Clinton Street Baking Company is a very popular and well known destination for breakfast for decades. Word of mouth has mentioned that their pancakes and breakfast items have been delightful to eat. My party woke up early to park in line before the restaurant opening at 9 AM on a Saturday morning. It was definitely a struggle for me and my partner to arrive here from where we live, considering how annoying the subway schedules are on weekends. Right when they open, we were about the 6th small party in line, so we were able to be seated pretty easily.

I’m not a fan of brunch as whole, but my partner’s friends were in town and they selected this restaurant due to their pancakes. Take note that on Sundays, they do not allow reservations, and only the completed parties can be seated. We arrived at around 10:30 AM, and we ended up waiting about 45 minutes until we were able to get in. Originally we were a group of 5, but luckily one didn’t show up, so we were able to be seated once our whole party arrived.

Having been to Sweet Chick before in North Williamsburg, I vaguely remember this place having pretty good crust. I often get Pies N Thighs confused with this. In Williamsburg, there’s always a line outside, so when we walked by here with no line, we decided on a spur of the moment to try this out. When you sit at a table, there is a QR code that you can scan and even place your order.

Partners Coffee was formerly known as Toby’s Estate coffee. When I first moved to NYC many years ago to Williamsburg, I’ve always felt they had my preferred coffee beans and coffee. The general atmosphere probably falls a little under “hipster” coffee, but it’s quite delicious. I have always tried to visit other coffee shops in NYC for their coffee and beans, but I’ve always fallen back to this. In some locations, they have brewing classes and a roaster, but because this one in Long Island City is much smaller, it’s just a straight up coffee cafe.

Summary

To the outside world, the pandemic is wreaking havoc like wildfire. However for me personally, the only difference is that people are much more careful about cleanliness. In North Williamsburg, the brunch hipster spots are still thriving, and as you can imagine are very meticulous to avoid any type of spread.

Cafe Mogador has been one of those frequent brunch places that many flock to for weekend brunch. This is not the first time I’ve been here as I’ve always been neutral, but at least this time, I’ve taken pictures of some of the food.

Summary

This is a little quaint Brazilian breakfast-ish shop near 72nd Street close to Strawberry Fields. Their specialty is tapioca, açai, and pão (i.e. TAP). Many of their main products are gluten free, for those that really care about that. The Brazilian tapioca can be interpreted to be a crepe, but other than the shape, the texture isn’t really like a crepe at all.

The pão de queijo is basically cheese balls. These are much bigger than what you would get at a typical Brazilian restaurant. They taste similar to it and were quite tasty.

Got eggs in hell, and it was a nice alternative to shakshookas. Somewhat spicy. The price wasn’t too expensive.

Got the Shakshooka. I also asked for hot sauce, and it was some wet guacamole green looking thing. It has a nice kick to it. The shakshooka was also green too instead of the normal red sauce. Has a good kick to it and was also more sour than usual. Also got a side of the duck bacon which was interesting.

Again, skip the lines and sit at the bar.

So apparently, the head baker from Peter Pans down the street now works here. Regardless, the ECLAIR with the white filling in the middle is really really good. It’s not too sweet and CHEAP @ $1.50. Better than DKs. Skip the cake donuts of course.

This place is cash-only and has Japanese style breakfasts. Think tomato sauce on top of an omelette that has fried rice in it.

I got the hamburger steak of course. Decent. Decor is interesting.