Peels Visited 12/30/10 3 Forks

Peels 325 Bowery, (between 2nd St & Bleecker St), New York, NY 10003

 I will give Peels props for being a visually cute restaurant.  The inside is very warm and cozy feeling with the upstairs consisting of mostly wooden/country-feel communal tables.  It almost kind of reminded me of the inside of a ski cabin.  The menu matches the feel of the restaurant in that it's mostly southern/homey food.  They are well known for their biscuit sandwiches, but what bothered me was that they literally itemize the entire sandwich: they charge you $3 for the biscuit itself, then if you want eggs it's another $3, cheese is another $1 and bacon/sausage is another $2 and it doesn't come with any sides.  The menu has a section for more breakfast type food (eggs, grits, etc) and a section that's more lunch-y (sandwiches, salads, etc).  I was torn between getting a sandwich or an egg dish.  In the end I opted for the Attius Finch ($12), which was roasted pork, fried egg, and cornbread with gravy.  Nancy got the Greens and Eggs ($11) which was poached eggs with collard greens, mushrooms, onions and a biscuit.  

I should mention that the service at this point was lacking.  Our waiter took forever to take our order and I noticed that he also took forever to take our neighboring customers (to the point where the host actually took their order).  Our food came out and I was a bit underwhelmed by the presentation.  It was a piece of pork and fried eggs with a side of cornbread (like I ordered) with gravy poured on top of them.  I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was just lacking with the way our food was presented.  I will say that the pork and gravy were quite tasty and I could have had another slice of it.  The eggs were fine..the yolk was a bit overcooked but not to the point where I was pissed.  I was disappointed with the cornbread. It was very dry despite the gravy and had this grainy texture to it.  Nancy's food also looked a bit austere, but she finished the whole dish, so I guess it couldn't have been that bad although she also agreed that she wasn't wow'd by her meal.  We decided to split a piece of monkey bread ($3), which I thought would be something along the lines of banana bread (I mean, hello, don't monkeys eat bananas?!), but it turned out to be closer to a cinnamon bun.  It turned out to be good but again, nothing amazing.  The one thing that made me kind of want to come back was looking at the other food that people around us were eating.  The guy to the left of us got the Meltin Melnick, which was a huge sandwich with brioche bread, applewood bacon and cheddar cheese...it looked pretty damn good and heart stopping.  The couple next to us got the the turkey sandwiches and they looked pretty tasty (they came with a side of chips which the menu didn't mention).  Our total bill was $17/pp with tax and tip.  I wonder if I had ordered something else if I would have had a better experience, but I'm willing to give it another try at some point.