Biscuit Like a Snow Hill: egg restaurant, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Brunch is one of those great love-hate relationships in New York.  On the one hand, what's not to love about eggs and booze? 

On the other hand, what's to love about long waits, no space to sneeze or seize, and dead-inside, hungover servers who drew the short straw?

Tricky, tricky.  But this last Sunday, Soft-Spoken Feisty Lady and myself were wandering about Williamsburg (destination: Artists & Fleas), and we did a lap around egg (diminutive case theirs), debating if we wanted to deal with the coiling line of people waiting to be nourished.

Well...why not?  When in Rome...wait as the Romans wait.  We put our name on the list and tuckered into the garage-ish waiting alcove.

The round of people we were waiting with were a well-coiffed bunch of quitters, so in 30 minutes, SSFL and I found ourselves seated on an aisle cafe table, sipping Mimosas ($7, the grapefruit one's a great change of pace) and eagerly awaiting eggs.

egg's Country Ham Biscuit ($8) has been on my to-do list of eating for years now, but never, ever finding myself in 'billysburg, it had become something like a bruncher's White Whale.  I may have danced a little dance when said whale hit the table:

Well, hullooooo.

That's a two-handed, feather-light work of fall-apart biscuit magic, layered with deeply savory (read: salty, but not too salty) Kentucky country ham, sharply creamy Grafton Cheddar and housemade fig preserves.

Feisty Lady and I were hard-pressed to choose a second candidate for a plate-swap, but we ran with the Eggs Rothko ($8.50), AKA Eggs-in-a-Frame of Amy's flaky brioche, blanketed with more Grafton Cheddar and paired with broiled tomatoes and candied bacon ($3.50):

Yep, you heard me right.  Bacon candy, baby.  It's less baroque than it sounds; a couple of the softer strips were not unlike mapled pancake neighbors, but there were one or two bronzed crispy critters that hit the candied mark.

I usually don't see what the big deal is with brioche, but this slice ate like a croissant, an ideal candidate for egg-and-cheese impregnation (made only better by spicy green sauce).  We liked the cheesy grits, but felt like they would have been better with the addition of a side of sauteed kale, broiled tomatoes, or a soft-cooked egg.

Funny, the difference a minute makes; like most bloggers, I tend to take pics as soon as the server walks away, without a flash and as quickly as possible, so the food doesn't get cold.  No sooner did I plop the camera back in my purse and raise knife and fork, a minor disaster struck.

I'm a lady who carries a pretty big bag, so I'm surprised that this managed to happen to me, rather than me afflicting it on someone. 

egg is not a very big place, and there is all the usual squeeze-dodge-perry that happens on a bustling Sunday; we were sitting along the only artery for the railroad room, and as another guest passed our table and turned to face her friend, her purse swept everything over 3 inches tall off of half the table, and onto the floor.

Amidst the shattering stemware, the clatter of creamer, and sheer mortification of that poor lady, there was only one thing my newly-drenched clown-a*s could think to do: Save the biscuit! 

Before the grapefruit juice settled onto my plate I'd managed to chuck that baby over to SSFL's unaffected Rothko realm. 

The staff was seamlessly sweet and speedy, bringing tea towels, dispatching the glass and replacing the lost mimosa.  The also-sweet purse lady surprised me by picking up my breakfast (thank you!), and as the ultimate cherry on the pay-it-forward sundae, egg in turn bought her breakfast.

Doesn't that just warm your cockles? 

So if you're debating the virtues of waiting for brekky, bear this in mind: Eggs are everywhere, but egg will take care of you, disenchanted bruncher.

-----------------------------------

egg
135 N 5th St,
Btwn Berry & Bedford
Williamsburg
Brooklyn, NY 11211
ph: (718) 302 5151
[email protected]

Monday & Tuesday:
7 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Wednesday - Thursday:
7 a.m. - 10 p.m.

Friday - Sunday:
9 a.m. - 10 p.m.

• Cash only. Reservations for dinner only.
• Breakfast is served all day every day.
• Lunch begins at noon on weekdays and 3 on weekends.
• Dinner specials begin at 5 from Wednesday through Sunday.
• For dinner reservations (after 6 p.m.), call or email [email protected]

Comments

[Chocolate Bear]

FIRST!

Someone is slipping....nice use of promotional hyperlinks btw.

[from b e h i n d]

naw, I'm just being tired of firsting ;)