Saturday, July 23, 2011

Lunch c/o Broken English

Last weekend I made my way to Brooklyn for some fun, food and music. What's a word that starts with 'f' that means 'music'? Philharmonic? Hm. Moving on. I got to L.'s around noon and after assisting her in sitting on her stoop and hoping people would buy the stuff she had along the sidewalk for a bit, we mobilized for a meal. We didn't have a destination in mind, though L. suggested oysters, which you know will always go over pretty well with me. We passed one or two places before seeing the Broken English sidewalk sign that said they had oysters. After a quick look at their menu, we decided that this would do nicely for us. I started with a mimosa.
Then we split a dozen oysters, the variety of which is beyond me at the moment. Maybe L. will leave a comment and tell you ... but maybe not. The oysters came with mignonette and then a salsa kind of sauce, no regular ketchup/horseradish pairing, but that was okay.
They were shucked decently. Just a few pieces of shell in one oyster...though another was a little mangled, which made me sad. I don't know why I like them to be whole before sliding them down my gullet; it's not like they're going to stay pristine once they meet my stomach's juices. Whatever.
For the main part of my meal I went with the uova in tegame con speck e funghi (Baked eggs with wild mushrooms and speck served over polenta). At first I was quite pleased. I liked the creaminess of the polenta, the earthiness of the mushrooms and the fact that the eggs' yolks were still a little runny. But once I hit about the middle of the dish I was a little less pleased. A fair amount of the egg's albumen was still in its clear form, which really just turns me off. I know I just slurped down oysters, which aren't always considered the prettiest of bites, but the fact is that eggs that still have clear albumen freak me out. I understood that if I just mixed the whole thing up a little more, that maybe the heat of the polenta would cook the whites a bit more, but ugh.
At one point our server must have seen me an L. have some sort of conversation about my aversion and came over to make sure everything was just fine. And I, in standard cc form (that being: when something is wrong I tend to act like it's not) said no and smiled. I don't know why I did this. I could have easily said 'well the egg whites aren't cooked all the way through and I don't like it, could you please put the dish back in the oven for another five minutes?' But for whatever reason I didn't do this and simply stopped eating the dish. I think partially this behavior stems from a stubborn place in my brain: if you didn't do it right the first time, what's the point in making you try again? The worst is when you ask for something done again and then it comes back and you're still unhappy, then you end up seeming high maintenance. And if there's one thing I don't want to appear to be (even if I am, which is up for debate), it's being high maintenance.
L. had eggs benedict I think. And I believe she was happy with them. Not blown away or raving, not not unhappy or off put. I had a second mimosa, both of which were nice and sparkly.

1 comment:

Huck said...

I understand both: uncooked albumen = yuck. And in a similar situation, more often than not I wouldn't complain so as not to be the fussy one. I'm trying to teach myself to get better at this, though. Which usually leads to me apologizing for something someone else got wrong, so ...