Baseling all weekend? Make sure to fit brunch into your agenda, partly because you'll need to get some fuel in you but also because Mignonette recently launched brunch service, which means in addition to shucking oysters Danny Serfer is also flipping eggs.
No stranger to brunch, Serfer has Sunday devotees at Blue Collar, which is probably why Mignonette was packed on its first weekend offering the adored meal period. But don't expect French toast with banana foster or lemon ricotta pancakes at this Serfer joint. What you'll get instead? Blood orange mimosas and an egg salad with caviar, on brioche.
See also: Mignonette Introduces Brunch: Turducken Burgers, Oysters, and Seafood Crepes
"We didn't want it to be the same brunch as Blue Collar or compete," says Serfer. "But we wanted to have all the eggy sort of brunch stuff and still fit a seafood place." If anyone can pull that off, Serfer is certainly the man. Although he's pulled some favorites from the lunch and dinner menu like the lobster roll, warm croissants, shrimp po'boy, lobster deviled eggs, peel-and-eat wild Florida shrimp, and the oysters of course, there's still plenty of novel dishes to discover.
Like quiche. "My mom made two things good -- one was quiche," admits Serfer. "I miss and love her quiche, so I now I can eat quiche every weekend." And so can you. If you're a person that needs bacon during brunch, go for the shrimp quiche (asaparagus, bacon, grafton cheddar, and smoked trout roe mayo). It's the only brunch item with bacon. If you can do without pig and want to get your dose of shrooms', the mushroom quiche ($14) is all yours. It's got creminis, shiitakes, parrano cheese, crème fraiche, and it's runny in the good kinda way.
Just cause there's no French toast or pancakes doesn't mean you can't get your sweet fix. Find it in the crepes, or as Serfer calls them -- blintzes. "Ryan loves blintzes. It's one if few bready items he likes." Blintzes include berry compote and farmer's cheese or crab, cream cheese, and a chile pepper marmalade that should be packaged and sold by the jar ($17).
Of course no brunch would be complete without a benedict or some type of scramble. Serfer's cooking up both and taking a page out of the Blue Collar brunch handbook by bringing his Portuguese muffins to his oyster bar. His favorite benedict? The shrimp with sherry and cayenne aioli ($19). "The cayenne aioli is a really nice touch." It is indeed, and possibly one of the top benedicts in town.
But the real winner at Mignonette's brunch is a sandwich Not just any sandwich. Think of this at the ultimate breakfast brunch sandwich. Ultra moist egg salad is topped with ¾ ounces of sturgeon caviar and laid atop perfectly buttered slices of brioche ($28). Just how did he come up with such a thing? "Last year when I did the breast cancer dinner at BC I had tons of caviar and hard boiled eggs lying around. I was like hmm, I wonder what it would be like to eat an egg salad sandwich with an ounce of caviar on it." The answer to that question is now on Mignonette's brunch menu. In the words of Serfer himself, it's so fucking fancy.
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