Brunch with friends: dueling brunches

As Bang with Friends quickly reaches new heights, I thought of something else I’d rather do with friends: go for brunch.

So let me introduce Brunch with Friends, a little review of brunch places wherever I lay my head. Mostly in New York, home of brunch, but who knows where I’ll be, or what I consider brunch.

First off will be the day of two brunches, or dueling brunches, as I’ll call it.

Sunday am, 9:30 am in fact, I stepped through the doors of Alice’s Tea Cup Chapter II on the Upper East Side. It was recommended to me by a waitress at Spin.

I met an old school friend for brunch - and funnily enough we both turned up in blue and white stripped dresses. Twins! Quite fitting for an Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant. Tweedledum and Tweedledee anyone?

This is a place made for moms and their little girls. Or people who love cake and tea in proper tea cups.

Downstairs is a bit worn and basementy so I’d definitely aim for an upstairs seat. There’s big windows and we lucked out with a corner window seat.

The coffee comes in giant mugs (the waitress commented that you could swim in it) and is brewed by the cup. There’s at least a hundred types of tea, 4 iced tea specials everyday and 3 types of scones.



I had the vegetarian egg white omelette with a side of grilled asparagus and pears. I’d say it was a bit overcooked and way too greasy.

I’d go again for a tea but wouldn’t recommend the brunch experience.

Roll on brunch number two

Now 9:30 isn’t really brunch now is it? So when I met Ariel for coffee and it hit 1:30, I wanted to gnaw my arm off. You know what can fix that hole of hunger? BRUNCH!

Being in Columbus Circle, we didn’t know any good brunch places so we turned to Yelp. Neither of us had been to Eatly so down 9th avenue we went.

F*** me. 9th Ave is the Mecca of brunch goers. Everywhere we looked - brunch, brunch and more brunch.

But we chose Eatly, so to Eatly we went. And oh my god did we make the best choice. It was fantastic.

They bring you red velvet mini muffins dusted with icing sugar to start (Ariel assured me they were good and moist in the middle as they should be)



Her salad had big chunks of chicken and seemed plentiful but she said it tasted pretty standard. As for my dishes? Black Bean soup (amazing) and a Japanese egg white omelette with shiitake mushrooms, tofu, chives and plum sauce with a side of pickled cucumbers with ginger and sage.

Eggs were fluffy and done perfectly. The tastes were unusual but suited each other. Maybe the soup and the omelette didn’t match each other but I live black bean soup so much I didn’t care. I’d eat that again and again and again. Definitely thumbs up all round.

So if you know a great brunch place you think I should try or if you want to join me on my epic brunch adventures, let me know. It’s just so good. So so very deliciously weekendy good.