I'm generally not one to go bananas on my birthday, so when a few close girlfriends wanted to have dinner before going out to Brooklyn Winery (which I HIGHLY recommend, it's almost like a wine hall instead of a beer hall), I wanted something nice, low key and somewhere in the neighborhood. Parish Hall meets all those criteria. It's from the owners of the extremely popular brunch spot, Egg and it's right off the main drag of Bedford, so away from the craziness but still close enough to walk there.
My first impression of Parish Hall was that the decor was bright, white and minimalist. Seriously, the whole place is such a contrast to the grubby construction that is in the surrounding neighborhood. It kind of transports you to someplace else that wasn't in the middle of hipsterville. The menu is like it's decor: simple, clean, American style food. We ordered the dressed eggs ($6), the ham fritters ($6), cheese plate (3 for $19), and I got the seafood stew ($11) as a main dish. The dressed eggs were just really a fancy term for deviled eggs and who doesn't love deviled eggs?! There were 4 of them and they were made with a fancy mustard (where you could see and taste the mustard seeds) and topped with scallion. Good tasting, but honestly it's not too hard to mess up deviled eggs. Next came the ham fritters (there were 5 of them) and they looked like falafel balls at first glance due to its similar texture and color. But when you cut them open, it almost resembled more of a risotto ball. It was filled with rice, lovage and ham and served with a green garlic aioli on the side. It was a nice appetizer to get the stomach going and not too oily despite being fried. Next up was the cheese platter and forgive me but I've already forgotten which 3 cheeses we ordered but I know one of them was the Cremont which was a cow and goat combination and it was lovely. The cheeses were served with a delicious dollop of raw honey which really paired well with all three cheeses. By then, we were pretty full and I'm glad I didn't get a large main dish. The seafood stew came out and it really didn't look like a stew at all. It was more like a seafood broth instead. When I hear stew, I think of something really hearty and very filling. These was quite the opposite, it was light and um, not filling? But it was still a good dish and to be fair it was listed under the "Smaller" entree section, so I can't really fault it. It was a garlic-tasting broth served with pieces of scallop, tilefish, and oysters. They were all cooked well but just would have appreciated more types of seafood and more seafood in the "stew". I also usually associate stews with strong and bold flavors and this was pretty mild tasting. I didn't try Aarti's veggie dumplings but they didn't look like dumplings at all (hmm, everything here seems to be mis-labeled). We were told they were more like gnocchi, so then whey don't you just call it a gnocchi then? I did notice that she asked for more salt, which I usually don't think is a good sign for a dish. Virgina got the lamb rillettes which is basically a lamb pate and it came with a side of beet mostarta. It was a pretty good, although I'm not 100% sure that lamb is the best kind of meat for this style of cooking. It was a little bit gamey and drier then I would have liked it but the beets did help with that. Since it was my b-day, I was forced to get dessert. :) They have a very limited dessert selection...ok, there's only 2 things, the strawberry fool or a cornmeal cake type thing. I got the strawberry fool which was basically a strawberry mousse served with some salt and pepper and sliced nuts on top. It was very light and almost tasted like a yogurt. I know the salt and pepper sound weird, like it doesn't belong on the dish, but they actually provided a nice balance to it. I've actually started liking having some salt with my sugar-y desserts these days.
I will make a shout out to the service. Our waitress was really nice and attentive and not in a pushy or aggressive way. The whole dining experience was super pleasant and I would come back and try it out for brunch. Total bill...well, since I didn't pay, I'm not 100% sure but I think it was around $100 for all of us.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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