So, the folks are in town, eh? So, they decided to stay at a classy joint on The Park? Nice. Maybe they’ll have you and Mrs. down to their hotel for some brunch and give you the full court press about moving back to L.A. Hopefully you can make the former and skip the latter. But you could certainly do worse than listening to their pitch while having some eggs and stuff at the Essex House and staring out at Central Park. Granted, it’s pretty typical hotel brunch fare, just with better silverware. The scrambled eggs are lukewarm to sorta cold, depending on when you get to them, the bagels would barely give Lender’s a run for their money, and the fruit–well the fruit is fine. They use those fancy French-word things to keep the food warm. You know, like the metal things you see at post-wedding, Sunday morning brunch–but again these are kinda fancy. The only thing our party ordered outside of the all-you-can-eat buffet was eggs Benedict–something I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole and definitely don’t understand the name of. She had to send them back twice, as apparently it’s not a good thing if the eggs in the eggs Benedict have the consistency of his shoe. We also had the pleasure of listening to a blowhard at the next table talk on his cellphone at top volume about some lawsuit it sounded like he was definitely going to lose. The place itself was nice enough, but practically empty and devoid of what one would consider charm or personality. I suppose there’s no real point coming here unless you’re staying at the Essex House, want to spend way too much on mediocre food, and are really too tired, too sick or too lazy to go out to one of the 5,000 other brunch places in NYC. [MF]
160 Central Park S.
