Char No. 4 - Carroll Gardens

A favorite cited by a bunch of my friends, I was eager to try the brunch menu at Char No. 4 located on Brooklyn's restaurant row, Smith Street. The place itself has a different look with its black-brown siding than other area restaurants, which intrigued me. The bar area is located in the front of the restaurant so it looks super crowded and almost cramped when you get in. Yet once the host leads you to your table, the place seems to grow in size with a narrow dining room and then a comfortable large back room. The placement itself has dark woods and black painted walls - yet it still feels bright, light and airy.

The menu itself is Southern-inspired with Southern takes on egg and ham dishes. I was torn between ordering shrimp & grits or the house smoked artic char over crispy potato cake with a fried egg and egg remoulade. I decided to go with the artic char as I was interested in what exactly the potato cake would be. The dish itself was a fairly small portion despite its $15 price tag. The char was well cooked and seasoned and I liked the placement of the egg on a fish dish. Yet the rest of the dish was blah. The potato cake turned out to be a typical potato pancake (like the frozen kind you warm up in the oven) and there was an overabundance of sprouts on my plate. There were more sprouts than food. It was the kinda dish that might have worked better had the potato pancake been swapped for a biscuit on the bottom. Perhaps I should have opted for the shrimp and grits? I also got a buttermilk biscuit on the side, served with tasty pumpkin spice jam. Loved the biscuit as it was soft, flakey, and completely delicious.

Justin got a meat two ways sort of dish – the Char No. 4 Biscuits Benedict with house smoked ham, poached eggs & bacon gravy. It was sort of a meat and eggs dish that he seemed to like while I did not. I like the idea of a biscuits benedict but I don’t think it needed that much meat. Coffee was a bit pricey at $3 each which involved us trying to find our waiter for 20 minutes when we needed a refill. While we were seated fairly fast, it took awhile for us to order and then my biscuit came out 10-15 minutes AFTER our dishes came out.

All in all, a good brunch with an interesting and new take on what Southern brunch food can be. However is it really worth $46 for brunch – I don’t think so.