Sunday, July 19, 2009

Heirloom at The Study: Great Space, Great Eggs.


After brunch, my other favorite hospitality industry "thing" is boutique hotels. Maybe it's because my parents made me stay at the Econo Lodge when I was growing up, and maybe it's because I have an unfounded fear that even the nicest chain hotels are more likely to host bed bugs, but I love the idea of roughly 100 or fewer rooms and a swank little restaurant all being personally overseen by someone I'd want to have drinks with in the hotel bar. So when The Study moved in only a block from my apartment (directly across from the Yale art school on Chapel Street), I felt like New Haven had finally come into its own as a city.

And as it turns out, the hotel's restaurant serves Sunday brunch. Heirloom occupies a great, wide open space on the hotel's ground floor that I've gone to for lunch and drinks, and I've been impressed with the service of both the head bartender (Rob!) and general manager (Val!). Val explained that, after many years working in Greenwich, he was trying to create something of comparable quality but greater accessibility in New Haven. Right--makes sense. When I suggested that the recently-abandoned $22 three-course-plus-a-cocktail brunch prix fixe might have been a good way to strike exactly that balance, he agreed and gave me a card for 25% off brunch the following Sunday.

We made our reservation for right when the restaurant opened at 11:30, and during the course of our meal there were only three other tables seated. Nonetheless, it didn't feel too empty, and hotel guests seemed to be trickling in as we were leaving. I expected that the food would be well-executed basics--no cutesy spins on waffles or monkey bread and no explosions of whipped cream--and that was about right. The menu included an Eggs Benedict option (listed as "How Do You Like It?" to which we replied "with salmon!"); a mix-and-match eggs/hash browns/breakfast meat ensemble; regular or blueberry pancakes and a "pastel" egg dish--two whites, one yolk and other ingredients to taste. Otherwise you were left with highlights from the lunch menu, including a lobster fried rice that I can recommend based on trying it during restaurant week.

While I understand that not everyone favors my "more breakfast than lunch" brunch formulation, where I felt the menu to fall short was in not matching the range of its starters to the range of its main dishes. I ordered the blueberry pancakes, and would have considered getting a starter or side to go with it. But tomato soup and clam chowder, however tasty, a fitting lead-in to a fruity carb fest do not make. Some kind of fruit assortment, warm brie, a sweet breakfast sausage (I'm a vegetarian, but you get my drift) or even a take on the hash browns that were featured elsewhere on the menu would have created a symmetry from course to course that was noticeably absent.

What we did order, though, was delicious and well-presented. James' smoked salmon Eggs Benedict (pictured), in particular, was impressively shaped: if you've tried to poach an egg recently, you'll know what I mean. The Hollandaise sauce wasn't overly thick or salty and the salmon was cooked *just* through and flaked perfectly. My blueberry pancakes excited me less because, well, there's only so much you can do with blueberry pancakes, but all three were large, fluffy and filled with many whole tiny blueberries rather than just mush. Both of our dishes were garnished with a half-strawberry and a single orange spiral. Though I felt I had reached my drink limit for the weekend and didn't order one, the cocktail options included a Mimosa, a Bloody Mary, an Irish coffee and one of my favorites--a Bellini! I'll take a Bellini over a Mimosa any day, and I was happy to see this under-represented little gem make an appearance so close to home.

It may not be cozy like The Pantry or bustling like Lena's, but Heirloom provides a worthy brunch alternative to, say, Sage on the waterfront or Scoozzi's jazz brunch up the street. The prices are reasonable for the type of restaurant that it is--$14 for the Benedict and $10 for the pancakes--and it gave me an excuse to ditch the yoga pants and flip-flops for something a little more upscale. And even if you don't obsess over boutique hotels as an idea, it's good for New Haven that one has arrived and we'd do well to support it so long as the food is on par with other options. And it is, and it's right downtown, so mix things up a little and ask for a seat by the window.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

How To Throw An Engagement Brunch. (Or, At Least, How We Did.)

True, James and I got engaged months ago. But we only recently set our date, and decided it was as good a reason as any to throw ourselves a brunch. Figuring that our fairly large one-bedroom apartment could hold around 20 people comfortably, we sent out Evites to just over that number of family and close friends. (For anyone who doesn't use Evite already, you should.) Given our space constraints, extended family didn't make the cut, and instead this seemed like a good opportunity for our parents and siblings to mingle with what wedding party members and other future wedding guests were still in town. Rather than provide a long, rambling paragraph full of engagement brunch miscellany, here is a long, rambling step-by-step run-down of what we did:


1) I picked a "theme" of sorts based on what fruit was in season. The brunch was in mid-June, so I came up with a menu that featured fresh strawberries. We went to Bishop's Orchards in Guilford, CT on the day before the brunch and hand picked four pounds of berries for about $12 total. (Bishop's also has goats and llamas for visitors to feed, so really, I'll use any excuse to go there.) We made sure to get a mix of big AND small berries for different purposes: big for covering with chocolate, and smallish for floating in a champagne punch and skewering.

2) Menu design. I am a firm believer that brunch is more breakfast than lunch, and picked what to serve accordingly. In order to both play up the strawberry theme and get a little festive, we first decided on a "feature" dish: a big, beautiful fruit trifle. (Recipe link at the end of the post.) For the rest, I felt that things should be mainly finger/toothpick foods to keep it simple, since guests were already bringing: a quiche, fruit salad, lemon-cranberry scones, banana and zucchini bread, lavender-lemon cupcakes AND a tomato-basil strata. So without further ado, here's what we came up with on our end:















-Strawberry champagne punch and peach iced tea to drink.
-The Trifle: with strawberries, blueberries, lemon curd and a mascarpone cream.
-Various skewers: tomato-basil-prosciutto; just tomato/basil; fruit-and-cheese with three types of cheese and three types of fruit to each skewer (cheddar, jack and swiss cheese with small red grapes, strawberries, watermelon and cantaloupe). We accidentally bought bamboo skewers that were much too big and had to cut them in half, so stick to something smallish.
-Melon wrapped in prosciutto (cantaloupe or honeydew) and held together with colored toothpicks. I used both the big and small ends of our melon baller ($2.50 at Target!) and mixed up the arrangement.
-Chocolate-covered strawberries: dark chocolate, and dark chocolate with white chocolate tips.

3) Trader Joe's for (most of) the rest. Though I typically prefer other, non-chain grocery stores in the area (Nica's, Bishop's, Edge of the Woods) TJ's has great bulk specialty items. We picked up a hefty supply of prosciutto, mozzarella balls, assorted cheeses for skewering, melons, lemon curd for our trifle and melting chocolate for about $100. We also grabbed some frozen appetizers to keep on hand in case of an emergency shortage, because why not? Finally, at the liquor store we stocked up on rose champagne for the punch. We got three bottles for 20 people, and it was more than enough even with me drinking it like juice all afternoon.

4) Assembly. We had told everyone to come over at noon, and we wanted things to be fresh without having to wake up at 6:00 a.m. So, at around 7:00 p.m., we sat down for a long night of food preparation putting the fruit slicing off until the very end. The mascarpone cream for the trifle had to be whipped up beforehand anyway, we alternated between doing that and dipping/freezing the chocolate covered strawberries first. When we did get to assembling the fruit and cheese skewers, sometime around midnight, everything was immediately wrapped up and stacked in an extra-cold fridge. Since stuff was being served in large amounts over the course of an afternoon, I used multiple small plates rather than one big platter. That way there's room for more things on the table at once without overcrowding, and things stay wrapped up longer. Same for the iced tea: in addition to filling the big pitcher that we planned to serve it from, I filled multiple big Tupperware containers with it to have on hand for easy refills.

5) Layout. If you're a grad student living in an apartment like we are, chances are you don't have a giant dining room table either. So, we arranged one portion of each item at a time around the trifle centerpiece, and brought in a small bistro table to use as a drink station. The strawberry-champagne punch was the last thing we made in an effort to conserve precious carbonation, and we put it out in a punch bowl that matched our trifle dish. We went with clear plastic cups and paper plates even though I wanted to use real dishes (James thought I was crazy). In a gesture towards eco-friendliness and cost-savings, we brought in one of our potted flowers instead of buying fresh cut ones. I printed out simple menus and hung one on the wall behind each table, though in retrospect I wish I had put more effort into them--in true Martha Stewart style--or ditched them altogether.

And to wrap things up, here is the link to the trifle recipe we used substituting lemon curd for lime and adding a fresh mint garnish: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Mixed-Berry-Tiramisu-with-Lime-Curd-353381

Hosting your own brunch is fun, brings your friends and family into one place, and most importantly, allows you to put off doing other things while tricking yourself into feeling productive. And if you don't feel like getting engaged just now, I'm sure you can think of another excuse to fete yourselves. Enjoy!

Thursday, July 16, 2009

You Can Sleep in on Saturdays.

I love brunch. I love kir royales, mascarpone cheese, farm fresh eggs and real maple syrup. I love brunch with jazz, on the water, served at stations and with citrus garnish. I love brunch so much, in fact, that I'm having a brunch wedding.

Well aware that the world doesn't need another pretentious foodie blog, though, I have up until now kept my brunching tips and passions to myself. And really, how much could there possibly be to say about an omelet and some home fries? If you care enough to get out of bed each week, you probably already know where to go.

Or maybe not. After moving back to New Haven from an eight-month stay in Washington, D.C., I appreciate just how wide a range of brunch options we have for such a small city, and how few guides there are to turn to on our mornings of pre-caffeinated need. So, if my weekly investment in obscene amounts of french toast "research" saves even one fellow brunch enthusiast from an unfortunate run-in with a microwaved Dunkin' Donuts egg sandwich, this venture into the blogosphere is worth it.

Since my fondest and earliest brunch memories are of the elaborate affairs my grandmother used to throw (like so many things, the interest seems to have skipped a generation), I'll occasionally post on at-home brunching. And, since I don't confine myself to Connecticut, I'll also include info on brunch around the world (ok, so that's a little ambitious). More likely you'll get some recommendations every now and then for Boston, NYC and other spots along the East Coast, but the focus will be on the greater New Haven area since it's a niche that has gone unfilled.

So, check back every week or so for an update, and get to sleep at a reasonable hour on Saturday night to wake up and beat the brunch-hungry crowds.