Prune: a Downpour and Comfort

I broke personal contract during my most recent visit to Prune. I'm on a quest to try the whole menu, and arguably I should have ordered with the Sausage & Oysters (grilled handmade lamb sausages with 3 Malpeque oysters on the 1/2 shell, with stewed tomatoes and grilled peasant bread) or the Toasted Caraway Seed and Sour Cream Omelet.

But I was still reeling a bit from my love affair with the wine bottle the previous night at Ivo & Lulu, and besides, C and I had just battled this torrential downpour where my little round-toe, patent leather pumps became vessels for petite puddles of rainwater to form underneath the balls of my feet. Prune being Prune, when we arrived there were a half dozen people huddled underneath the dripping awning at 9:50am determined to get a seat for brunch on a Saturday morning. So we shivered and chatted and stamped our feet and watched the rain and felt it fall from the awning onto our backs and felt such happiness when someone came out and told us they could finally seat us.

Which meant I needed comfort, menu quest or not. I broke down and ordered the Spaghetti a la Carbonara, which the menu describes as "The Italian way to get your bacon and eggs." D, who went to college with C and I and joined us for breakfast, took an interest in the order, as her father's only two culinary capabilities comprise of manning the grill and fastidiously making a mean Spaghetti Carbonara. She declared the spaghetti better than most and heavy on the black pepper. In all fairness, the menu does warn that their carbonara has "plenty of black pepper." I think what this assessment really means is that I need to be extra nice to D, so that she'll follow through on her offer to cook C and I Spaghetti Carbonara in the D-family style.

C got her usual steel-cut oatmeal but supplemented with the brilliant addition of a side of bacon. Hello bacon, how I love you. I thought C already knew all there was to know about the happy marriage of brown sugar, cream and oatmeal, but D turned us on to her strategy of first putting the brown sugar in the bowl before the hot oatmeal goes in in order to caramalize the sugar. Genius.

D went with classic brunch fair and tested their eggs benedict. That is a very respectable looking hollandaise, and I can tell you from past experience that their potatoes rosti is fantastic: the perfect combination of crispy caramelized on the outside and starchy goodness on the inside.

Brunch was great. I went to a women's college, and I always derive such strength from meeting up with my fellow alumnae. Ironically, D, C and I have spent our last two brunches talking about men. We debated our conflicting feelings about $50,000 diamond engagement rings. It was most certainly a hypothetical inquiry.