The Smith – Plate 64

Our waitress at The Smith wins the Most Bubbly award for 93 Plates. I don’t know what her name was, but I’m sure that if you’ve ever been there, you’d probably know the one I was talking about. It was 8:30 AM and she definitely already had her morning coffee.

Waiting for Danny, she escorted me around the restaurant, showing me the individual,, possibly soundproof bathroom stalls (hint, hint) to the secret vintage porn knothole. I’m sure the company isn’t just lucky to have employees that are enthusiastic about their jobs to this extent; it’s gotta be something in the water there. Regardless, whoever is in charge of giving the gold stars out over there should see that this girl gets one.

Danny sent me an e-mail last week about The Croaker (below). I was curious. I wanted to make sure I got something that came with fries, so I got the BLT+E (above). The fries are the same ones that they serve at Jane (link). They are exceptional and even at plate 71 (as I am writing this) are still my favorite fries in the city. If they decided to make a 24 hour fries-only window and added some interesting mayos, they would put Pommes Frites out of business in a matter of weeks. I don’t see anyone taking the title from these perfect potatoes. That’s P-Bomb number four of 93 Plates, and I might have used the first one on the fries at Jane (just checked, I did).

One piece of bacon fell out of my sandwich and I didn’t even notice until the end of the meal. That’s how much bacon is in this mother. It’s thick as hell and pleasantly smoky, not chewy, not overcooked. It comes on a sourdoughish bread with a lemon aoli that gives it a nice tang.

The Croaker is gorgeous. A stacked deck of two over-easy eggs, ham, gruyere, home fries, sauteed onions and peppers, and a nice thick brioche (I think). If ever there was a complete breakfast in one burning hot serving pot, this would be it. As much as I liked the bacon, the croaker would be my first choice.

The thing about brunch is that I would have liked to try more food! I heard their burger was pretty good and we really didn’t have the bandwidth for that one. I’ll be back here if it’s only to sneak in for a few minutes or so to … ummmm … get the fries (winky face).

Here’s our video:

Guest Writer: Danny

The IRL Arts Foundation and The Wandering Foodie thank The Smith for providing this meal. And by the way, anyone coming from Danny’s site should know that I straight ganked the map and address layout from him when designing my pages. Thanks, Danny!

The Smith
55 3 Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 420-9800