Ouest, $28, April 2010, party of 4, April 2010

At the urging of the party present at my Prix Fixe meal at Ouest, I will review a Brunch. The party being my husband and our friends, Laurent and Mee-Ryung. None of us are fans of brunch for various reasons.  To me, brunch is a way for restaurants to use up food that is left over from the Friday and Saturday service by mixing it in eggs and potatoes.  Besides, my husband makes a killer French omelet, if I have a hankering for eggs.  I also think that the B-, C- or hung over- Team is working in the kitchen on that day to give the chef some time off.  I know this is a bleak view of a meal that is extremely popular in NYC, but, for me, there are just too many factors working against a really good, quality meal.  Then, my friends and I went to Ouest for our Sunday lunch.

Ouest is considered one of the more notable, destination restaurants on the Upper West Side. I have eaten dinner here a few times and thoroughly enjoyed it.  On this visit, my friends and I, found ourselves staring at a Brunch menu, no burger or pasta dish to soothe our brunch-phobis souls.  The $28 Prix Fixe menu includes juice or coffee, an appetizer and a Brunch item.  We were stuck: seated and menu in hand we could not walk out, besides I would forfeit the opentable.com points.  So, as food adventurers, we just went with it, but did not expect much.

We were confused by the Brunch menu, as if it were missing a page. So, we were not sure what was included on the Prix Fixe menu.  Once we got a quick explanation from our pleasant, yet distracted waiter, we ordered our Appetizer and Brunch and forgot the juice and coffee.

We were served a basket of warm breads.  There was a nice variety, all were fantastic.  There were cranberry, blueberry and raisin breads. They were hard to divide fairly with the rest of the table once they had been tasted.  They were sweet and moist.  The basket also contained some beautifully herbed rolls that begged to be buttered.  It set quite a good mood for the start of our accidental Brunch, even if the service started a bit slow and shaky.

The salad appetizer was fresh and flavorful.  The lettuce was lightly and carefully covered with a Ceasar dressing with a little grated parmesan.  The house made yogurt appetizer was thick and full bodied with a nice tanginess to it.  The cherries added just enough sweetness.  The spicy tomato bisque was not very spicy, nor was it technically a bisque. Technically, a bisque starts with a seafood stock with that particular seafood diced into the soup, but even, the great,  Larousse concedes that most pink or red purees are called bisques, even if it is an imprecise descriptor.  It was tasty, nonetheless. It was drizzled with a bit of flavored oil and cream, then sprinkled with chives.   Our appetizers were enjoyable.  We wondered how our next course would be.

I ranked the Brunch items from 1 to 4.  1 being the least favorite and 4 the best.  Do not assume that the dish that ranked 1, the hanger steak and eggs, was bad.  It was very good, but, just an ordinary breakfast/brunch item.  The steak was done to a perfect medium rare, the potatoes were seasoned well and the eggs, ordered "over medium", were expertly cooked to "over medium".  I rarely see eggs presented as they were ordered, so this impresses me.  The 2nd ranked was fried poached eggs over duck prosciutto.  Again, this dish was far from being bad.  The cured duck breast was thinly sliced and salty, it was a bit of an exotic treat.  It paired well with the fried poached eggs, however, they were a bit overdone.  The omelt souffle ranked #3. It was light on the tongue, but rich in flavor. In between the egg layers was wilted spinach and a craftily seasoned hollandaise sauce that made you want to lick the plate.  It also had thinly sliced shiitake mushrooms around the souffle giving the dish another flavor dimension.  The smoked sturgeon dish got the most points and snaps.  The flavor of the fish was an "mmmm, oh!", meaning, it tastes terrific when you first put it in your mouth (mmmmm), but as the flavor coats your tongue you realize its not just terrific its spectacular (oh! and your eyes get really wide).  This experience, doesn't happen often because there is an element of surprise.  There was a small frisee salad over the two skillfully prepared poached eggs and some lardons around the plate, which, always add a yum factor.  To our surprise, we were enjoying our brunch and talking about how fantastic the food we were eating was. 

Our  accidental brunch was a delicious and amazing meal.  Our opinions about restaurant brunch may have been a bit shaken, but the four of us will still likely seek out lunch on Sundays as we normally do together.  I will gladly return to Ouest for any meal they are serving.  They truly deserve their high regard in this neighborhood, but their rating of 24 by Zagat, to me, is a little low.  I will give them one more point and make a note to come back for dinner soon to confirm or better that score.