While other cities around the world have their own weekend-daytime drinking cultures, I think New York owns the boozy brunch.
No one eats that breakfast-lunch hybrid meal later on weekends than New Yorkers — brunch here often extends until 3 p.m., or later. A restaurant recently opened in the East Village entirely pegged to New Yorkers’ adoration of this meal. (It’s aptly called Permanent Brunch.)
So, Saturday. Possibly the one thing that I could love more than a boozy brunch at Essex restaurant — a great Lower East Side scene of a restaurant attached to the Essex Street Market — is a boozy brunch here at 12:45 pm on Saturday for a party upwards of 15.
The planner deserves both some props for their patience and their ultimate faith in the fact that the aforementioned brunch for the aforementioned party of 15+ will actually happen — in a reasonable amount of time. (Parties of 4 regularly wait for 45 minutes to get a table.)
Well, it did, and I’m happy to report that it generally went off without a hitch. And once we started roping in other wait staff to refill our drinks — the whole premise of Essex Street’s boozy brunch is that brunch includes three mimosas, screwdrivers or bloody marys, but you hope that they stop counting after a while — done.
The first time I came to brunch at Essex Street I was a little too excited about the caliber of the menu, which extends far beyond the egg scrambles and pancake stacks of some of the more ordinary brunch suspects in the area. (You can see the full menu here.)
Slowly but surely I’ve worked my way through some prospects, and today I went out on a limb — crispy potato pancakes with sauteed apples and honey-cream sauce and spinach-shiitake-black bean hash.
Yeah, they don’t look so pretty. Although it tasted delicious, I found myself wishing for a couple of strips of bacon, and the part where the sweet, buttery apples and the savory, spinach-y, mushroom-y, black bean hash — I don’t like mixing.
… Well, unless it’s one of Essex’s excellent bloody marys. The more mixing, the merrier. My recommendation: Don’t overlook the Mexican Matzo Brei — scrambled eggs with tortilla chips, Monterey Jack cheese, avocado and pico de gallo (and no matzo) — still the standing favorite.
Essex, 120 Essex St., at Rivington Street, 212-533-9616.
Nevertheless, when a food blog with New York cred, like the Village Voice’s 
Which means it’s going to be busy, if not crowded, all the time. Don’t expect to get a seat — if you get one, you are very patient and/or fortuitous. Be prepared to take out your food and find a bench or curb nearby — the benches in the newly-renovated median of Allen Street are the closest — or stand along a wall while you shovel 4, 8, 10 or more dumplings — varieties include pork and chive, pork and cabbage, Chinese vegetable, chicken, shrimp and more — into your mouth.
I was so prepared to fall in love with the dumplings, which turned out to be just okay. The casing was too thick for my taste, and a little gummy; inside, the meat-and-cabbage ball slid around in a pocket much too big. Frankly, I prefer the dumplings I’ve bought frozen at 
14 oysters (raw, on the half shell)
Some of my friends were taking advantage of 
Theory no. 1: This was the restaurant’s all-you-can-eat exit strategy: Serve them huge platters of seafood with the puniest portions of sauce imaginable, ignore their requests for more until they are infuriated and leave.
… might have ended there, as well. Now that I think about it. I also shared part of a friend’s taco plate, but surely didn’t eat enough to even say that we split it. Oh well, sometimes festivities get the best of you! 
It’s so perfectly New York. The gorgeous smoked fish, the chocolate-dipped everything, the cheeses, the fresh-squeezed juice and premium dried fruits — makes me look at the rain outside and get impatient for summer and park picnics and all the good food and merriment that goes hand-in-hand. 
I love the “Super Heeb” sandwich, which is horseradish creme cheese, whitefish salad and wasabi-flavored roe that are both so pretty and green and crunch so squeakily and give the whole thing a nice kick.
This is where I brunched. Yes, I just used quotation marks and “brunch” as a verb.
This is what I ate. Mucho deliciousness. The potatoes don’t taste as scary as they look. It’s a red pepper/onion mix … which, while tasting okay, looks a little bloody on the plate. Trust me, I, too, was scared before they arrived.
This is where things started to go wrong. See the whole, “Closed on Sundays” thing? I was hoping to find whole allspice kernels (proper?) here, no go on a Sunday.
… And this is how I feel about my life. Excited, but disjointed between the old and the new. What happens if it really looks that ugly?
