brunch « (y)our food choices™

We love to eat in restaurants. Who doesn’t? A staff of people prepare, serve and clean up all while you move from course to course savoring things you’d prefer not to try making at home. But whether we eat out to celebrate a special occasion or stop for quick take-out because we’re too spent to cook after work, there are a few things we try to keep in mind when picking a restaurant. What follows is our working list of tips for saving a little money while taking it easy on the environment whenever eating out.

Steve loves to eat his greens, but he still has troubles using a fork.

1. Know why your eating.

Are you going out for a celebratory meal or are you heading to your favorite comfort food spot to fill a void? Maybe you’ve finished a big project at work or at home and a reward is in order. Or maybe you just can’t face the leftovers sitting at home in the fridge. Think about the reasons you’re going out to eat before deciding where and what you’re going to eat. If the next meal out is for a celebration, plan ahead by cutting back a few weeks before or put a little aside in savings before the big meal. If you’re ducking into a restaurant just because you’re hungry and it’s a typical weekday look for early bird specials on line, a few minutes on the computer could save you a lot of money before you step into the restaurant. Familiarize yourself with the menu and know what things cost.

2. Just say “No” to Super Size.

Deciding which types of foods you’re going to avoid before you walk through the doors will make it easier at the check out register to avoid the impulse items like chips, fries, desert, ice cream, soda, etc. Decide what can be eliminated from the total bill before you order. Do you really need a soda? Why not tap water instead? Does the meal come with sides or are they extra? Maybe you can order two sides instead of an entrée for your meal. Watch your portions and avoid the fillers. You’ll save money and you’ll do your body a favor.

3. Don’t eat at the chains.

You can eat the same soup, burger, pasta, etc. at any number of chain restaurants throughout the country, but why limit yourself to so few generic choices? Why settle for the mundane when you can have something completely unique and original by dining in local businesses. Most chains get all their produce from the same location and it’s shipped to that particular restaurant from central distribution points somewhere hundreds or thousands of miles away. Almost nothing is local and nothing is fresh. In fact, most chain restaurants depend heavily on processed foods that are manufactured in a centrally located factory and then shipped to multiple locations throughout the country. That’s not cooking, that’s factory-style assembly line manufacturing and the product is not what we would call food. Try the little locally owned bistro or café down the street, or, for a quick bite, try the taco truck that all the construction guys line up for at lunch time. Helping out your neighbors instead of underwriting the enormous bonuses of the CEOs of the major food conglomerates is the right way to contribute to our local economies and it may help get us out of the recession we are in. Plus, eating locally actually helps expand your food choices.

4. BYOW (Bring Your Own Wine)

Sure, you’re going to be paying a corkage fee of anywhere from $10-$20 for the bottle of wine plus the cost of the wine itself, but if you bring in an inexpensive wine (not to be confused with cheap wine) it will cost less than buying a bottle from the restaurant’s wine list. Restaurants make the bulk of their profits from wine and liquor sales, not from the food they serve. A $40 bottle of wine in a restaurant will cost about $10 in a grocery store. Add the most expensive corkage fee and you’re still saving $10.

Note: never bring in a bottle of wine that the restaurant has on its wine list. It’s just considered bad manners.

5. BYOC (Bring your own [to-go] containers)

This one is easier said than done, but with proper planning you can stop adding unnecessary garbage to the local landfill by bringing reusable storage containers with you to the restaurant. This is also a great trick to use if you’re looking to lose weight. Once your plate arrives, box up half the meal and put it away so you’re not tempted to eat the whole meal, cutting your calories for the meal in half. You can also ask the waiter if the kitchen wouldn’t mind pre-boxing the meal before the plate arrives. You not only save yourself from temptation, you save money by turning the extra into another meal. By bringing your own to-go containers, you also reduce the amount of waste produced by the restaurant.

6. Eat early or Eat late.

Two words–Happy Hour! Many restaurants are luring people in with double happy hours, usually Monday-Friday an hour earlier than most people get off work, and some places even have a second happy hour in their last hour of business. Smart phone apps like Happy Hour will give you the low down on where to go and what to eat. Remember though that happy hour cocktails are usually made with well (cheap) alcohol, the wine will be the cheapest ones on the menus and the food could be fried. If you plan to stray from the happy hour menu be prepared to pay full price.

If you want a slightly healthier happy hour try a sushi restaurant.

7. Drink your cocktails in a bar, or at home, not at a restaurant.

Once alcohol hits your system, your inhibitions are reduced causing you to relax and enjoy yourself. Which isn’t a bad thing, right? Wrong. With lower inhibitions you’re more likely to order that appetizer, salad, and dessert, along with another cocktail or two, increasing your tab substantially. That $20 meal out is now $80, and the $5 tip is now $15. Congratulations, that cocktail just cost you $100.

If you do want to drink, select a beer or an inexpensive glass of wine. The beer will help fill you up so you don’t want to eat or drink as much. The wine you can sip and still feel more in control than you would with pure alcohol hitting your empty stomach.

Keeping your drinking to a minimum will help lower the size of your tab along with helping you control your waist size. Remember, everything in moderation.

8. Nothing wrong with a coupon.

There are so many on-line coupons these days there’s really no reason not to use one on your next dinning experience. Blackboard Eats and Scoutmob are two of our favorite’s because we don’t pay for the coupon, it’s free or, in the case of Blackboard Eats, a minimal expense at $1 a coupon or $20 annually. Others like Groupon, Yelp Deals, and Three Knocks have daily deals where you pay a certain amount for a gift certificate worth usually twice as much as you paid. If you’re going with one of these pre-paid coupons make sure you remember you have the coupon and use it before it expires. However, our money is on the free coupons. Our personal thoughts, “Why pay for something we can get for free?”

Added note on coupons: When making a reservation use Opentable.

Opentable rewards its users with gift cards worth money off their next meal out. Even if you’re heading out the door you can still make your reservation using your smart phone app. After 2000 points you can redeem an award for a $20 coupon, 5000 points, $50, and so on. Just by being prepared you get rewarded. Cost to you: nothing.

9. Be French, have a large lunch instead of going out for dinner.

Many restaurants have separate lunch and dinner menus but almost all of them have the same things on both menus. The catch is that dinner menus are more expensive. It’s always less expensive to eat out for lunch instead of dinner, it’s what the French do. They’ll go out and spend an hour or two on a fabulous, and large, lunch. Then, when dinnertime arrives, it’s a very small nosh. Maybe it’s time that Americans take a clue from the French and enjoy the afternoon a little more, bring a nice bottle of wine and your lunch will be just as delicious as your dinner would have been, but you won’t go to bed feeling bloated and regretting the dessert you had. It will also give you plenty of time to work off that piece of cheesecake before turning in for the night.

10. Don’t be cheap, Tip! (but only on the meal, not the taxes)

Just because you’re trying to save some green it doesn’t mean you have to be cheap with your server. Personally, we believe gratuity should automatically be included in a bill as the French do it. But since we live in America, we don’t see it happening anytime soon. Gratuity should be 10% for poor service, 15% for average service, and 20% for extra ordinary service. The tip should be on the food and beverage cost only, no need to include an extra generous tip based on the sales tax and any other state and local fees.

Most servers also split their tips with many other people you may or may not see; bussers, bartenders, expediters, dishwashers and others may get a percentage based on the server’s sales. Also, the IRS knows that servers live off of tips and require that they claim a percentage of their sales as taxable income. Some restaurants even have a mandatory percentage that they will claim for the server to avoid being audited.

Bottom line, this is one area you should not skimp on. If you can’t afford to tip you shouldn’t eat out in a restaurant.

11. Eat Vegetarian.

Almost all restaurants offer vegetarian options which are usually less expensive than meat dishes. This is not only healthier but also reduces greenhouse gases emitted by factory farms. Plus, in some restaurants, it’s difficult to know where they are sourcing the meat and fish. Even at the so-called greener restaurants it’s difficult for them to know if every piece of meat is coming from a sustainable source. You can always ask your server, but if it’s in the middle of the dinner rush they may not have all the answers or be able to find them out for you.

At least by sticking with vegetables and grains you’ll feel less full and won’t feel guilty for eating the molten lava cake.

With this weekend being one of the busiest for all restaurants we hope everyone has a wonderful dining experience. Relax, and remember, sometimes it’s not about the food but the company. Enjoy yourself and the people you dine with.

Cheers,

Jason and Steve

Peppery arugala compliments the mornay sauce and creamy yolks in this version of Eggs Benny.

Weekends are special in our house. Not only do we get to sleep in, usually, we also get to chow on brunch items that are heftier than our usual weekday oatmeal, yogurt, or muesli. We try to keep eggs, bread, milk, cheese, and some meat item on hand for these rich weekend brunches. Lately, we’ve been poaching eggs and serving them with everything from soup to salad to endless variations of Eggs Benedict. In fact, it’s been a while since we’ve had a traditional Eggs Benedict breakfast. The idea of Eggs Benedict may seem a little intimidating but the dish is actually very easy to make and we’ve had great success with it over the years. Making a hollandaise sauce is simple when using our blender. We get that with all the butter and egg yolks the sauce is heavy, even for a large breakfast, so we try to limit our consumption of the sauce to special occasions – mostly.

The typical Eggs Benedict is made with English muffins, Canadian bacon, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. The origin of the dish seems to be up for debate. The choices are between a New York stock broker, Lemuel Benedict, a New York banker residing in France, Commodore E.C. Benedict, and a New York couple named Mr. and Mrs. Le Grand Benedict. Food historians seem to agree that the dish was created around the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. (source: Wikipedia). Whatever the origin of the Eggs Benedict, it appears that the concoction was inspired by the appetites of wealthy New Yorkers who were bored of their typical breakfast fare.

We’re not wealthy by any means, and while we love New York, we’re San Franciscans who love a good deal. So, for the those bohemians on the west coast who love to eat well, we offer the Eggs Benny, a simpler take on this rich classic. The construction of the dish follows the traditional pattern – bread, meat and/or vegetables, eggs, and sauce, but the ingredients consist of whatever you currently have on hand in your fridge. We prefer a béchamel or mornay sauce with our eggs, meat, and toast. The béchamel is a simple milk, butter, and flour sauce. The mornay sauce is a béchamel with cheese added to it. Steve can whisk up these sauces in just enough time for Jason to toast the bread and poach the eggs. They’re quick and easy.

There are many variations on the traditional Eggs Benedict including Eggs Blackstone, which substitutes ham for the streaky bacon and adds a tomato slice. Eggs Florentine substitutes spinach for the ham. There’s also a Country Benedict, sometimes known as Eggs Beauregard, which replaces the English muffin, ham and hollandaise sauce with a biscuit, sausage patties, and country gravy. The poached eggs are replaced with eggs fried to your liking. There are many other variations of this simple, yet classic, construction. We’ll stick to our own versions of Eggs Benny which for us means having poached eggs, toast of some kind, some sort of meat or sauté of vegetable, and all topped with a creamy sauce – hollandaise, mornay, or béchamel. So, now there is no urgent need to run to the store for English muffins and Canadian bacon. Just use what you have on hand and call it Eggs Benny.

Eggs Benny

Crisp bacon, sauteed chard, and creamy hollandaise sauce in another Eggs Benny brunch.

(serves two)

4 Poached Eggs
4 slices of Toast (your choice)
4 slices meat (cooked bacon, prosciutto, Canadian bacon, crab meat, etc.)
and/or a sauté of leafy green vegetables (chard, kale, spinach, endive, etc.) or fresh greens (arugula, dandelion greens, escarole, etc.)
Hollandaise, mornay, or béchamel (your choice)

For poached eggs: In one sauce pan, boil hot water. In a separate skillet, simmer water. Boil the eggs in the sauce pan, with the shells on for 30 seconds. This will help to keep the whites together when poaching them. Crack each egg into one of four separate ramekins. In the skillet with simmering water, slowly pour the eggs one at a time. Allow to simmer for 3-5 minutes or until the whites are cooked and the yolks are still soft to the touch.

Alternately, you can also add a tablespoon of vinegar to the skillet water to help keep the egg whites together, but the eggs will take on the vinegar flavor.

Bechamel Sauce

1 ½ cups whole milk
1 Bay leaf
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
Sprig of fresh thyme (optional)

Warm milk, bay leaf and thyme, if using, in a saucepan over low heat.

While milk is warming, create a roux by melting the butter in a separate saucepan over medium heat. When completely melted, add flour and whisk constantly, approximately 2 minutes, being careful not to brown the roux. Take out the bay leaf and thyme from the milk. Pour the hot milk into the roux while continuing to whisk until roux and milk are completely incorporated. Season with salt and white pepper and continue to whisk until sauce begins to thicken.

Mornay Sauce
1 Sauce Béchamel
1 cup grated cheese(s) (cheddar, Swiss, Parmesan, Gruyère, etc.)

Sauce béchamel becomes sauce mornay when the cheese is added. If you intend to add the cheese, be sure to remove the sauce from heat before whisking in the cheese. Serve hot.

To assemble: place the toast on the plate, then add the meat and/or vegetables. Place the poached eggs on top and then drizzle with the sauce of your choice. Decorate with a pinch of cayenne pepper or paprika. Serve at once.

Note: Leftover béchamel or mornay can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for three or four days. Refrigerated, béchamel becomes very thick. Add it to scrambled eggs or sautéed greens for added creaminess. Or, spread it over rustic bread and toast under the broiler for a delicious open-faced croque.