The Smith

My food friend and I love this restaurant, so we'll come here together once every month or so--so I have pictures and a review of my latest meal here. But it just so happened that one morning a few days later, I woke up very, very early and desperately needed breakfast that was not instant oatmeal. Hence, I have pictures and reviews for both breakfast and dinner for The Smith.

Let's start with breakfast. Apparently they give you a complimentary cheese scone, which was so good. It's flaky, moist, and not overly cheesy (which is nice first thing in the morning). Absolutely worth the calories.

I got the smoked salmon eggs Benedict, hot chocolate, and chicken sausage. The hot chocolate was pretty mediocre. It's a little too watery and thin for my liking, and that goes for the flavor and the foam on top as well. Plus, it was like $5, so I would rather have just made some instant hot chocolate instead for 50 cents.

I really don't think the smoked salmon eggs Benedict was anything special; although all the components were well-cooked, it wasn't particularly appetizing or good. I also found the smoked salmon to be way too salty, which in turn made the whole dish seem way too heavy for first thing in the morning.

For a side, I got the chicken sausage, which are in a medallion shape. These were my favorite part of breakfast; so juicy, and slightly sweet. My only complaint is that, for a side dish, the portion size was really big; each medallion was the size of my palm, and quite thick, and then you're getting three of them. I feel like, in this case, a "side dish" is a main course without garnish.

Now let's talk about dinner. I've been consistently impressed with The Smith's entrees. They used to have spaghetti and meatballs, which was the best thing on the menu; I'm not sure why they took it off the menu, but I'm just praying it'll come back. The Smith changes up their menu pretty often--about once a season--but there are basic items that will stay, and just the garnishes will change, like salmon and chicken. For this dinner, I got the pork chop (also a staple), with tomato chutney (aka. fancy tomato sauce), and a warm salad of grilled cauliflower, red onion, and mushroom. The pork itself was delicious; incredibly moist and tender, and it had so much flavor. I loved the garnish as well; the tomato chutney was so smooth and tart, and the vegetables were nicely cooked.

The Smith had just recently (quite dramatically) changed up their dessert menu--they used to just have sundaes--and I was so excited to try the sticky toffee pudding. However, I was just really disappointed at both the flavor and texture. It's so intensely sweet--they add dates in the pudding to enhance the toffee flavor, but it's just way too much. You can see in the picture (towards the right) that there's a small pool of toffee sauce as well, which was so heavy, sweet, and syrupy. It's baked in a small skillet, and the edges are quite nice and crisp, but the center was incredibly mushy and too moist--soggy, even. So you just end up getting warm, mushy, sugary batter in a skillet. I just don't get it; the entrees at The Smith are so nicely balanced, what happened to its desserts?

The Smith is a great restaurant, but certain items can be a bit hit-or-miss. Come here for dinner; they have some great entrees. In addition to the pork chop, I also recommend the chicken pot pie, salmon, and the potato waffle and chicken special on Wednesdays. The Smith also happens to be Jane's "sister restaurant," and you'll notice that the style of food and prices are pretty similar. However, I prefer The Smith just because there's a lot more variety on the menu.

The Smith
http://www.thesmithnyc.com/
Various locations