Restaurant Review: Northeast Kingdom

NORTHEAST KINGDOM, Bushwick, Brooklyn

I really wanted to like Northeast Kingdom. My husband and I had come across the place while we were exploring our new neighborhood of Bushwick in Brooklyn. It was a weekday morning and the restaurant was closed, but the cool marquee with the little deer and the décor we could see through the windows intrigued us. We’re Midwesterners at heart so the dark plank floors, brick walls and wooden benches spoke to us. We’re big brunchies, so when we saw they delivered the goods on weekend days, we noted it for future Sundays. I was SO excited.

Alas, they disappointed. We were the first ones there at 11 am when the doors opened, and we got a great booth for us and a friend. We knew we would be waiting for at least ½ hour for said friend so we ordered drinks. I was really looking forward to a cup of decaf (because caffeine makes my heart race and I like the taste of coffee anyway) but they don’t have any! OK, I can handle that. The food will be good.

Alas, it was not. The menu is, as my husband put it, “lame.” They have four different boring variations of fruit (granola, yogurt, baguette, solo cup), one soup, a BLT, a tuna melt, lox and bagel, and then six “traditional” breakfast dishes. But they don’t offer just plain old two eggs, meat and potatoes, which, even though I never order, I believe should be on every brunch menu. Hubby got the French toast with Vermont maple syrup and fresh fruit ($7), friend got organic scrambled eggs with home fries and mixed greens ($8) and I got baked eggs with quark cheese, collard greens and herbs with home fries and mixed greens ($8). I asked to get it without the collards, since I wasn’t really in the mood for collards, and the server said, politely, “Would you like, like, fresh tomatoes instead?” And I said, “Can you do that?” And she said, "Well... we don’t usually, but I guess I can ask.” And I was like, “Well... you offered.” Anyway.

We were totally enjoying ourselves, so I didn’t notice until 35 minutes later that our food hadn’t come yet. Then the server came over. The kitchen “missed” my substitution, so it was just going to be another couple minutes, and she wanted to offer me a free Mimosa or Bloody Mary. Sounded reasonable to me, although I didn’t want either, so hubby took her up on it. Then friend was inspired, so he ordered one full price, and I settled for a tea.

Drinks came out in about 5 minutes, but guess what? Our food took another 25 minutes! It had now been an hour since we ordered and we were, um, really hungry. I’ll cut to the chase. Yeah, it’s cheap, but come on! The French toast was one and a half slices of bread with a piece of honeydew melon topping each one. Lame. The scramble was ONE egg, a bit of greens and, like, 5 small pieces of potato. Lame. And my baked eggs were totally overcooked, totally under-seasoned, and my 5 pieces of potato had enough salt for the whole restaurant. Lame.

The Bloody Marys were good, and the price was fine (she ended up taking all the beverages off the bill, which was appreciated) and the service was acceptable. And I’ll probably try it again for dinner to see if they can atone for that lame brunch, but I’ll walk the other direction from our apartment and live it up at Life Café from now on.

Northeast Kingdom

18 Wyckoff Avenue

718-386-3864

L train to Jefferson