Mother’s Day is just a week away and, especially in these Fraught Coronavirus Times™ of ours, a little advance notice will help to make sure your best girl is celebrated in as elegant (and delicious) a manner as possible.
You’ll probably want to stay sheltered-in-place this time around, sensible citizen, but there’s no reason you can’t break out the good candles for special lighting, rummage through that pile of old family photo albums for some tearful and giggleworthy reminiscences, and feast yourself satisfied via the busy kitchens of local restaurants who are doing take-out and delivery like never before – and who are currently prepping a tempting array of brunchable vittles and more to bring a smile to your mama’s Zoom-weary face.
Old Thousand, for instance, has a Mother’s Day version of the superb Sunday Dim Sum Brunch we fairly raved about last week, just $44-55, with options for mains of brisket fried rice, veggie fried rice, chicken & waffles, salt & pepper tofu, char sui buns, and more – with a diversity of dim sum sides (but, trust us, make that lo bak go one of your choices) and a Champagne-forward mimosa kit.
The much-loved Contigo eatery is introducing a concept called Conti-GO Dispatch, and they’ve got a Mother’s Day Brunch that features lox with all the extras, egg salad, bagel crisps, chick and apple sausage, baby kale salad, a pancake kit for the kiddos, fruit galette, and more – it’ll serve six for $160, and you can add upgrades like sparkling wine and flowers from Gypsy Florals to be even fancier about it. Note: Order by Tuesday, May 5.
The Peached Tortilla – if you’ve enjoyed their diverse array of noms even once, they might be your all-time favorite – brings a Mother’s Day bounty with five-spice French toast, chive-scrambled eggs, kofta sausage patties, Korean shortrib hash, brunch salad, and more. It’s an excellent meal that’ll feed 4-5 hungry humans and their mother – and you can add a mimosa kit, to really fancy it up.
Halcyon Coffee in the Mueller development is about much more than coffee, as you likely already know. But did you expect a Mother’s Day Dinner option that boasts fresh lobster-and-mushroom risotto (with salad and garlic bread – and tiramisu for dessert)? Depending on how many poeple you want to treat, that’ll run you $75-125. Or, if your madre is more of an early bird, they’ve also got a pair of brunches – chicken & waffles with bourbon syrup or the classic croque madame – that could be the foundation ($12-24) you enhance with, yes, a mimosa kit.
We’re all hoping our local economy – and the nation’s economy – will eventually come back from the dead, right? Which reminds us of Lazarus Brewing Company on East Sixth. And we like thinking about those brewmeisters, especially when we’re thinking about their belly-pleasing Enchilada Family Pack meal – available for Cinco de Mayo and Mother’s Day, $20-35 – and how they’ve got a chicken option and a vegan option, and the accompanying sides are so delectably flavor-forward it makes us want to tell someone chinga tu muro, you know?
Or maybe you’re feeling Italian – hell, maybe you are Italian, heritagewise – and so the pasta-riffic savor of Andiamo’s cannelloni stuffed with veal ossobuco (four of these beauties for $20) and a bottle of prosecco or Sangiovese, is the sort of thing your mom’s been craving lately? In that case, this place is definitely your huckleberrio.
But for the fanciest Italian confectionary treats, there’s little making us drool more than Gemelli’s gelato-forward Ultimate Mother’s Day package ($40) with its two pints of gelato (your choice among many flavors), a pint of Aperol sorbetto, a bottle of prosecco, fresh housemade focaccia, Castelvetrano olives, and a thick morsel of parmesan cheese. (TBH, we might add this to our Old Thousand order – but we’re all a little crazy here at your favorite altweekly.) Note: You’ve got to reserve this treat by Sunday, May 3.
Speaking of desserts, let’s also note the Cupcake Bar with their Mother’s Day Cupcake Box – six cupcakes in three yummy flavors, with a custom-designed card, for $24 – and (because not! everything! has! to! be! about! food!) the Bar also offers Mom’s Survival Kit ($65), featuring an air plant, a small bottle of bubbly rosé, a soy candle, a rose bath-bomb, lavender cuticle butter, lip balm, and – oh, you know: Old-school, gender-polarized mom stuff, right? Just so.
And, hey: Tell your mother we said hi!
This article appears in May 1 • 2020.