Salad w/ Beets, Watercress, Radishes & Pecorino

by Celia Sin-Tien Cheng
April 14, 2006

DINER
85 Broadway
@ Berry St
Brooklyn, NY 11211
718-486-3077

As a hard-core meat lover, I don’t gravitate towards salads on menus. In fact, I generally only end up ordering them if I feel guilty about my meat-heavy diet and need a little balance. So in some sense, I tend to think of salads as necessary roughage for the diet but never as meals by themselves. Yet, lately, I’ve been eating some downright yummy salads.

I’m not sure about classifying a salad from Diner’s menu as a craving, but the special salad I had at brunch was really delicious. Though the ingredients are simple (beets, watercress, radishes and pecorino), I still believe that a good salad is hard to make. You have to strike all the right balances, even with just a few ingredients. Just like my recent review of the chop salad from Diner’s sister restaurant, Bonita, I thought it deserving here to spotlight what often gets cast as a supporting dish.

I also tried the chorizo hash with caramelized onions and two fried eggs. The hash and eggs were good, but since there was some cinnamon in the hash, after I was done, I didn’t feel like I got my share of savory for the day. It’s strange that a little bit of flavoring can really affect how you feel. The hash was by all means a filling meat dish, but because I didn’t get my savory quota, I thought I wasn’t full.

Anyway, Diner is definitely as good as everyone says, and I can’t wait to go back for dinner one night and try the fries with homemade mayonnaise. In the meantime, I do hope that the wait staff can work on being slightly friendlier and more organized. It’s no wonder that Williamsburg has a bad rep as Hipster Town, not as a compliment but as criticism of some seriously degenerate attitude.

Also in American, Brunch, Salad, Williamsburg