Brunching – the way to show off
Brunching is really a funny occurrence, happening in all big cities around the world. I wrote about brunches already, but the longer I live in NY, the more amusing I find them. For those who don’t know – brunch is a weekend/holiday late breakfast eaten out in the city. You are usually partying on the night before it and as soon as you wake up in the afternoon with a huge hangover, you have the desire to have some eggs in any possible fashion. The number of NYC places you can do it in is countless.
For me, brunch is usually all about what’s in vogue at the moment. People put on their newest and/or most fashionable clothes, sleek out their hair or else choose the “jus- got-out-of-bed” hair, which usually takes an hour to fix. The must-have gadgets include shades (“we might be lucky to get a table outside”) and a hat (“Hey, I’m a New Yorker and have my own style”). If you want to know what’s in fashion, go to Prince or Spring Street and do some people watching (I love that!). For a more casual, “out of bed” look, go to Lower East Side (who knows, maybe you will manage to drag someone back to their bed and really mess up their hair…? It’s very possible!).
Brunches are all about catching up with friends – this is the whole point of brunching – with whom we talk about the last night’s party and figure out who threw up and where who hooked up with whom and who “accidentally” liked a bunch of our profile pics between 2:00 and 5:00 AM. Friends are one thing, but what is this really about is looking around and checking things out: Who? (a guy); Where? (Sitting at the next table); Team? (Straight or gay?). When you establish this basic information, you can start chewing.
Brunch has two kinds of clients – the laid-back ones who are still drunk after last night and the stressed-out ones that came in to show off and let everyone know “who’s in charge in here”. The first group is definitely an easier one, but it takes time to get their food order out of them. The second group is a kind of a pain in the ass, they usually don’t have any extra plans for the rest of the day and yet still are the most impatient and aggressive patrons. What usually helps to soften their mood a bit are a few Mimosas and Bloody Marys. The result is that most of New Yorkers end up their brunch completely wasted. Those who were drunk in the first place, have no idea what’s going on now; those who were bitching are now bitching even louder, but there’s a tiny smile on their faces now. You simply gotta love New Yorkers, right…?