Prune, New York

Last day in New York City, on a sunny Sunday morning, with a flight back home scheduled in the afternoon. How to spend you last morning hours, before the amazing food waiting for you in your 8hrs flight? Maybe brunch is the answer.

As a recommendation of our host, we went to Prune in East Village. The place is small and well known, but according to our host "it's overpriced on the evenings, but definitely a great brunch option on the weekends". We went there, and following his advices, we went to queue for the opening already at 9.40 (the place opens at 10 am). Already few people were waiting there, because the place does not take any reservation.

The team was having their breakfast together while we were waiting outside, kind of team building ritual for them before jumping into the jungle. At 10 am, the doors open and the main waitress is placing people. Strict policy of you need to be physically present to take a table, no "my 2 other friends are coming in 5 min, please give me a table".

Unfortunately we were three people, a nightmare number for many restaurants. If you take a four seats table they kind of loose a seat and a table for two is maybe a bit too small. We ended up in a small corner table (one single table with three chairs). It would have been fine, if we were three tiny teenage girls, but two guys at the table make the space division a bit more problematic.

Again like in many places in the US, the amount of waiters/waitresses working for such a small place is amazing; about seven people devoted to their 30/40 customers at the same time. First thing to say is that brunch is the US isn't the same than a brunch in Europe. While on the old continent it means staying long time in the restaurant and brunch buffet, here it simply means that the menu is different.

So here was our orders:
Soft scrambled eggs (any detail needed?)
Huevos Rancheros (baked egg in tomato, garlic, and chili. With black beans, avocado and lime)
Monte Cristo (triple decker ham, turkey and swiss cheese sandwich)

+ a side order of full grain toasts + coffee + orange juice.

The food was good in general, but nothing so amazing to be honest. And a minus point here as both the Soft scrambled eggs and the Huevos Rancheros were served a bit cold.

Prune itself looks very nice, like a tiny little café, which could be in Europe. It is very bright and there's nothing too much. Many people who came there seemed to be regular customer. Somehow the feeling of this place, as for many other american restaurant we went to, is that part of the food experience there is the 'show' or team spirit provided by the staff.

Without beating brunch places in Berlin, Prune stays a good New York City option.

http://www.prunerestaurant.com/

Qulma

At Qulma you will get a brunch, which keeps your hunger away until the evening. They have ready made plates (cheese or meat), yogurt with several different toppings (sweet pesto thing was good!), a vitamin shots plus the regular juice + coffees. If you want, you can upgrade your brunch with the glass of sparkling. 

The place itself is nice in the heart of Kruununhaka, old district of Helsinki. If you want to be sure that you get seated, we recommend to make a table reservation, though we happened just pop in. Their speciality is the jacket potatoes. We were too filled after the normal breakfast part to even try the potatoes, but they seemed to be huge with couple of different filling. Generally food is good and basic. the most memorable articles were the yogurt with its toppings and a vitamin shot.  

All this costs 18 euro (3,5 for a glass of sparkling), it's a bit pricy, but as already mentioned, you wont get hungry all day.

Café Cardemumma

It was a Saturday or a Sunday morning, when we were thinking to get some early breakfast. Just a cup of coffee and croissant would have been enough, but unfortunately it's not easy to find such a thing like that on the weekend before ten o'clock. We ended up walking up and down in Kallio and Hakaniemi and finally we found our saviour: Café Cardemumma. Of course it was already ten by the time we found what we wanted. 

You can find this cafe is on Kaarlenkatu, almost at the crossroad of Helsinginkatu. They serve the breakfast (and brunch) starting in the weekend morning already at ten. Though the lovely workers/ owners told us that they come to the cafe already at last at seven in the morning to bake, so if one is very, very hungry and craving for a cup of coffee, it might be possible to have something even then. 

Anyway, our a cup of coffee + croissant changed quickly to the brunch. A plate with meat (13,50 euros) and a plate without meat (10,50 euros). There are also a bit some nicely done rice porridge, smoothies, fruit salad and croissants. You will fill up yourself easily with these and you won't be hungry at the lunch time. 

We also recommend their lunch salads (one of the best in the town) and their home made pies and pastries. 

Galleria Keidas

Among all the places we wanted to go since a while, Galleria Keidas has been on the top of the list. Quoted by many magazines as a good organic brunch place we were excited to pay a visit, even more as it is located just on front of our old apartment.

H. had a special voucher for a brunch which gave us the perfect opportunity to visit the place.

At 10.50 on a Saturday morning we popped-in! And surprise the tiny place (only 20 seats maximum) was full. We had tried to contact them by email in advance to make a reservation, but we didn't get any answer. It seemed to be hard to get a seat. Anyway we were told to come back at 12.00 by then there would be a table waiting for us. We were informed that we could come also a bit earlier, if we wanted to come to check the situation. So we came back at 11.30 and after 10minutes we got our table.

The place has some charm. It is tiny but not too tiny and the decoration looks very friendly, but something weird make you feel that it is not as friendly place as it seems to be.

The brunch consist of a "starter", a bowl of porridge or musli with soured milk and jam. Musli was tasty enough to be a good introduction.

Then comes a plate with the main ingredient of your choice: Mozzarella, edam, eggs or tofu.

We both went for mozzarella. The brunch is served with tea or coffee plus a glass of juice. This is in theory - In practice there is a small bottom of black mud in the coffee pot, some water for the tea and after many attempt and request a small glass of juice is served to you. A buckthorn juice has a nice orange color but with an awful taste (reminds me of puke), the perfect morning drink though!

The plate is garnished with some homemade and good humus, some black beans, salad and slices of  pineapple and orange. The bread is also fresh and still warm, and actualy quite good, not homemade though.

But. A big but. There are some serious problems with managing.  The small cafe is lacking of directing. There were no organizing at all, which gives totally catastrophic feeling also for the customers. Orders were mixed, even forgotten. Some people got service twice, some none. Unfortunately lots of your energy goes to see, if the manager is surviving. It's scary.

The waitress seems to be a very kind girl but maybe a bit too much under the stress of a manager who have no organization at all (in a place of less than 20 seats, isn't difficult to give numbers to table for example?).

Never the less, the brunch is suppose to end by a royal pancake with ice-cream. The ice-cream is made in Suonenjoki, Finland. Unfortunatly there wasn't anymore blueberry when our turn came. Chocolate and lingonberry did the deal, but what a pancake! I think that with such a recipe we found the solution to build earthquake proof building in Japan! Even a steak knife would have not be enough to cut through it! A cold and hard pancake, how can you dare to serve this to your customers?

Another comment need to be added here: as for many places trying to surf on the organic wave, what is the point to propose organic products, if the products are not seasonal nor local and are coming from the other side of the world? And what about products grown in green houses, which need lots of energy (not necessarily green in a country which had a massive nuclear power plant park)? If I were vicious, I could say opportunism...

Verdict: It's not a bad place, but to really make yourself a good opinion of the place, go there when the place is not packed, it might be then more relaxing and this also effects on the food and the atmosphere!

Crustum

It's already few weeks ago we went to have a brunch in a German style of bakery/ cafe in Helsinki. I love Berlin and I miss its old sofas and arty cafes. Unfortunately there isn't any like that in Helsinki. Or is there? 

Well, not really, the atmosphere is closer to Charlottenburg than Prenzlauberg...or then a finnish version of it! Anyway the place looks good with its cosy and a bit strict German feeling, and the breads and cakes available from the bakery side make you hungry before you even sit. But actually getting a table for a sunday brunch isn't an easy thing. The place is easily crowded and perhaps because of this success it is also packed of few tables too much. Luckily the very friendly and effective staff will do its best to find you a chair somewhere.

Let's talk about the food: Lots of different home made breads, mostly all with seeds in them. The Finn of us of course regret the lack of dark bread, but honestly the 4 different kind of bread I tried there were good. Then all the basics are there: cheeses (edam slices, brie and blue cheese), veges, hams (even some tasty chorizo), smokes salmon...for the salty and yoghurt, fruits, dry fruits, cereals and pies for the sweets! This did not remind me Berlin bohemian café but a more general German feeling was there.

So as a results the brunch was good, it makes you happy for the rest of your day, and it is definitely a much better value than some other place suppose to be an institution in Helsinki.

Luxury brunch choice in Bangkok

A night in the one of Bangkok's five-star-hotels, Orchid Sheraton. The atmosphere is cold and unfriendly even though everyone is smiling. The energy of the place is bad. You assume that the breakfast of Orchid Sheraton Bangkok is something amazing. You are already paid yourself sick and you want some kind of substitute for your money. Ok, I can tell you that this breakfast is enormous - you wont be starving after this. 

The breakfast is mixture of Western (American) breakfast and Asian breakfast. You can have different kind of fried noodles and rice soups. There are croissants, pain au chocolates and other pastries. There are the diamonds of Thai food: fresh fruits, yogurt, breads and things you can't even imagine (and after you've eaten those things, you still don't know what you just ate). The price of breakfast, if it's not included on your room rate, is about 16 euros per person.

Few words about Orchid Sheraton. It's a huge American luxury hotel chain. At least in Sheraton Bangkok the most of the customers were american travelers. Some of them stayed in Thailand a day or maxim two (yes, a day or two). Average age is probably over 60 years and circumference of the stomach over 120 cm. The language you hear most in the hotel is american english with the strong accent. 

Croissants and pain au chocolates were dry and a bit rubber-kind. Not very astonishing. But hey, we're in Thailand, why on earth I should eat croissant for the breakfast?!

Dragon fruit, papaya, danish pastry and some rice-plum-cake. 

You fancy some noodles for your breakfast? What would you like to have? This man behind the stall will make you dream come true. In the front of your eyes he will make you your own unique noodle portion. 

Something sweet? Danish pastries, banana bread, donuts...

Omelette? Do you want it with ham and cheese? Maybe just some paprika? Or tomatoes? Well, you name it. There's a man, who will listen your desires and make it come true. 

Some spices for your croissant? Or maybe for the rice soup with pork. 

Something meaty.

Fruit table. Pineapple is the queen of the fruits. 

Dragon fruits.

Moko market breakfast

Another brunch in Helsinki. A furniture store can also hide a much better brunch place than a well known poshy café. After last week disappointment, this appears to be a nice Saturday morning brunch place. 10,90€ with normal Finnish coffee or Tea, or 12,90€ with a fancier espresso/Cappuccino/Latte, Moko's brunch buffet is an affordable place in the South of Helsinki city centre. The café itself is cosy, surrounded by the retro furnitures of the store, you can choose to seat on table or then for the early birds sofas and armchairs are also available.

Let's talk about the food! 

A buffet table proposing the basics and a bit more that what you can expect from a finnish brunch. The different kind of breads, white, dark, focaccia were very good, and often still warm and crusty. Only the focaccia was maybe a bit too salty...

Anyway from what looked first a very simple choice of ingredients came out a very nice breakfast: with the regular tomatoes and cucumber slices Moko is proposing spanish goat and 3 milks cheeses. Very tasty and much more original than the regular finnish cheese.

Fruits assortment wasn't large (watermelon, cantaloupe, bananas) but fruits were tasty. 

If you wish something sweet after your bread, you can opt for fresh yogurt with blueberries and strawberries, and of course muesli. Want more sweets? Then you will be delighted by Moko cheese cake and apple-pulla cake.

As we said nothing very exceptional, not millions of things to choose between but quality products!

Cappuccino is particularly good there, as the Latte and espresso. One of the only bad point might be that the juice is straight from the bottle, not freshly home made. So our verdict is pretty optimistic, you will get a simple but quality breakfast for a decent price, more than enough to not feel depressed on a rainy weekend.

Fresh bread.

Cheeses were organic, BUT not from Finland. Cheese was imported from Spain. Good cheese, but a big minus for imported cheese. Would be better to offer some Finnish organic cheese. 

Finnish berries on the top of the yogurt. 

In the end: cheesecake! 

Moko market  is here: 

Perämiehenkatu 10, Helsinki, Finland. 

Brunch in Cafe Ekberg

Today we finally, after two and a half years talks, we decided to go and try Cafe Ekberg's brunch. The reason, why we haven't done it earlier, is the price: 18 euros in the weekend days. Weekdays I think it costs less than 10 euros.

Anyway, when we arrived, the place was packed and we had to wait for table few minutes. That was fine, because people were coming and going all the time. Cafe is pretty old and it has a tack as the fancy, elegant and upper class cafe in Helsinki. At least I think so. But the food for brunch. O-ou, they do have some problems.

Let's start with the breads: croissants were great. That I and demanding French man can say, but some of the bread rolls were still frozen inside, when they were hot outside. Image of the fresh bread was gone. Dramatic. There were also three, four different kind of loaf breads and some small patty. Coverings for the breads were taken out from plastics: cheese (edam, brie and blue cheese), some hams, salmon (cut in small pieces), herrings, cucumber and tomatoes. Very basic. I was a bit missing green salad. Yogurt was served. They were offering also boiled eggs, though I didn't see  any of them during that one and half hour we were sitting in the cafe. There were also some scrambled eggs (not self made, but this kind of powder made - yak), which wasn't very tasty.

Fruits. Oh fruits - there were several different kind of fruits, which you could peal yourself. That's good, so you will get your fruits as fresh as it's possible in Finland. There were also some halves of grapefruits, but no grapefruit spoons, so I managed to make a nice mess. Cafe Ekberg was serving also rice porridge, but I didn't try it myself.

Finally the end - there were cake! Cream cake with some caramel on the top. Sweet, but fine.

After all I have to say that Cafe Ekberg's brunch is over priced and cashed. You will get your stomach full, but you won't come very happy after that food. You have to feel happy after eating, don't you. If you want to enjoy a breakfast there take a cup of coffee and a croissant.  Don't pay 18 euros for things, which you could buy yourself with 6 euros from the supermarket.