Penelope

Ken and I live very close to Penelope but have never eaten at the very popular Murray Hill restaurant. We finally woke up early enough to walk over there and put our names down for brunch. Some friends call it their neighborhood restaurant and it looks like there’s always a long wait to get in (we waited about 30 minutes on Sunday morning). The restaurant is just like Bubby’s in Tribeca (farm-fresh foods, baked goods, specialty cocktails, long waits and lots of young families) but the food is not as good. Their prices and service, however, definitely beat Bubby’s.

We both ordered the $14.95 brunch special – one entree + mimosa or coffee/tea and orange juice. I ordered the Nutella French toast with fresh fruit:

And Ken ordered the Sam I Am – scrambled eggs with asparagus and feta cheese with seven grain bread and homemade French fries:

The food came out very quickly but was not hot at all. Also, the French toast was a little too tough and the Nutella was very unevenly distributed on the three pieces of French bread. Ken’s scrambled eggs were okay – the eggs were mixed with asparagus but the feta cheese was crumbled on top after the eggs were lukewarm so the feta didn’t melt on the eggs at all. The addition of feta on the eggs also brought the temperature down and it almost tasted like they were stale eggs with cold feta.

The coffee and juice were standard, the service was very nice after we sat down and the prices were pretty standard for brunch in the area. The food from the kitchen doesn’t really live up to all the hype.