Can a Potato be Creamy? Brunch at Coppa

Coppa

253 Shawmut Ave.

Boston, Ma

http://www.coppaboston.com/

Atmosphere-Casual, Intimate, Enoteca

Food-Small Italian plates, unique wines and drinks, wood fired pizzas, pastas, exceptional ingredients

Kid friendly- We saw kids there for brunch, but there isn't exactly a kids menu. If you kids are world travelers like Brad and Angelina's bring them.

Cost- Dishes are from $5 for small plates to $16 for a pizza or entree. These are not the corner pizza shop's pizza's

Breakfast potatoes, they are so easy to get wrong. At least that is my explanation as to why most places have horrible ones. They are either over cooked and hard, or undercooked and hard. It is rare to find ones that I really like, and usually the only ones I like have been shredded into hash browns. This weekend, however, I found the perfect breakfast potatoes at Coppa!! Should I be surprised? Coppa is an intimate enoteca opened by Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonette. If you have read some of my earlier posts, you know Ken's restaurants are some of my favorite in Boston.

Enoteca is an Italian word which originally was used to describe a wine shop which catered to wine tasting and affordable bottles for its patrons. The word has grown to describe bistro style restaurants which serve wine and small Italian dishes.

Coppa pays homage to both definitions. Courtney Bisonnette the general manager at Coppa has put a drink list together which includes some of the most original bottles I have ever seen. It is no surprise she is a founding member of Ladies United for The Preservation of Endangered Cocktails. Marry her drink list with the menu of small plates at Coppa and the word enoteca is the obvious description.

Back to the potatoes though, I can't take credit for calling them creamy. I wasn't the first to taste them. My friend Stash did, and it was the first thing he said, "Wow, those are creamy".

The potatoes are pictured below in the back right with some of our other small plates. Not the best picture. They were roasted, bliss potatoes with rosemary and garlic, and yes, they tasted unbelievably, savory, light and creamy.

Also pictured below, marinated mushrooms with Eva's herbs, mixed olives with fennel, and marinated cauliflower with shallots, thyme and sea salt. Not pictured dishes we had are the warm salt cod crostini and endive salad with Parmesan anchovy dressing.

Most small plates are $5, antipasti, and brunch dishes $10 and wood fired pizza's $12 to $16
The olives were not really different than any other olives I have had, but what can you really do with whole olives? I love olives so I was happy with the variety that came to the table, Calamata, Gaeta, Sevillano, Calabrese and Manzanilla to name a few. Right now if you are thinking I have in depth olive knowledge, I don't. I have no idea what olives were in that mix sans the Calamata's, I just wanted it to sound good.

The cauliflower was also a nice variety. Nice colorful variety that is. I had no idea until I worked for Rachel Nason at D'Lish Intimate Catering that cauliflower not only came in white, there was also orange, purple, and green. The shallots and thyme gave it a nice flavor. Herbs also gave the the marinated mushrooms a little extra flavor.

The Parmesan anchovy dressing on the endive salad was heavenly.

Honestly, though, I need to go back and order more of a variety of small dishes. I don't think I did justice ordering the small plates because I was starving, and really wanted to get a full meal.

If you look at the menu on Coppa's website, you won't see the egg dishes which are available on Sunday's. I am guessing they were added later. We, Lou, Stash, and I all decided to get the poached eggs, on cheesy polenta with center cut bacon and forgive my ignorance in describing food, but that is a thin piece of toasted buttery Italian bread on the side. If it has a fancy name, I don't care, it was perfect. This dish was perfect. If you don't like thick cut bacon, then you may not think it was perfect, but this bacon is fresh and smoky. It reminded me of the bacon from Maresca's, a butcher shop in Sergeantville where I grew up. The poached eggs were fluffy and the polenta a savory cheesy blend.
If you are a the social networking type and use four square, check in to Coppa your first time there and you can get a $3 glass of Prosecco to toast your arrival.

Some things we didn't try that I need to go back for...the Man Mosa- which is a small bottle of prosecco, and a Pelegrino Aranciata accompanied by a large mug to mix them in, Salumi- cut on the coolest, sleekest, hand cranked meat slicer I have ever seen, I need to try another meal besides the brunch, and I definitely need to try one of their Dopo il Pranzo drinks. Describing a drink as sweet, medicinal and luscious certainly piques my interest.

In my book, Ken Oringer is batting 5 for 5 right now for great restaurants. I still need to try KO Prime, but it's looking very good.

Brunch with the Babas

Grieshaber, it is hard to pronounce. Very few get it right. Maybe that is why we call Jimmy and Gina the Habanero's and the Baba's. The correct way to say it is Grease and then Harbor with a Boston accent. Grease-ha-ba:)

Now you know how to greet them when you show up at their house for brunch on Sunday. I hope they read my blog so they know to expect you!

For as long as I can remember Jimmy and Gina have been making brunch Sunday mornings. My pictures don't do the feast justice. I know that on any given Sunday, I can show up and they will have more than enough to feed me and a small army.

Jimmy makes his giant egg scramble which usually consists of scrambled eggs, peppers, cheese, ham, tomatoes and anything else he feels like putting in that day.

There is also usually turkey sausage or bacon, keeping it healthy, and a huge stack of pancakes, see below. Jimmy doesn't usually look that serious when he is cooking, I don't know if he realized what I was doing.
What is really cool about this brunch is Jimmy works for Starbucks and Gina works for JP Licks so they both know coffee and tea like nobody's business and they have all the tools to make you a latte, cappuccino, or any other fancy drink you can dream up!

We brought Lou's friend Joe over one Sunday morning and 20 minutes later he was asking, " Who are these people?"

You didn't really think I was going to tell you where they live though did you?

Peterboro Diner

Peterborough Diner

10 Depot St.

Peterborough, NH

Atmosphere: Casual, friendly diner food, tight quarters, outside seating in the summer.

Kid Friendly: Sure

Food: Typical Diner food, we were there for breakfast

Cost: It was $18 with tip for breakfast for three of us, I am serious.

Our good friends Eric and Mary helped us kick off a festive holiday season this year by getting married the first weekend in December. They are both artists in every aspect of their lives. Mary is an art teacher, and Eric manages the music portion of Toadstool bookshop, but outside of that their lives are filled with artistic endeavors, and this made for a unique and amazing wedding in the town of Peterborough, NH where Eric and Mary live.

Peterborough is a quaint artistic community in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. There are great gourmet markets, and interesting antique stores, but the morning of the wedding we were early, and nothing was opened. Lou and I needed breakfast! We decided to stop in the Peterboro Diner. Peterboro on the sign, but Peterborough on the website and their mugs. Makes me think they just ran out of space on the sign?

Since Peterborough is a fairly small town, and this by all appearances seemed to be the only place open for breakfast, we made a bet that we would run into someone going to the wedding.
Once inside, Lou and I hopped up to the counter as it looked like these were the only seats left in the place and space was tight. Once we sat down, the only seat open was a stool next to Lou.

I got my regular, scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and Lou got the French toast. As we saw the food for other patrons going by we got very excited. The portions looked huge and freshly made, but it started to take a little long for our food to come out.

About 15 minutes into our wait, I turned around to see a familiar face. It was the mother of the maid of honor in the wedding and she was alone. We quickly told her to join as in the open seat next to Lou and in the end, the wait for our food worked out. After she ordered, our food ended up coming out all together, and in the mean time we had some great conversation about how excited we were for the wedding that day.

For an all American, inexpensive, big portion, good tasting, basic breakfast, the Peterborough Diner fits the bill. I heard some mixed reviews about the lunch and dinner at this place, but speaking for breakfast, if you are in Peterborough, check it out.