First Brunch at Osteria Morini – NYC

Happy Sunday! Hope your day was filled with tasty breakfast or brunch eats. BF and I stayed in this morning, and I made poached eggs and toast. I like a good poached egg now and then, but whenever I eat poached eggs, I feel like something is missing. In particular, hollandaise sauce. It’s like mashed potatoes and gravy, wine and cheese, ramyun and kimchi. It just goes together. (Trust me on the last one.) Which reminded me of the stellar brunch I had at Osteria Morini, Chef Michael White’s casual restaurant specializing in food from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, a few weeks ago. Yes, eggs and hollandaise were involved, or to be specific, it being an Italian restaurant, eggs and salsa olandese.

It was David who had the aforementioned eggs and hollandaise. He ordered the Maranello ($15, pictured above), Osteria Morini’s Italian (and also more delicious) take on eggs Benedict. The poached eggs were the same, as was the hollandaise sauce for the most part, but instead of English muffins, the eggs were resting on less floury tigelle (a similarly disc-shaped bread from Modena), and instead of the dreadful Canadian ham which gives pork and probably Canada a bad name, slices of cotechino, a loose Italian salami. The latter, soft in texture and not too salty, was the best part. And since David doesn’t eat pork, the cotechino was all mine. Grazie mille!

As per usual, I went the non-breakfasty route and had pasta. Specifically, one large Raviolo ($20) filled with ricotta, spinach, and a whole egg yolk in a meat jus with brussels sprouts and prosciutto. When ordering, the waiter apologetically told me instead of mushrooms the raviolo would be coming with proscuitto that morning. As if that’s a bad thing! Bring on the meat! I haven’t had the raviolo with mushrooms, but I can only assume prosciutto was an improvement. The prosciutto added just enough salt and a bit more heartiness the dish needed. As for the yolk, it was perfectly runny and melded with the jus quite beautifully upon breakage.

Poached eggs and even hollandaise sauce is relatively easy to make at home, but when weekend laziness ensues, Osteria Morini awaits, with the added bonus of cotechino and a big, fat raviolo. Prosicutto too if you’re lucky.

Osteria Morini
218 Lafayette Street (b/n Kenmare and Spring St; map)
New York, NY 10012
212-965-8777