My favorite Eggs Benedict

I loooooooooove me some breakfast. And at the top of my list of breakfast staples is eggs benedict. There is just something wonderful about the soft, fluffy poached egg resting gently underneath savory hollandaise sauce, all on top of a crispy chewy english muffin. The "meat" portion of this dish has been reimagined in many ways, from lump crap to steak. Not being a huge fan of canadian bacon, I love these variations even more that the original.

After trying this dish at several brunch places in the city, I present my three favorite variations on Eggs Benedict.

1. Toast: Eggs Benedict made with truffle infused hollandaise and proscutto. I dreamt about these for weeks after my first taste of this awesome dish. The salty, textured flavor of the proscutto makes for a wicked counterpoint to the soft egg yolks. And the hollandaise will make you want to lick the plate clean. A small aside, the potatoes here are not very good, but a very full side of fresh fruit (including all sorts of berries) only costs $1 more. The benedict I enjoyed at Toast this morning largely inspired this entire post.

2. Wishbone: I order these eggs minus the canadian bacon, add a side of bacon. A wonderful rendition that is improved upon by the addition of a few drops of the pepper sauce. Great hollandaise and bonus points for the great breakfast potatoes. Not to be confused with hashbrowns, these Wishbone potatoes are crisp outside and fluffy inside with a few cloves of roasted garlic thrown in for variety.

3. Bongo Room: Eggs Benedict with lump crabmeat. The eggs and hollandaise are here only in service to the real star of this dish: the crabmeat. Sweet and chewy lumps of crab are the perfect match for the soft and salty eggs.

Anyone with other favorites to add?

The E.B. at Tre Kronor stood out precisely because it had been so long since I'd had really good ones in a restaurant, frankly.

My choice is the lobster EB at NoMi. The lobster works well in the dish, and the early morning views there are incredible.

Tempo does a well executed version of Eggs Benedict along with the bonus of great people watching.

For all you far south siders that can't wait that long to drive into the city and get breakfast, try the eggs benedict at Wheatfields in Tinley Park. Get the Paula's potatoes on the side. It's my younger daughter's favorite breakfast. My personal favorite there is the Eggs a la Wheatfield, which comes with grilled salmon and goat cheese. Delicious!

Suzy

Wheatfield's Restaurant
16914 S. Oak Park Ave.
Tinley Park, IL
708-429-0022

I like a version I came up with at MAS for our brunch. It was with Serrano Ham, English muffins, poached eggs, and piquillo hollandaise.

It's certainly not traditional, but I'm very fond of the Southwestern Eggs Benedict at Cafe 28 -- poached eggs, chorizo and chipotle hollandaise on english muffins with a side of tasy potatoes. So salty, so creamy -- just sublime.

Cafe 28
1800 W. Irving Park Rd.
773-528-2883

Why didnt anyone mention the lobster bread pudding EB at HB Cafe AKA Hearty Boys on Halstead and Roscoe. One of the best most decadent that I have ever had anywhere.

J

Crabcake version at Cafe 28 for me!

Ok... with Valentine's day on a Saturday, now I'm thinking build the perfect Eggs Benedict for MrsF for breakfast in bed, based on the descriptions here:

Poached egg (any way to jazz this up? poach in champagne and truffle?)
Crabmeat (I don't think I'll go so far as a crabcake)
Just a bit of spinach to keep the layers separate (surprised nobody mentioned a Florentine version)
Serrano Ham (sounds better with the crab than prosciutto -- perhaps switch to langoustines?)
Truffled hollandaise
Bays English Muffin

Any other suggestions?

JoelF wrote:Ok... with Valentine's day on a Saturday, now I'm thinking build the perfect Eggs Benedict for MrsF for breakfast in bed, based on the descriptions here:

Any other suggestions?

One suggestion comes to mind. Check your calendar...

JoelF,

Will you be preparing this over a hot plate? If your kitchen is out of commission, then you may just want to take her out.

Regards,

Marija wrote:

JoelF wrote:Ok... with Valentine's day on a Saturday, now I'm thinking build the perfect Eggs Benedict for MrsF for breakfast in bed, based on the descriptions here:

Any other suggestions?

One suggestion comes to mind. Check your calendar...

You gotta admire someone who's already planning ahead for Valentine's Day 2009 ...

Heh -- looked at the wrong month (January 2006). Tuesday, Feb 14 will be a lot harder to make a surprise breakfast, since nobody's sleeping in.

And my kitchen isn't out of commission yet, and at the rate they're going, Valentine's might be just before the big demolition phase.

Hmm... I could probably poach an egg in the rice cooker... I think MrsF has a microwave hollandaise recipe around somewhere (no, really!)... the toaster will definitely not be packed away

I had a standout traditional EB (muffin, canadian bacon, poached egg and hollandaise) at Atwood Cafe a couple years ago. I still think about it . . . so simple, yet so well-executed.

Another top "EB" is the veggie version at Toast. I rarely (and I mean rarely) will go out of the house for brunch because I cannot fathom and/or abide by the hour-long lines that Chicago brunches generally demand. But, on occasion, I get such a taste for this version that I will break my rule and stand outside with the damn coffee cup in hand, waiting for my name to be called . . .

Eggs Benedict is my favorite. Some five or six years ago, I worked very hard on trying every EB at every restaurant I visited (that had it, of course). Ten pounds later, I had to stop, so now it's a "sometime food."

I've had Toast's prosciutto version and the vegetable version, and I didn't care for either. What I mean is that I was actually angry after eating them. There was stuff (diced tomatoes, and that kind of thing) in the hollandaise. It is my belief that hollandaise is perfect on its own, and needs no embellishment, and additions only detract from the texture and delicate balance of flavors. I'm fine with changing the meat and/or substituting spinach, etc. but I cannot abide messing with the sauce.

Eggs Flo at Flo: Big slab of roasted turkey on one, and ham on the other. It's too huge to eat the whole thing, but delicious and perfectly done. Tre Kronor's is very nice, but never stood out for me. Bite used to have a good one, both traditional and florentine, but I started to get overcooked yolks and undersauced dishes so I stopped going. Zephyr has a passable version, but nothing special. Tweet was my most recent experience with EB, and it was very nice, but I believe it used biscuits and not English muffins, which detracts for me because muffins are so much better for absorption. There were more, but nothing dramatically one way or another. Oh, except once on a road trip with my mother, I had Eggs Benedict at an Azar's Big Boy, and it was a nightmare. Paprika like a blanket over the whole thing. I shudder as I think of it.

Though it's a mild pain in the ass, making it at home yields much better results.

aschie30 wrote:I rarely (and I mean rarely) will go out of the house for brunch because I cannot fathom and/or abide by the hour-long lines that Chicago brunches generally demand. But, on occasion, I get such a taste for this version that I will break my rule and stand outside with the damn coffee cup in hand, waiting for my name to be called . . .

If you go early (when does Toast open, 8?) there are plenty of tables. By 9 there is a line, but you can still usually sit at the bar. Sundays, I mean. Not sure about Saturday. We go often.

Eggs Flo at Flo, which is really a twist on benedict...thick brioche, spinach, roasted turkey, light lemon hollandaise, and poached egg of course.

leek wrote:If you go early (when does Toast open, 8?) there are plenty of tables. By 9 there is a line, but you can still usually sit at the bar. Sundays, I mean. Not sure about Saturday. We go often.

And that's exactly what I mean about the fiendish ferocity with which Chicagoans attack brunch! That people are dressed and in line by 9 am on a Sunday, no less, demonstrates the madness to the brunch craze. Having said that, I'll be there at 9 on Sunday . . .

girlmoxie wrote:I've had Toast's prosciutto version and the vegetable version, and I didn't care for either. What I mean is that I was actually angry after eating them. There was stuff (diced tomatoes, and that kind of thing) in the hollandaise. It is my belief that hollandaise is perfect on its own, and needs no embellishment, and additions only detract from the texture and delicate balance of flavors. I'm fine with changing the meat and/or substituting spinach, etc. but I cannot abide messing with the sauce.

By the way, I don't think Toast puts tomatoes in their hollandaise, per se. I think the chopped tomatoes are a garnish for the veggie eggs benedict. As the tomatoes are unable to create a hollandaise-free universe around themselves in the dish, they may, here and there, find themselves integrated with the hollandaise. Although I agree with your basic premise as I understand it, i.e., to allow the glossy pale-yellow of the hollandaise shine unblemished, I do not, however, think that the tomatoes detract from the taste of the hollandaise.

aschie30 wrote:That people are dressed and in line by 9 am on a Sunday, no less, demonstrates the madness to the brunch craze. Having said that, I'll be there at 9 on Sunday . . .

Ah, you must think we are mad, then. As there are a lot of places we'd like to go on a Sunday, but they don't open until 10 or 11. We get up at 5:15 M-F, so tend to wake (or be woken by the dogs) early on weekends too.

And many of the people who frequent Toast on Sundays have little human critters. I'm sure they'd rather be sleeping in too

leek wrote:Ah, you must think we are mad, then. As there are a lot of places we'd like to go on a Sunday, but they don't open until 10 or 11. We get up at 5:15 M-F, so tend to wake (or be woken by the dogs) early on weekends too.

And many of the people who frequent Toast on Sundays have little human critters. I'm sure they'd rather be sleeping in too

Not mad, just a way better person than I. My pup is an extremely early riser, too (5:30 a.m. and he wants breakkie), but after a walk and a feeding for him, I just usually crawl back into bed.

I had the eggs benedict at Tweet this morning and they were really good -- not my favorite -- but definitely up there. The hollandaise was a little too lemony for me. Overall, an excellent rendition, though. The eggs were cooked perfectly, the muffin's flavor and texture were both outstanding and the canadian bacon was nicely grilled on both sides.

That said, my current fave eggs benedict is served by chefs Stegner and Bumbaris at Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook. Not only do they offer a textbook version of the 'original recipe' but their smoked salmon and spinach variations are also amazing. The roasted tomato hollandaise that tops the spinach version is out of this world. They also turn out a house-made ancho breakfast sausage that is absolutely stellar.

=R=

Prairie Grass Cafe
601 Skokie Blvd
Northbrook, Illinois 60062
(847) 205-4433

Yoshi's in-house crab cake egg ben. sickening huge fresh crab cakes. they're literally the size of your fists. not over fried, not over seasoned.

Yoshi's Cafe:
3257 N. Halsted St.
Chicago

This is way out in the western burbs, but my favorite go-to place specifically for eggs benedict is Elmhurst Restaurant, 441 W. Lake Street in Elmhurst. The hollandaise is buttery and yummy. They have different versions of the benedict, but I can't get past the classic one. I even order extra hollandaise on the side so I can put it on the potatoes...

Although I sort of object to unorthodox benedict ingredients as messing unnecessarily with perfection, I was pretty impressed with a hanger steak benedict at Lula this morning. I could have used more zing in the hollandaise*, but as it was it was a great showcase for really nice steak, farmer's market eggs (poached spot-on), good bread and a dab of house-pickled onion or something down under the meat.

* But then I often make it at home with bearnaise instead. Heretic!

Breakfast...hmmm. It is the most important meal of the day, even if you don"t eat it till 1 pm. This past Saturday, I had a pretty kick ass "legs benedict" at Perennial. It, from what I was told is a relatively traditional setup but their twist on the protein is confit duck leg, with hollandaise, are you kidding. see you next Saturday!!! Done and done.