Maialino, Gramercy

Last Sunday, I met up with Sonali for a long overdue reunion. We’ve known each our since our freshmen year at Carnegie Mellon. Sonali lived right across the hall from me, and we were roommates during our second year. When I moved to NYC in 2011, we were briefly reunited before she moved to India. Happy to have her back in the Big Apple!

We had brunch at Maialino right by Gramercy Park. It was chilly out, and we had just gotten a couple inches of snow the day before. I’m glad I bundled up and even brought out my fuzzy earmuffs.

Suppli al Telefono: tomato risotto croquettes and mozzeralla ($7). Basically mozzeralla sticks with tomato risotto mixed in there. Mmm, cheese. Sonali got the Frittata Bianca ($16), an egg white frittata with herbs and ricotta salata. I had a couple bites of this. The cheese was perfect with the light frittata. We all know how much I love poached eggs. I ordered the Contadino ($14), which had poached eggs over squash puree and roasted autumn vegetables. A tasty and colorful fall/harvest brunch dish. Earlier in the week, Buzzfeed featured Maialino’s bread pudding in an article about NYC winter foods. We had our hearts set on sharing the bread pudding, but it wasn’t on the menu! Our waiter explained that the bread pudding is on the dinner dessert menu as it’s made from leftover chocolate croissants from brunch, but he would check with the kitchen to see if they’re already made some. Lucky us, we got our bread pudding after all!

Budino di Cioccolato ($9), chocolate croissant bread pudding with hazelnut gelato. What a beauty! Every aspect of this dessert was delicious, but the sweetness was never overwhelming. That hazelnut gelato was a great match for the bread pudding.