The staff of American Madness would like to thank the 
AM At Brunch: Little Owl
The commenters at Citysearch have really bludgeoned this place, but American Madness Team Brunch had a very good meal, and thought the service was quite accommodating.
We didn’t see any of the aloofness that a few have cited in their reviews, though we did see many people turned away while we were eating.
The place is small! One has to expect that there’s only so much that can be done to seat everyone and in a timely fashion. Our table (for 6) took 30 minutes to open, which was downright reasonable. And we stayed for maybe twenty minutes after everyone else had left and the place had closed for brunch and no one in management made a peep!
Ever try to get a table for even four people at Freeman’s or Spitzer’s? Or, Heaven forfend, at Balthazar? On a Sunday? At 1pm? When you don’t have a reservation? (Of course, Little Owl doesn’t take reservations for Sat/Sun brunch.) Thirty minutes was nothing.
The food has been described by angry critics as nothing special. I’ll say this: what I ate was damned good. Eric and I both ordered the meatball sliders (pictured here), and they were quite tasty. I thought the veal slider, in particular, was extremely good. Sliders are a simple concept and given the quality of the meat and the sauces, here it worked.
Adam (seen above cradling his dish like the new father he’s soon to be) ordered the poached eggs (fontina sausage buns, braised greens and hollandaise), and reports that the buns did not taste particularly like sausage, but overall he enjoyed the dish.
He did not rave about the dish, but Adam’s body fat is 5.6% and how can a person with that slenderness actually be said to enjoy food? (Or, as Vizzini might have said to the Dread Pirate Roberts: “You are thin, and thin people have either great restraint or a limited ability to appreciate food. But you are not restrained, so I can clearly not trust the food in front of you.”
LaNita ordered the white omelet and said it was unexceptional, but that it had clearly been whipped up in a most labor-intensive way. Unfortunately, we are cold people and award no points for effort.
Lydia and my brother Matt both ordered the burger (”one of the great gourmet cheeseburgers in town,” according to Adam Platt). Unfortunately, though I tasted a small piece and liked it, the burger had been ordered well done, something only a pregnant woman or a heathen (yes brother, a heathen) would do.
Even well done, the burger was very good. I think at medium rare it would be impressive. The spiced fries, included with the burger platter, are excellent. The pickle (not that anyone cares about this but me) is disappointingly wet (not soggy, but very watery). I would think a crispy pickle or even a couple of smaller gherkins would be a better way to round out the platter. Every little bit counts.
The coffee did not seem to make an impression one way or the other was presented in hot, tasty and mugs that were kept full. Lydia’s orange juice ($4) was freshly squeezed. I ordered an African Something (???) tea that I’m guessing was some spiced up Rooibos. The teas were from MightyLeaf and were packaged much better than I am (reinforced silk bags containing highly florid loose leaves and non-leaf herbal matter).
The restaurant’s interior was small, but does not feel cramped owing to an enormously high ceiling and massive windows.
We must warn you to go early. The restaurant is evidently very tight with its stocking. More than half of the side dishes were gone by 1:30pm, including the cheddar grits, which I was excited to try, and the sausages. We also, luckily, ate two of the last four hamburgers (they would likely have been gone in another few minutes, we were informed). We did manage to try the Brussel Sprout Home Fries (home fries and Brussels sprouts presented together, not melded together) and they were perfectly cooked, which is to say crunchy and not underdone.
One cute final touch: the check comes bookmarked in a weathered paperback book. In our case, this was Around the World in 80 Days, a fitting start the the culinary journey we’ve begun:
Photos by Eric Hazard.
14. January 2008 at :
Just to clarify, Josh you had the African Nectar tea.
14. January 2008 at :
I was right! I know me some Rooibos when I see it.
14. January 2008 at :
You say that critics are wrong in having described the food here as “nothing special” and then your review of the food seems to also describe it as “nothing special” even if you don’t come right out and say it.
14. January 2008 at :
Really? The sliders are described as very good. And the burgers were extremely good. That’s 4/6 of the meal we had. Of the other two dishes, one person is too thin to know good food (yuck yuck) and one person didn’t like her dish. So, only two dishes were potentially mediocre. 2 were good despite being overcooked (in my opinion) at our request, and two (the sliders) were really good. The sides we were able to order were very good. So I disagree with your assessment of my assessment.
14. January 2008 at :
I tend to drink a lot of coffee (people who have had the pleasure of my company will not find this hard to believe) and was impressed with their offering. It was served hot, was tasty and my coffee mug was always full.
Josh, good job on the review. I believe you summed our experience well.
14. January 2008 at :
What is the point of ordering a nice piece of meat if you are just going to char it into an unrecognizable hockey puck? In my book, if it’s not still bleeding it’s not worth eating. Anything cooked above medium rare is just a waste of perfectly good food.
14. January 2008 at :
Josh, I think your assessment of my assessment of your assessment is misguided. After reading your review I generally didn’t feel any great desire to have brunch at that place.
Matt – I agree with you about overcooking meat. But to read Josh’s review you’ll find that Lydia ordered that way because she’s pregnant (by the way, congrats to Adam and Lydia) and Josh rightfully took his brother to town for ordering that way.
14. January 2008 at :
You’re right. I certainly don’t rave about the place, but I wouldn’t call the food “nothing special.” The sliders were special. I probably would have raved had I been ordering liquor and drinking coffee and since I haven’t had either since Jan 1, I’ve become a much less effusive person.
14. January 2008 at :
Jason – I understand your understanding of how I felt.
Matt – If it’s still bleeding I will kill it again to make sure its not moving.
Josh – You’re my brother, so you know adding cheese to a burger is something I never do. So getting it cooked well done was a secondary crime, if anything. At least I didn’t get bacon =O
16. January 2008 at :
[...] for two at 7pm this Friday at Little Owl (our review here) is selling for $25. CNET reports that seats at Babbo were selling for $40. They are no longer up [...]