A Breakfast, Brunch and Dinner - New York City

I have been struggling to bind my one off meals while at New York so I thought it would make sense to have a couple of posts covering my various meals which are not specifically themed.

This post covers a breakfast, a brunch and a dinner which occurred on different occasions during my recent trip.

Jack's Wife Freda
One day while I was strolling around Soho, I was near the boundary of where Soho changes to Nolita and I saw a group of people milling around a little cafe. My curiosity got to me, I decided to get nearer and saw the sign "Jack's Wife Freda".  What an interesting name! It certainly perked my interest and after a bit of googling back in the hotel, I came by one early morning for breakfast.

It was a cosy little bistro packed to the brim with diners. I managed to slide into a little table and ordered the Madame Freda. It was a Pressed sandwich with duck prosciutto, cheddar béchamel, gruyere and a fried egg.

It was delicious! The duck prosciutto was thinly sliced, and the béchamel and gruyere was nicely cheesy. There was a small salad of rocket with pickled onion. I loved the sweetness of the onion.

I also had a fresh cantaloupe juice (for us Aussies it is rock melon juice).

The people were friendly and I could see Freda running the front of house.

Wishlist: Green Shakshuka with Challah toast.

Jane
My friend JN and I were informed by the hotel concierge that Jane was one of the best places to have brunch when in New York. How could we resist checking it out? However, since it was so popular, it is a must to book for brunch.

When we got there on a Sunday, we understood what he meant. It was quite a large restaurant but whoa! It was so full of people and the queue outside to wait for a table for those who booked was just as bad. Goodness! I could only hope the food's good!

By the way, I may have forgotten to mention that Jane has special menus for brunch. Brunch is only on Saturdays and Sundays.

The other thing to be aware of is if you order a dish from the brunch menu, you get a free Cocktail!!!! :)

Paper Plane Cafe (Parramatta, Sydney)

I think I mentioned in previous posts how food trendy Parramatta is becoming these days. One of the main reasons is this café. Since it first opened a few months ago, it has been packing it in.

Paper Plane Café is located in Horwood Place, off the main streets of Phillip Street and George Street. After seeing so many photos of the food on Instagram, I had book marked it on my list.

My first visit was breakfast on a Saturday morning. I had the Truffled Eggs which was scrambled eggs with truffle oil, tomatoes, mushrooms on organic sourdough with a side of rocket parmesan salad.

I wasn't sure if I would taste any truffle but I was wrong. The earthy flavours of the truffle oil was prevalent throughout the eggs. It certainly made the scrambled eggs a whole lot more interesting.

On my second visit, my friend and I visited for lunch. I certainly liked the look of the lunch menu which is only served from noon on the weekends. We were lucky enough not to have to wait too long for a table.

Maslow's Cafe (Pymble, Sydney)

What is it about a new cafe that attracts my attention? The 2 key factors for me are the location and the menu. When I say location, I mean can I easily get to the venue? Good reviews and great pics on Instagram help too! :)

Broadsheet Sydney recently published an article about a new cafe in Pymble. It caught my eye and I made plans to check it out over a few visits.

I loved the hip look of this cafe. It is located in a garage which has been renovated to fit in a small open kitchen with some tables and a bar with high stools. The decor is slightly grunge like. How cool, and how very unPymble! More towards Surry Hills actually! :)

On my first visit, I had breakfast. My choice was The Little Soldier - 62 degree egg, asparagus and soldier toasts. The egg was perfectly cooked and the asparagus was nicely blanched and had a lovely bite. For my personal taste, I would have liked a sprinkle of salt but taste wise it was quite delicious. Loved the egg oozing all over the toasts. And I liked the plating.

The coffee of choice at Maslow's is Seven Seeds and I had a skim cappuccino to kick off my day. I found it slightly weak on my first visit but on my next visit, it was a stronger brew and sat much better with me.

On my second visit, I came at lunch time and ordered Mr Pig. Yes, you read right, "Mr Pig"! This was Braised pork, 62 degree egg, and baby salad served in a brioche bun. There was a dash of chilli sauce which gave the dish a slight kick. Sorry, I couldn't get a decent shot of the braised pork but just imagine slices of pork nestled under the egg. :)

Let me start by saying I tried to be lady like and used my cutlery. That was a huge failure on my part as the wonderfully dense brioche did not take to the knife. So I resorted to using my hands and eating it like I would a burger and it got all yummily messy!! The pork was tender and delicious, the egg was once again oozing all over the bun but it was such fun eating this way. I absolutely loved the texture of the  Sonoma brioche!

Shenkin Kitchen (Enmore, Sydney)

A recent decision to have a breakfast catch up had me googling for ideas and I don't know how but I came to be at Cafe Shenkin's website. After noticing they had 4 locations, I decided we should go for the Enmore location.

I then realised it was the same one Helen of Grab Your Fork reviewed earlier in the year. As you can imagine, I re-read her post and other food bloggers posts to have an idea of the dishes they tried.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cafe Shenkin, it is an Israeli cafe and all the food is reflective of the Israeli heritage. Having not been exposed to Israeli food before, I was fascinated at the similarities to other middle eastern food I have tried like Lebanese, and Turkish food.

Admittedly I am not too familiar with Enmore, having not frequented here before. I realised how hard it was to find parking that allowed for more than an hour. Impossible! Aargh! Why is it so hard to get decent timeline parking at these inner west suburbs? :(

Enough of the venting. Now to focus on Shenkin Kitchen. It was warm, welcoming and funky. The decor caught my eye. There was this quirky stairs decorated with plants right above where we were sitting. The black board was nicely written with their specials and there were some quirky artefacts around the cafe.

This is what we had for breakfast.

Ziva - a baked filo pastry filled with cheese and olives, a boiled egg, hummus, grated tomato, and spicy coriander. CM loved the pastry and commented on the delicious flavours of the cheese with the olives. The hummus went down a treat too.

Big Tree House Cafe (Rydalmere, Sydney)

It's nice to find out through social media of new cafes and restaurants. Especially when this cafe is so close to home, I would even say it is within walking distance!

Big Tree House is a cute cafe located in the suburb of Rydalmere. It is one of 2 stores located amongst a row of houses. Quite unusual to see a cafe situated in this way. But it works; people come and have a coffee, breakfast or lunch. Ultimately that's all that matters!

Once I found out about it through Instagram, I decided to visit over a few weekends. So please don't think I had all these in one go! :)

Gang nam style burger - I kicked off my first meal by having one of the specials. It was soy marinated beef, with onions, lettuce, mushroom, served with crispy kipfler. The beef was juicy, tender and bang full of flavour. The brioche bun was nicely soft. Yum!

Note: This dish has since been incorporated to their menu.

Corn fritters with poached eggs, bacon, avocado, and tomato relish. The eggs were perfectly poached and I loved the combination of bacon with the corn fritters. Nice!

Ricotta pancakes with honey cinnamon butter, and caramelised bananas. Lovely caramelised flavours without being overtly sweet. The pancakes were soft and fluffy but had an interesting texture because of the ricotta.

Devon Cafe By Day (Surry Hills, Sydney)

I finally found the opportunity to check out Devon Cafe, not just once but twice! This cafe has been opened since 2013 and has been pulling in the crowds ever since. What is it about this cafe that attracts the hordes? Is it the coffee, is the the food, or is it the quirky dish names on the menu? Better still, is it the friendly service? Let's find out, shall we? :)

My first visit was on a Saturday morning and I came with my friend CW. We arrived around 11.15 am and were told it would be around a 15 minute wait before we could get a table. When we did get our seats, it was at the communal table sharing with other diners. Did I ever mention I love communal tables? I get to be a sticky beak and see what others have ordered!

After poring over the menu which had some interesting dish names, we decided on sharing all our dishes.

Watermelon, apple and mint juice

Kaya Toast - coconut jam, with 63' eggs served in light soy sauce,  and brioche toast lightly buttered. I ordered this dish because kaya toast is such a typical breakfast dish in Malaysia. It brought back memories of my childhood when I was living in the small town of Klang. But back then I would have had the kaya toast on its own and the soft boiled eggs on its own slathered with white pepper, light soy with dark caramel sauce and dipped with soft white bread! At Devon Cafe, you are encouraged to venture into dipping the toast into the eggs and have gooey soft eggs which are slightly salted with the sweet caramelly kaya toast. Nice!

Breakfast with the Sakuma's - I absolutely love the name of this dish! I wonder who the Sakuma's were? It was Miso grilled salmon, smoked eel croquette, 63' egg, radish petit salad and kewpie mayonnaise. Firstly, before I describe the flavours I would like to state how excited I was to see the dish was back on the menu. The menu had gone through a change recently and the Sakuma dish was off the menu. And I had heard how good it was!

Cabramatta Crawl April 2014

I am sure all of you have occasional cravings for certain types of food (and you don't have to be pregnant to experience this!). This can beset you at any point in time. Well, lately I have been craving all things Vietnamese and I don't even know why! My good friend CW and I have been planning to do a Cabramatta Crawl since February of this year. Yes! You read right, February! :-)

We finally managed to make it work. No heat wave, no prearranged social engagement and most importantly no track work planned that weekend. Yay! I was looking forward to satisfying my cravings!

The plan was to eat through our hit list but share the meals so we didn't fill up too quickly. We started by having breakfast and pho was our choice.

Pho Tau Bay has reputedly the best pho in town. I don't recall having been here before and it was quite a tiny little restaurant. We got there before 10 am and was lucky enough not to have to wait for a table. As we sat down, a man came up to take our order but we were not given any menus. It was quite funny because I didn't know what to call the dish outside of the word 'pho'. CW was fast thinking enough and said 'the special' please. We ordered a large bowl so we could share. I asked CW whether she knew what the special meant and it was an assumption it meant all parts of the beef like tendon, tripe, beef balls and thin slices of beef. To be absolutely sure, I went searching for the menu. There was a board near the front counter and to my relief the special was exactly what we thought. Phew!

Well, what can I say about the pho? The broth was packed with flavour, yet not unctuous. I didn't feel I was drinking heaps of fat. As a matter of fact I felt I was drinking spoonfuls of goodness! A beautiful bowl of noodles, beef, tendons and a great broth which was lifted by the spikes of spicy chilli slices we consumed. So good!

We then decided to give our tummy a little break and walked around the shops. Along the way, I had a feeling of being back in Malaysia. Seeing familiar ingredients such as fresh tamarind, packets of instant coffee, shelves of biscuits and confectionery. And even a coconut grater!

And the abundance of street food, seafood and fresh vegetables and herbs make us consumers so spoilt for choice!

Our second stop was at Tan Viet Noodle House. There were queues to dine here. We came at the right time, only 2 were ahead of us in the queue. But later on I saw about 10 people deep waiting to get a table.