Essex [Click the photo above to go to Essex’s website]
120 Essex Street (between Rivington St & Delancey St) New York, NY 10002
Let’s first start off this story by saying, I know Essex isn’t the newest restaurant in town; It’s not the most delicious…blah blah blah, so for all you people reading this, and being like “why’d she go there?” You guys can suck it, because Essex is FUN.
Sunday Funday + Drunk Brunch + Birthday = Amazingness.
I think that sums it up. The End.
Kidding, I have a lot to say.
I woke up hung-over after a Saturday night that we will just say included a 4am pit stop to the Meatball Shop, only to get up and continue drinking. I thought I would at least have a few extra hours to sleep since brunch was at 1, but no. I was woken up by the birthday girl at 10 am reminding us to be there at 1. Thanks.
I slather on make-up the best I can (I bought luminizer and I want to use it), and checked how I could subway myself (yes I’m using subway as a verb) to my destination. I give myself a peptalk: you’re broke, you’re an adult, you can do this. Get on the subway.
I made it!
I was 4th out of 6 to arrive. I’ll take it. You can’t be seated until everyone is there, and there was a wait anyway, a 20 minute wait. Don’t worry I didn’t mind the wait, because I ate the remaining 1/5 of my meatball sandwich this morning, so I was good.
We sit down, and I don’t know what I’m more excited for, the water or the mimosa.
“We need a picture of us.”
“Should we take it now?”
“Let’s wait until we have a few more drinks.”
I scan the menu, do I want sweet or savory?
“I think I want French toast,” my friend says.
“I don’t know if I want that or potato latkes.”
“Do you want to split?”
I almost punched both of them. They went in for sharesies without me. W.T.F.
“I’m having a bite of that,” I say. I get real authoritative sometimes.
The watiress comes over, and orders are put in, we all went different routes and order something different. As the waitress walks away my friend is absolutely convinced the waitress gave her a dirty look when she ordered. Maybe she did.
Ready for the brunch brigade? Scroll down to hear how it was, because you don’t go to a drunk brunch for the food, but at least this place makes pretty good food.
Potato Latkes with lox and poached eggs
French toast
Matzoh Brie with Mexican toppings
Potato Latkes
Lobster Benedict
Cheeseburger
“I have gifts for everyone,” the birthday girl announces.
Oooh gifts. Ok!
She whips out 5 dreidels and cheap blue sunglasses.
“Happy Hanukah everyone!”
“Aren’t these the give-aways you got at that charity event you went to a few days ago.”
“Yeah.”
Whatever, we’ll take anything. Everyone starts spinning their dreidels, and trying on the sunglasses.
“You only gave out 3 sunglasses. I want one.”
$5 sunglasses are the hottest thing at this table right now. Now everyone is taking what I can only describe as Gangster Jew pictures with sunglasses and holding up dreidels.
Birthday girl hates her potato latkes, but at least it’s picture time.
“It’s ok.”
“It’s fine.”
“So we all agree we want to take another.”
Before we know it our waitress has shooed us out of our seats with the check, and some of us haven’t even received the 3 drinks our brunch comes with. So what do we do?
We complain until we get more free drinks, and a birthday cake with a candle.
Our waitress/manager produces 20 carnival tickets, and tells us we can use them for free drinks at the bar.
What better way to spend your Sunday than badgering Romanian bartenders to give you free drinks with carnival tickets, and magically whipping them out from our pockets, bags, and bra straps with such pride, like they’re $100 bills.
“Vodka soda. Here you go.”
“What should we do now?”
“Let’s go to another bar and then get dinner.”
From brunch to dinner, that’s how we do, and that’s why it’s Sunday Funday.
Bread basket
I like that they were so generous with the bread, and it gave you something to nosh on while you sipped on your drink, and waited for your food. It’s probably a preventative method of keeping patrons from getting too drunk before their meals arrive, and I like it.
The Aristocrat: potato pancake topped with house-cured salmon gravlax, salmon caviar & poached eggs
I guess I’m just a more is more person. I liked that it was a bite of everything. It doesn’t come close to my mom’s potato latkes, but it was still great. What’s brunch without lox?
Mexican Matzo Brei: scrambled eggs with tortilla crisps, monterey jack, avocado, black beans & pico de gallo
I was originally wary of this dish, because this was like “everything but the kitchen sink” in my mind. However, it was a hodge podge of Mexican delight.
Challah French Toast with bananas foster sauce & fresh fruit
Totally fine dish. The banana part looks a bit yuck, but it was good. It’s a good alternative to eggs.
8 oz sirloin burger with french fries
Well done fries can’t be bad! Going for brunch, but just want lunch? Burger and a bloody mary work. At least that’s what my friend did.
Lobster Benedict
Probably would NOT recommend this dish. Lobster was a bit fishy. Maybe crab cake is better? If you have to think about the quality of the seafood I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Crispy Potato Pancakes with sautéed apples & honey cream sauce & spinach-shiitake-black bean hash
Not a pretty lookin’ dish. I’d rather get the Aristocrat if I’m going to get the potato pancakes, but I guess it borders on simple if you’re in the mood for some potato pancakes.
Peanut Butter Cake
Tasted like pure peanut butter. It was free so ok, but ehhhh.
Here we areeee. Look at these idiots.
Kuma Inn [Click the photo above to go to Kuma Inn’s website]
113 Ludlow Street(between Delancey and Rivington) New York, NY 10002
Friday night dinna. What to do? What to do? My money is slipping quietly through my fingers as I pretend I don’t notice, but a girl’s gotta eat, so where do we go? Kuma Inn. Asian tapas and BYOB (cash only p.s they don’t serve alcohol there so don’t hold back, because what you bring is all you have).
The restaurant opens at 6 which means I have to wait all day to make the phone call to secure reservations (not on OpenTable what the eff), and when I call I ask for an 8:45 reservation.
The lady on the phone goes, “8:35?”
“No, 8:45.”
“I was going to say that’s specific.” How about you shut your mouth and schedule my reservation? I haven’t stepped foot in the restaurant yet, and they’re already chastising me.
Reservation was made at 9, but I told my friends 8:45. Girls are always late.
Obviously we extended the invite to everyone, but they’re girls so two of them didn’t confirm they were coming until like 6 o’clock on Friday.
I call the restaurant to ask if we could extend the reservation by 2 people, and this little butthead tells me he can’t extend it, there’s no room, but we can still show up, but there will be an approximate 2 hour wait. I say to just keep it at 3, and be done. I’ll deal with it when I get there.
As it turns out only 1 of them is coming so it’s just 4 of us. I call my friend and tell her what the host said. She is reassuring and says, “there are 3 of us so they’re going to seat us at a table for 4, it will be fine.”
You would think…
Kuma Inn is not just a regular ol’ restaurant. Oh, no. It’s in the LES so it’s sorta grimy (part of the lovely LES appeal) and up a huge flight of steps (don’t fear the bathroom is on the same floor ladies). My friend had on backless wedges and feared for her life while walking up to our dinner/her death. Did I mention we’re all carrying alcohol?
When we arrive we are greeted by a blonde version of Mitchell from Modern Family. He dismisses us quickly and we are shuttled to our seats, which is a table for 2 with 3 plate settings. UM, ok.
“Excuse me, there’s actually going to be one more of us.”
The waitress looks nervous and jittery, “talk to the front.”
I walk up to blonde Mitchell, and go, “Hi, our table is for 2 people, and there are 4 of us. Could we get an extra table?”
“No.”
“No?”
He shrugs. “That’s it. Unless you want to wait 2 ½ hours.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Now we’re both just standing there.
Thanks a*s hole. I walk back to my seat, and ask the lady (the nicer of the 2) for an extra chair. So now the three of us are sitting, while my friend awkwardly stands there, waiting for a chair to be brought over, while she holds two 6 packs of beer.
Guess what? There are no more chairs to be had in this restaurant, so they bring over a stool. Yes, a stool.
So now we look at the table, and there are no room for plates on the table with all the glasses for the sake, the beer, and the water. Time to consolidate. We put the water in the wine glasses, and the beer in the water glasses, and for some reason the sake glasses are gigantic. Tiny restaurant, tiny table, HUGE sake glasses, ok.
Guess what? I’m gonna get drunk.
I ask the waitress to just bring one dish out at a time, because we only have room for that at our table.
We order: edamame, chicken wings, vegetable dumplings, the Chinese sausage (upon recommendation),two orders of pork buns, and spicy shrimp.
Edamame comes, and it’s flavored with lime and some other spice. REALLY GOOD. It better be.
“They charge you a $1 per beer so hide the beer.”
“Where?” Our table is the size of a computer screen.
We keep the beers under the table, and use the same bag that holds the fresh beers as a garbage for the old ones.
Chicken wings come. They’re yummy and really juicy. However the menu says “chicken wings,” and I’m pretty sure they were thighs.
“You don’t like chicken right?”
“I don’t like meat off of the bone. It weirds me out.” Hmm, I see your point. Whatever, more for me.
Spicy shrimp is ok. Chinese sausage is surprise! Boneless spare ribs. Delic!
“Can we have the 2nd bottle of sake please? Thx!”
Pork buns, I mean, c’mon, they’re pork buns. It’s good, and actually larger than others I have seen.
I peer over our tiny table and notice my friend’s nails are polish-less and bitten up. “Ew gross, you need to get a manicure.”
A minute later I receive a text message, “f*ck your face.”
Well played.
Bill is only $25 per person (fine Kuma Inn, your food is good and cheap, but your manager is a dill hole). I did buy a bottle of sake though…
We pay, and begin our descent. As I make it to the bottom of the stairwell, I hear “hey! Wait for me! I have to take my heels off!”
Kuma Inn (sake)
Look at these sake glasses! How do you expect to sake bomb with this!
Kuma Inn (edamame)
I don’t even love edamame, but this was great!
Kuma Inn (chicken wings)
Pretty good, as you can see I forgot to take a picture at first, so that’s all that was left by the time I remembered.
Kuma Inn (spicy shrimp)
It was ok. Cute pic though.
Kuma Inn (vegetable dumplings)
They were really plump for vegetable dumplings! Usually they give you these wimpy servings so props to Kuma Inn for that one!
Kuma Inn (pork buns)
1 order is 2 pork buns, so 1 for each of us. Yum!
Shopsins [Click the photo above to go to Shopsins website]
120 Essex Street, New York, NY 10002
If you’re in the mood for a big brunch go to Shopsins on the LES! It is inside a supermarket, doesn’t take reservations, and only takes parties of 3 or less, and kitchen closes at 3 (oh AND closed on sundays, go on a saturday). Even with all those limitations it’s worth it!
Their specialty is Blisters on my Sisters (die for their name), but I went for ham & cheese grits and french toast grilled cheese with poached eggs.
I didn’t die for the grilled cheese, but the grits were perfect! It’s definitely worth the cals.
We waited on line for a while, bc there are maybe 8 tables, but the menu is so extensive I spent the entire time debating about what i wanted to eat..
I got to catch up with my friend and drank an iced coffee while we waited to be seated.
Shopsins
Meet the owner of Shopsins, Kenny Shopsin! He is what you would call a character. When I was in search of a restroom (i drank a lot of iced coffee) he handed me 2 keys and said “they’re real ass holes here. They make you go upstairs.”
I asked which key was for the upstairs and his response was “the one that’s not for downstairs.”
Im in love. Im in love, and I don’t care who knows it!
Shopsins: 120 Essex Street, New York, NY 10002
My friend got the pancakes with eggs stuffed imbetween the pancakes. she clearly liked them.
Shopsins
I cannot help myself! Here are the ham & cheese grits!
GirlyFoodie 