Friend of a Farmer

I have a list of restaurants that I went to 4 years ago when I made my first attempt at being a city girl. I say first attempt because it was short-lived. After six months, the New York life was too much for a small-town Virginia college grad to handle and I packed my bags and shipped out to Aspen, Colorado.

Writing about restaurants you ate at that long ago isn't worth it. Besides my short-term memory, so many factors play into the running of a restaurant and things change drastically over the span of several months, let alone 4 years. Fortunately, when I went to Friend of a Farmer for the second time this past weekend, I was happy to see nothing had changed at this quaint country refuge right in the middle of downtown. Walking in and seeing the same wooded tavern feel of Friend, with its cornucopias and farm props, it felt like not even a day had gone by since I walked in 4 years ago with Carebear and friends...

Swimster and I were getting closer to the restaurant when we noticed people milling around outside. This did not bode well for me, as I had to hightail it to work in little under an hour. Lucky for us, the hostess grabbed us menus and took us right upstairs, to our very own dining room. It seemed the people milling around in front of the entrance were waiting for the outside tables, which made sense but I didn't have the luxury of time.

Glancing over the menu we had choices of several egg dishes or pancakes and waffles. Our server was friendly, though a little on the austere side. I don't think he cracked a smile the entire morning, which put me off a little bit. He needed a shot of "lighten up" juice or something. At least we had some warm corn bread and apple sauce chutney to make us smile.

Anyhow, I tried guessing at what Swimster would get and I chose poorly. He went with the backcountry eggs: crabcakes, poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. I went with the salmon scrambler : smoked salmon, tomatoes, cream cheese, and scallions. If you haven't noticed yet, I tend to like dishes with the most stuff in it (that goes for ice cream as well). I got a small bite of Swimster's backcountry dish and it was excellent. I'm picky when it comes to crabcakes and these ones were the perfect salty and crispy. The eggs in my scramble were cooked just right, and they were generous with the salmon. The only problem was the eggs were a little on the watery side. They might want to drain the tomatoes, which I'm sure is the root of the problem, before throwing them in the mix. Both dishes were served in a heavy black skillet, a nice touch, that made us feel even more like we were eating breakfast on the farm. The potatoes needed a lot of salt. They looked a lot tastier than they were. But they were hot and we gobbled them down nonetheless.

Its proximity to Swimster's apartment, the lickitysplit service and the atmosphere are enough to make us go back to Friend of a Farmer, and maybe next time we'll get Mr. Serious Server to crack a smile.

Menu






77 Irving Pl., between 18th and 19th Sts.
212-477-2188