Blend: Brunch of the Gods

It's a rare day that a restaurant improves upon a McDonald's staple enough to warrant a place in my heart and stomach. Welcome, Blend's Breakfast Burrito, now with less lard and fewer hair nets! Blend is a Latin fusion bistro on Long Island City's main thoroughfare, Vernon Blvd. and a reason to wake up early on Sundays. Their brunch is a highlight of the weekend even if their wait staff still appears to snoozing on the job.

Their Breakfast Burrito is the kind of dish that arrives in front of you, barely contained by its plate and challenging your resolve to keep your jeans buttoned. Don’t fight it. Eat the whole thing, secure in the knowledge that you have just scarfed down one of the borough’s better bastardizations of the burrito-as-panacea meal and will not have the urge to eat again until Monday morning. While overeating is not normally encouraged, mere mortals won’t stand a chance, so consider this fair warning.

Another notable menu item is the Arepas Benedictos, a meal that blends two cultural stalwarts so expertly you’ll feel like singing “We Are the World” while guzzling the entire left side of Blend’s (quite respectable) drink menu. Option B: just thank the chef. The setting is also a cut above, with sparingly used exposed brick and white-washed hanging ceilings, which seem to teeter precariously above your head but you’ll be too busy licking your plate to really notice. The prices are entirely reasonable judging by multiple out-of-town visitor outings in which no one balked and stormed out in a fit of self-righteous Midwestern indignation (it’s happened).

The only shadow cast over this place is really the wait staff. With the exception of one regular server, the rest act like extras in a George Romero flick, minus the pulse. Not so much rude as they are lifeless, the waiters will do the bare minimum, which does not include anything approaching human contact. All of which is fine. You’ll just have to order another Breakfast Burrito.

INFO:
718-729-2800
47-07 Vernon Blvd.
Long Island City, NY
Official Website