PrintPrime Meats: The Frankies Get Serious About Breakfast
[Photographs: Robyn Lee]
Prime Meats
465 Court Street, Brooklyn NY 11231 (at Luquer; map); 718-254-0327; frankspm.com
Service: Attentive, forthright, knowledgeable
Setting: A restored corner bar with a pleasant garden attached
Compare It To: Char No. 4, General Greene
Must-Haves: French toast, rosti, mushrooms with poached egg and bratwurst, smoked trout salad
Cost: $20 including tax and tip for a hearty breakfast
Grade: A-
Serious cooks are getting mighty serious about breakfast in this town. And as an early riser and serious eater, all I can do is say yay, halleleujah, and it's about time!
Because there was a time, not too long ago, when breakfast choices in New York were limited to Greek coffee shops, retro (and real) diners, and overpriced hotel dining rooms. (Barney Greengrass was, and still is, a delightful anachronistic exception.) Egg in Williamsburg, Cookshop, Trestle on Tenth, and Locanda Verde have led the serious breakfast wave, and now here come the Frankies, Frank Castronova and Frank Falcinelli. Their newest venture, Prime Meats, is open for breakfast seven days a week at 7 a.m.
While I couldn't convince the serious eaters to get up that early to check Prime Meats out, I did manage to get Robyn, Erin, and Kathy out there on Labor Day, though I'm sure the principal enticement was the fact that I was paying the check and not the pleasure of my company.
No matter. The six of us managed to order just about the entire breakfast menu (the exceptions being the French breakfast pastries from Ceci Cela and the burger, which we had already sampled a few weeks back). And that breakfast menu turns out to be a model of seriously delicious consistency. There wasn't a loser in the bunch. From French toast to perfectly fried eggs over-easy to a fine trout salad, Prime Meats delivered on the promise of serious chefs thinking about breakfast in this town.
With visions of Karen DeMasco's supremely delicious breakfast baked goods at Locanda Verde dancing in our heads, we started off the meal with an olive oil mini-bundt cake and a slab of the stout cake, along with a buttered, braided pretzel roll. All were really tasty but not sublime, so they didn't quite prepare us for what came after.
French toast ($10) with excellent warm maple syrup was perfect. It was everything I want French toast to be, crispy on the outside, tender and not at all soggy or heavy on the inside. Why can't all French toast be this good?
Oat aficionado Erin Zimmer was mightily impressed with our bowl of steel cut oats, topped with the same great maple syrup ($6). They popped in the mouth, soft and tender without being mushy.
I don't think I've ever met a breakfast sandwich I didn't like, so it's not surprising that I really appreciated this version, which I ordered with bacon ($6 without meat, $9 with). The cheese was great, and so was the Faicco's thick cut bacon, but the housemade buttermilk biscuit could have been lighter and less dense, and the scrambled eggs were slightly overcooked.
The grilled Kassler ham and cheese ($8) would have made a most excellent breakfast sandwich, if it had been made with rye bread instead of too-thick slices of challah. (According to our server, chef William Prouty alternates the two breads on this particular sandwich).
I loved the filling in the earthy Gruyere & sweet onion omelet ($8), but I like my omelets a tad runny, softer than what was put before us.
Steak, eggs, and potato rosti ($14) came with a thin, pinkish 4-ounce Creekstone Farms strip steak, two perfectly fried, salted eggs over easy, and a slab of rosti that might be the best hash browns you can get in this town.
The most unusual breakfast offering is the mushrooms with poached egg and bratwurst ($12). A whole mess of sauteed wild mushrooms is topped by a single poached egg and accompanied by a fine grilled bratwurst. Break the yolk of the egg, mix it up with the mushrooms, and you have one earthy plate of meaty, gooey, 'shroomy breakfast goodness. Cut up the bratwurst and add it to the mushroom and egg mixture, and it gets even earthier and meatier.
The rest of the table, seemingly concerned about my health, made me order the composed smoked trout salad ($10), and boy, was I glad they insisted on it. Delicate house-smoked trout was mixed in with pickled red onions, local greens, and a horseradish and quark dressing, all atop a spelt crepe. Russ & Daughters, please take note. This whole affair would taste really great on a bagel or toasted bialy.
All this seriously delicious food, wireless, and Stumptown coffee? The Frankies can cook breakfast for me any time.
Read more of Ed's reviews.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it pleasant. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
11 Comments:
Not only are your reviews more reliable and relatable than just about anybody else around, the photography is great, right up to SE standards.
Bravo!
DanielJ at 11:26PM on 09/08/09
Haha. As I was reading I thought "gosh, isn't 7:00 kinda late to start breakfast?"
Agree with DanieU about the photog and the review.
re: French Toast. I think that soggy interiors in French toast come from the habit of making a custard to soak the toast in instead of just using eggs (with maybe a tiny amount of liquid to help break them up.) I was astonished the first time I saw someone add a quantity of milk or cream to the eggs, as I grew up with just eggs. If you think about it, it's kind of hard for the moisture you've soaked into the bread to evaporate. So my guess is they just used eggs.
lemonfair at 7:30AM on 09/09/09
Ah - the other clue to their just using eggs is the little ledge of egg that hangs off the bottom edges. I don't think custard would do that.
lemonfair at 7:32AM on 09/09/09
awww.. no brunch menu on their website.
gargupie at 8:14AM on 09/09/09
@lemonfair - yea, I also think their french toast batter didn't use much liquid or like me, they might've used a bit of corn starch as well for the 'crust' factor. That's my little secret. :)
gargupie at 8:16AM on 09/09/09
@gargupie - yeah, I've seen that people do that - never tried it, but it sounds like a good idea with bread that would otherwise soak up a lot. Might try it.
lemonfair at 9:51AM on 09/09/09
I grew up with the custard version and love a moist interior. The secret is to cook the FT more slowly so the inside has a chance to firm up. Thx for the corn starch tip, though.
lemons at 9:51AM on 09/09/09
Hate to rain on your parades
A lot of these dishes look sloppily made and overpriced.
steak and eggs for $14 ok maybe in NY
porrage for $6, cost maybe 75cents
breakfast sandwich $9, bun looks like concreate
french toast $10, cost 90 cents
but this is NY
chips99 at 10:53AM on 09/09/09
I kinda agree with chips99. The ham and cheese sandwich is burned... too dark. I would have sent that back.
Pepper at 1:58PM on 09/09/09
The bratwurst + mushroom + poached egg brekkie seems like an interpretation of the traditional British breakfast (minus the really good stuff like blood pudding).
Centelleo at 1:14PM on 09/11/09
I agree with chips. I checked out like a month ago and liked the Mushroom and Wurst combo....but at $13 it was pretty small. I felt a bit ripped off.
eatingraoul at 10:10AM on 09/18/09