pretty damn good day.

3. Think Coffee

One of my favorite iced mochas at the moment is at Think Coffee. It’s a cool space and there’s a few located in the city, one pretty close by my office. This particular day with this particular iced mocha wasn’t a bad day, but I had a meeting off-site and wanted to make the most of it.

4. Brunch cocktails at Colonie

Stop the press, here’s a drink with alcohol! When my mom was in town, we had a boozy brunch and got tooooooootally wasted. Just kidding. But we did get brunchy cocktails. Mine was a Perfect Pimms and I basically really like any sort of Pimms drink ever. And with a cucumber in it!? How could I go wrong?

And there you have it, folks. Four Beverage Photos of the Week!

P.S. These were not taken the same week. At all. But we can pretend.

P.P.S. My other little splurge was nail polish. :)

My homegirl Michelle came to visit this weekend and one of the many awesome things we did included a trip to Yankee Stadium to see The Detroit Tigers (and they won!). We got some garlic fries and moved to the lower level and had an overall good time. She’s easy to hang with when she’s here, I don’t have ro run around like a chicken with my head cut off so I really appreciate that.

Here’s a work-related photo of myself that I really dig:

That’s me, on the internet. Or more specifically, that’s me being projected onto a wall at the latest Zagat 30 Under 30 party in New York. Holla!

Speaking of 30 Under 30, after the event (and after the after-party), a group of us headed over to Parm for some late-night eats. These eats included ice cream cake, as you do.

Well, hello.

And finally, the last picture I’ll include in this update is me and some of my girlies after Easter brunch at Almond. My dad was in town for Easter and was really impressed with Almond (as was I, great place!) and so here I am with some of my girls.

Good times!

I  may have some other updates in the pipeline here, but this is all for now. Good night!

Hello, bloody Mary in Brooklyn with Missy!

Can I just say that I LOVED my apartment last year because I had a HUGE room that looked over Prospect Park, but I am loving my new apartment a little bit more because I have the option to walk to five billion different places for brunch? I mean, that’s not the only reason, but it’s huge. And my bedroom is still overlooking trees. Brooklyn! Love you. Ha.

So, Colonie on Atlantic Ave. I’ve been once before for dinner and it was very good, and I decided it was time to try for brunch. The menus are a little short, but there’s still enough options for me.

These are the pancakes. Not my favorite presentation, it looks like a quesadilla. But I did dig the raspberry preserve!

This is the leek and gruyere scramble which was a solid choice. Also I feel like I’ve had some very dry potatoes lately and these ones were perfecto.

Also perfecto:

Biscuits! A little butter and raspberry preserve, you’re good to go. Biscuits are just good, people.

So I do really like Colonie. It’s a cool space, too. And we went around 1 or so on Saturday and didn’t even have to wait. And I had a Bellini. The way brunch should be!

I am really good at weekending. At least lately. This past weekend I spent Friday night watching movies with my best boy (If you haven’t seen the Conan documentary yet, it’s worth seeing) and Saturday I had cupcakes with Kelly, bought some flannel sheets (life changing) and then met up with Kelly again to watch the most awesome MSU football game ever. We even made random friends. And then Sunday started with this. Drinks and brunch at The Standard with my homegirl Leeann.

The Standard is a happening place. It’s actually pretty cute. It’s in Meatpacking, an area I typically avoid, but sometimes you do want to see and be seen and there were LOTS of people to see at The Standard on Sunday, let me tell you. Such interesting, interesting folks.

Btw the drinks at the top are a Bloody Mary (left) and The Standard 69 (right). Like really? You couldn’t just call it “The Standard”? Sigh… I hate the way people name cocktails sometimes.

Anyway… Leeann’s friend met up with us and it was probably one of the last beautiful days to sit outside, so we did.

I’m sure everyone can guess what I had…

Oh, I have been to Buttermilk Channel. But I had not been there from brunch.

UNTIL NOW.

I always have to impress my momma when she comes and sometimes it’s hard to do. If I pick one bad restaurant out of fifty meals with her, I hear about the bad restaurant two years later still. True. BUT this last go around was perfecto. I had been dying to get to Buttermilk but I never got up in time for there to not be a four-hour wait (not really four hours, but you know) and my momma and Em Bem don’t sleep late so we got to Buttermilk and walked straight in for a table. At the communal table, which is always fun. We ordered bacon after seeing how nice it looked for the person next to us. And we got sticky buns, which you see above.

Eggs benedict for Emmy Boo. She loved them.

French toast for my momma…

And a short stack of panacakes for me. I LOVE PANCAKES.

Also – they couldn’t serve alcohol til noon on Sunday so we couldn’t have mimosas (I told you we went early) – is that actually a thing in New York? Have I really been here four years and never gone to brunch early enough to notice this before? Crazy! I like my sleep, people.

Well, hey there. Busting out the big guns today. Maple and bacon doughnut at Northern Spy Food Co. I know my mom and my sister in Michigan might see that and think, “Ew, gross” but let me be the one to educate you. Savory and sweet together can sometimes be amazing. If you’ve never tried chocolate covered bacon, you should. It’s the same idea here and this maple bacon doughnut was a-mazing.

I went to Northern Spy Food Co for brunch with my homegirl Melissa this weekend. Once we were both there we didn’t have to wait at ALL which was awesome and unusual for a Saturday brunch in the East Village. I will be back.

Melissa had a Cucumber Mint Cooler (Gruner Veltliner, cucumber, mint, lime) and I had a watermelon and basil mimosa.

For eats, Melissa had eggs and polenta:

Kind of looks like a smiley face to me. Also, I like polenta.

Here’s our table from my end. I chose the kale salad with baked eggs:

What a beautiful table and friend.

And then there is me:

Hello.

One more thing you should know: not only is Northern Spy Food Co good at food, they are also good at Twitter. Go forth accordingly.

I didn’t know Clover Club had brunch until I walked by it. And went inside. Clover Club is a fabulous old-timey cocktail bar very close to my apartment and I have been there many times. It’s the place I take people when I want to show them how “cool” my neighborhood is. Thought it would never make it into City Mitten because I don’t really carry my Canon around with me at night. But now that I know I can go to Clover Club during the day, it is City Mitten game.

The food was phenomenal. It’s my new favorite brunch place if you’d like to go. Above we have the Englander: Sliced hanger steak and poached egg over a toasted English muffin with Bearnaise sauce. One for a taste or two for a meal, the menu says.

Of course we also wanted some pancakes:

Ricotta pancakes with strawberry curd and vanilla poached rhubarb. What it means to “vanilla poach” anything is beyond me but I don’t need to know the details in order to know that it’s good.

And a Bonus Jonas:

Potato cakes! And the strap to my camera! I am so talented. Why did I not know this is what potato pancakes are? All these years, I have been missing out and imagining pancakes with lumps of potatoes inside them. Don’t blame me, please, blame my education. Ha. These were GOOD. Life is good, God is good, people. Get to know it.

Who loves brunchy beverages? I do, I do. This is actually from a few weeks back, when Hagan and I went on an adventure in the rain to Char No. 4. I underestimated how long it would take us to walk there from my apartment in the pouring rain. Sunshine – no problem. But when it’s raining and you live a few flights up and by the time you’re downstairs you realize you don’t have an umbrella and you’re like “screw it” and decide to walk there anyway? Not as fun. Hagan was soaking wet and the dude asked him if he could grab him a towel from the bar for his hair. Ha!

Anyway – there were brunchy beverages. I don’t do the whole Bloody Mary thing but Hagan does and he likes them spicy and he gave Char No. 4 a “good to go” in case you’re into Bloody Marys too.

See. And now the foodz:

House smoked bacon, one of Hagan’s favorite things. Followed by his actual favorite thing:

Crispy cheddar curds. Yep, that happened. Yummy.

And then you know, the usual stuff:

Yeah… what isn’t on this plate? I stole some potatoes, natch, and they were so good.

And then me:

This was a brunch special that day. I believe it was corned beef hash. The sauce underneath it definitely had a kick to it. I think I keep forgetting what “hash” means because this is the second time I’ve ordered hash and it wasn’t what I expected. So maybe I don’t know what hash is. Basically there was this hash once at the Roebling Tea Room like two years ago (seriously) that had potatoes and beets and an egg on top and I keep looking for it and that was not it. Not sure why I thought corned beef would do the trick but that’s what happens when you’re a whackadoodle like me.

ANYWAY. I very much liked Char No. 4 and would like to go back – whether it’s for brunch or I’d also like to try their dinner.

Who loves brunch? Me, me, me! I’ve actually seen Twitter bios where people say “I don’t like brunch.” Sad for you! I mean… NYC brunch can be cray cray and sometimes you have to wait 3.5 hours but when brunch is good, it is good. And it was good at Bakin’ & Eggs in Chicago! So good.

We have the roasted veggie frittata for Miss KMD. And a little chicken apple sausage is hiding. Here whole plate was so good and I know because I hate half of it. What I ordered was a bit too much like a dessert to have for breakfast (imagine me saying that) and soon you will see.

This is Nora’s Southern Comfort Bowl. Yep. What it’s called. Two eggs (overeasy here) with potatoes, cheddar, biscuit and gravy. Southern Comfort indeed. What you see behind it creepin’ is called a flight of bacon.

So we’ve got a few different kinds of bacon here. Maple pepper, jalapeno, honey, mesquite, and cherry smoked. Actually not entirely sure which ones I tried but I did steer away from the jalapeno. I was expecting the bacon to be that really thick kind like applewood smoked bacon, but I’m actually glad it wasn’t cause the thin kind is what I actually prefer.

And then my dessert for breakfast:

Remember when I wondered aloud to myself (and whoever reads this) about bread pudding turned into french toast? Well now I know because that’s what this is. I’m pretty sure there were chocolate chips in it too. It was delicious, but five bites or so goes a long way. Which is why I ate half of Kayti’s instead. We took the lovely french toast (what it’s actually called) home and I hope Nora ate the crap out of it later.

And if you’re wondering if they know how to make their lattes pretty at Bakin’ & Eggs the answer is YES.

Bakin’ & Eggs is GOOD STUFF, people. Would be my new go-to brunch location if it were not in Chicago. Chicago, I do love you!

It’s fun to go to a place called “Prime Meats” and not eat any meat. It’s also fun to go there the ONE TIME you think it’s appropriate to be in a t-shirt (I was repping foursquare on 4sq day!) and realize the place is sooooo Stumptown once you get there. That’s what I said to describe the place to my roommate and she knew exactly what I was saying. It was sooo Stumptown. They serve Stumptown coffee, so that’s part of it, but the staff and the people there were dressed the part. And I was in a t-shirt. And actual jeans. I don’t think I’ve worn actual jeans in months.

ANYWAY there I was in my foursquare t-shirt (with the Jetsetter badge on it, if you’re curious) and there we were at Prime Meats. Above is Lee – my friend Stacy’s friend – who is either lucky or unlucky enough to appear on my blog after my first time meeting her. She is drinking Stumptown coffee and having an egg and cheese biscuit sandwich.

This is Stacy. You can see the excitement on her face as she’s about to dig into her egg and cheese sandwich on a biscuit as well. Me on the other hand, well you know how I do:

I can’t even *remember* the last time I went out to brunch, so I had to make this count. Of course I got a biscuit too – and those were fab. This french toast was also fabulous and Stacy tried it and said it was simply the best she’s ever had. My opinion is – this city is just full of fabulous french toast and I’m not sure if I’ve experienced a clear winner but this one was definitely up there.

I need to go back to Prime Meats for dinner, order some meat, and not be wearing a t-shirt.