Picture it: Sunday. Glorious. Warm.
Brunch? Yes please. We agree to a rare turn & go out, but for something we can't make (a hard feat as my Mr. Smooth is the master of breakfast and all things butter) & our new neighborhood has tons of places we haven't checked out yet. We'd stopped in to Ortine, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn for a warm-up one snowy Sunday when we were scoping out potential apartments; their strong French coffee was calling us back. Bonus on this spring day: they have a patio with a cherry tree, roses and herb garden. Double bonus: pizza for breakfast. We're in.
I like egg on a pizza. DC's Pizza Paradiso has the Bottarga - the egg cracked on in the last minutes in the oven, left runny so you have yolk to mop up with your crust. This was my introduction to the concept, and they do it right. Another DC pizza joint serves brunch pizza with egg and hash browns; a bit dry for my taste (thou as a vegetarian I'm missing the greasiness bacon normally provides), but good with hot sauce and a hangover (and probably a bloody mary)
But on to the pizza in front of us:
The Ortine Breakfast Pizza: two local eggs baked hard, kalamata olives, goat cheese, thyme, Parmesan. omnivores can have it with sausage, but olives are the veg version.
Yum. Oven-baked pie with expertly chewy crust, the thyme totally bringing an unexpected freshness. hard-baked eggs were not what I expected but it worked. And the cheese,. ..the cheese. I want it to take me on a date and tell me about it's day. Not straight chevre, it was in another place. Mmm.
By about half way in, I was a little over-salted. the olives were overdoing it, and I wanted something a little milder. I think next time I'll go with the roasted mushrooms (or perhaps better, some of each?!)
We're luckily abound with great fancy 'za in this neighborhood (unfortunately a regular old slice is somewhat lacking), this is the closest to my house and is a solid place for a pizza. They have homemade pasta $10 prix fixe dinners on Monday nights and I'm impressed with/grateful for the breadth of their local ingredients and vegetarian options (also gluten-free dough for you folk). Mr. Smooth had their biscuits and mushroom gravy (could've used more gravy both otherwise excellent, already getting points from the southerners for having vegetarian gravy). Extra points for cute non-matching dishes and sweet staff.
What's your thought on egg pizza? Do you do it at home? Is the home oven even hot enough to pull that off? Lay it on me, ya'll (there's a chicken pun for ya.)
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-Leo