The John Dory Brunch Edition

This weekend was the John Dory’s first weekend open for brunch. Maybe people don’t all get the constant food blog updates that I do, because the place was pretty empty at 12:30. Who was there you ask? Oh, just me and Tom Colicchio (with wife and son). No biggie. Just the head judge of top chef and owner/chef of the Craft restaurants. I tried my hardest to speak loudly when rating the food, just in case he needs a pedestrian judge next season. So, with my two celeb chef sightings (April Bloomfield was in the kitchen), I was ready to eat!

I’m not a cheater. So, don’t take this as me cheating on Cookshop. I still love it, just want to spread my Chelsea wings (or I guess Meat Packing District wings).

We started out with the apple and Guinness fritters. (Days when I plan to not workout at the gym, I make sure I eat the most fattening item on the menu.) They came to the table looking like donuts, with the crispy sweet crust of a glazed munchkin. In fact, they were apples coated with donut tasting dough, topped with beautifully crispy bacon. The bacon pieces were small but delightful and a great salty addition to the dish. The apples were warm and crunchy. Next, we had the Crab en Cocotte and the Hangtown Fry. I had to look up Cocotte to see what that meant: “a small fireproof dish in which individual portions of food are cooked and served”. That is exactly what I got (and what Mr. Colicchio’s son ordered in case you were keeping tabs). There were chunks of peaky-toe crab served in a soup of eggs (I had to crack the yolks), cream and mushrooms. The dish was a little heavy for my tastes, but very delicious. The soup (ok, it wasn’t a soup but it’s hard for me to describe it any other way since it came in a bowl and was liquidy in texture.) was accompanied by crispy buttered bread.

The Hangtown Fry came with a back-story, always a nice addition. (Supposedly) In the time of the gold rush, rich men would come into restaurants and ask for the most expensive item on the menu. Back in those days, the most expensive items were eggs and oysters. Therefore, a new dish was born. The Hangtown fry was a very thin frittata with grilled oysters on top. Sounds a little odd, but it was great. Frittatas are normally too heavy or dense, but since this was so thin, it was perfect. Ok, I just looked up Hangtown fry and this is what I got for you:

Hangtown fry could possibly be the first California cuisine. It consists of fried breaded oysters, eggs, and fried bacon, cooked together like an omelet. In the gold-mining camps of the late 1800s, Hangtown Fry was a one-skillet meal for hungry miners who struck it rich and had plenty of gold to spend. Live oysters would be brought to the gold fields in barrels of sea water after being gathered in and around San Francisco Bay. Such a meal cost approximately $6.00, a fortune in those days.
However it came to be, ordering a Hangtown Fry became a mark of prosperity for gold-rich miners, the status symbol of the day. The recipe swept the entire Northwest Territory, from California to Seattle, in the mid-1800s. A few drinks and a Hangtown Fry were considered a gentleman's evening.

The John Dory was one restaurant where I wish I remembered to bring my camera. Not only for the celeb sightings, but also for the food. The menu is small yet unique and flavorful.