Yotel : The Best Brunch I Have Ever Had!!!

I ventured all the way over to the west side of Times Square on a very rainy Saturday to experience brunch at a hotel that I had never even heard of! My foodie friend, yet again picked a great place! I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I accepted to have brunch. I was expecting the usual standard unlimited drinks with one entree type of deal. Much to my surprise, Yotel was offering a 2 hour unlimited drinks and unlimited small plates menu for brunch for $35. The menu had very unique drinks and dishes to choose from. Also, the ambiance of the place was very nice. It was bright, airy, and modern. It also had a beautiful bar and outdoor patio that would be amazing to sit on during the summer. It wasn't overly crowded, which was kind of surprising because of the quality of food and great special.

The amazing menu! 

From the variety of drinks to choose from, I decided my favorite one on the menu was the Peach & Bourbon Tea. It was served in a shorter glass, and had such an extreme flavor, as compared to standard brunch menus that just consist of bloody marys, mimosas, and bellinis. 

The only catch to ordering is that each person is allowed to order 2 plates at a time. Which to me, is a fine rule, because how fast can one eat! Also, when the plates were served, the waiter was willing to take an order immediately for the next round of choices. We were never left waiting or wondering when we were going to have a chance to order more drinks or dishes, as with most unlimited brunch places do. So service is something that Yotel excels at. 

The first four dishes we ordered were: The Crunchy Shrimp, The Falafel Lettuce Wraps, Crab Wontons, and the House Ground Beef Burger Sliders. 

The Crunchy Shrimp were coated in lemon sake aioli, sesame, scallion, and masago. They had extreme flavor and a lot of crunch. This dish we actually ordered seconds of because it was so good. They reminded me a little bit of coconut shrimp with an asian flare. Yum! 

The Falafel Lettuce Wraps were served with slow-roasted chipotle-tomato, cucumbers, and onions yogurt. I am a total falafel lover, so I was happy to even see this on a mostly asian menu. My friend also generally doesn't like falafel, and he told me he loved this dish! I loved the freshness of the lettuce and yogurt paired with the fried falafel. 

Crunchy Shrimp and Falafel Lettuce Wraps (shown on one plate, because we dug into the food too fast!) 

The Crab Wontons were served in egg roll form and filled with crab, cream cheese, corn, mushroom, shiso, truffle, and dipped into ponzu. They were definitely good, but not overly full of flavor or necessarily a "must order." I could have gone either way with this dish. 

Crab Wontons 

The Beef Sliders were of course amazing! Its pretty hard to have me not like a burger, since they are my favorite! They were served as a pair with tomatoes, lettuce, red chili, pickle, and manchego cheese. Yum! 

House Ground Beef Burgers 

The next four plates we ordered were: The Wagyu Brisket Benedict, Sweet & Spicy Bacon, Yukon Gold Tostones, and House Ground Meatballs. 

Our Next Set of 4

The Wagyu Brisket Benedict was amazing! It was actually more exciting than ordering a lobster benedict because it had a good amount of Brisket on it. I actually have never seen brisket on an eggs benedict before, so I thought this was ingenious. Perhaps, I'll be asking my mom for leftovers at our next holiday dinner, since she makes the best brisket. 

Wagyu Brisket Benedict 

The Sweet & Spicy Bacon was a little bit of a disappointment. The plate had only two pieces of bacon and they tasted pretty normal. I didn't notice any overly sweet or spicy taste. But all in all, bacon is tasty, so I guess its passable. 

Sweet & Spicy Bacon

The Yukon Gold Tostones were also not what I expected. I am used to Tostones being made from plantaines, so I was expecting something with more of a banana flavor. The Tostones we received were pretty much regular potatoes that were cooked to be extremely soft, and melt in your mouth. I actually loved the taste of the potatoes even though I wasn't expecting to eat potatoes. I would definitely order this dish again, now that I know they are potatoes. 

Yukon Gold Potatoes 

The House Ground Meatballs were served in a kaffir lime-tomato sauce. It more so reminded me of a vodka sauce because of its pink color. Definitely delicious! 

House Ground Meatballs 

After the first 8 dishes, we were starting to become way too full, but we had to continue on! We decided to order something on the lighter side. We ordered the Spicy Tuna Roll, which was pretty much a standard Tuna Roll that you can get at a sushi place. It was great quality fish and I enjoyed it! 

 Spicy Tuna Roll 

Next we ordered the Chilaquiles, which I can't even pronounce. This was a mexican influenced dish. It was basically a fried egg served on nacho chips, with black bean puree, salsa roja, and cotija cheese. I didn't really notice much cheese on the dish, even though it was in the summary of the dish. I also wasn't the biggest fan of this dish. I thought it was sort of on the bland side and was missing some actuall tomato style salsa, which could have added a little zing to it. 

Chilaquiles

Next, we ordered the Hijiki Seaweed Salad because a man at the table next to ours was eating it, and it looked amazing! The Hijiki Seaweed Salad was the marriage of a coleslaw and a seaweed salad. Since coleslaw is one of my favorite things to eat, and I love seaweed salad, this dish was one of my favorites. It blended apples, carrots, seaweed, daikon, and ginger vinaigrette to make a very refreshing dish. Can we say, "Waiter, can I have more?"

Hijiki Seaweed Salad

Since I love eggplant, I was excited to see it on the menu. I usually associate eggplant with italian food, so the fact that they made it Chinese inspired, I was more than enthused to bite into this dish. The eggplant was soaked in miso and covered in tomatoes, red chile, and mint. I thought it was very refreshing and easy to eat. I could definitely taste the miso soup flavor in each bite, which I loved! 

Chinese Eggplant

Since my dining partner and I were running out of dishes that we wanted to try, since some of them on the menu sounded too heavy or uninteresting, we decided to go with something more traditional. We ordered the Bacon Fried Rice. It was topped with a poached egg. It was nice to have the rice at the table, but not necessary to order. We definitely did not finish it, as we were becoming way too full!

Bacon Fried Rice 

Our second to last dish was the Seared Tuna Salad, which was soooooo refreshing. The tuna was seared to perfection and was accompanied by avocado slices, snow peas, shallots, and miso mustard vinaigrette. I definitely loved this dish, and could see ordering more than one of these if my stomach would allow it. I also love avocado, so this made me happy :) 

Seared Tuna Salad 

Our last dish, the Wok-Seared Cauliflower was not that great. We didn't finish this dish because it was a little on the sour and salty side. I generally love cauliflower, but not in the asian way. I would not order this one again! 

Wok-Seared Cauliflower

On our way out, we noticed the hotel was decorated with all these different funny sculptures. I definitely had to take a snap shot with one of those! 

Funny Sculpture Figurines 

All in all, this brunch was an amazing experience. I believe for what we had, $35/person is an awesome price. I will most likely be hitting up this brunch for my birthday brunch this year!!