La Flaca - $18

I DID IT. I FUCKING DID IT. I FOUND AN AYCD WEEKDAY BRUNCH. YOU GUYS. YOU GUYS. I AM THE CHAMPION. I AM THE CHAMPION OF HAPPINESS.

Okay, sorry, let me backtrack --

Last Friday, tragedy struck: Joe left for England for two weeks! Confused, upset, and decidedly sober, I had no choice but to ask my boyfriend C. to come up from Philly for a few days and comfort my sad, Joe-less existence.

I had (of course) been telling C. all about our AYCD brunches, and he had been (of course) appropriately envious. Now, determined to show him the best New York had to offer, I decided that I needed to take him to a brunch -- but he was visiting from Monday to Thursday! Would I find an AYCD weekday brunch?!

New York is a big city, and I figured there had to be at least one place, even if we needed to take two subways and a bus to get there. I went through pages and pages of Google ("nyc bottomless brunch weekday"), rephrased my search terms over and over again ("nyc aycd brunch weekday," "nyc weekday unlimited mimosas," etc.), and link-hopped from one list to the next. All in all, I spent about half-an-hour crawling through the internet -- and then, and then, I found it. On a list of AYCD NYC brunches, which I had found through clicking through blog after blog, I found one entry that said, next to the name of the place, "weekday."

My pulse quickened with the thrill of the moment of capture.

La Flaca.

Their weekday AYCD brunch is from 12 pm - 4 pm, which is I think is pretty late for this sort of thing. However, I only took it as a good sign -- chill, relaxed, down to help you have a good time -- and so C. and I arrived at about 12:30, very hungry and very ready to drink.

Unlike the other two brunch places, which had been bustling, La Flaca was sleepy, with only a few tables occupied. This was perhaps because, like, what kind of losers want an AYCD brunch on a weekday? The ambiance was nice, though: the place was really cute, and the music was actually great! (They played a really strange-but-good mix of well-known favorites from across lots of different time periods and genres.)

Here's my main takeaway from La Flaca: enormous time limit, and the food is good! The portions were huge (way larger than they needed to be, in fact: it's 11 pm and I'm still full), and the breakfast sandwich that I got was yummy. Also, good fries! Gotta love a place with good fries.

Our waitress was good with the refills. She wasn't amazing, as the waiters and waitresses had been at the other two places -- but, you know, very decent. (She quickly figured out what our deal was, and would smirk a little every time she offered us another round. We liked her.) The glasses were a little on the small side, and I think the mimosas were a little bit weak due to how much ice was in them. C.'s native-Texan magnetic attraction to Mexican fare, though, saved his very first AYCD brunch experience: the frozen margaritas were very, very strong, which resulted in his getting much drunker than I did! LIFE IS REALLY UNFAIR. Verdict: this place may get you drunk, if you order the right drink! Although it breaks my heart to say it, maybe don't go with the mimosas.

Towards the end of our meal, our friend V. showed up. He ate some of C.'s leftovers, and we all chatted for a bit. When eventually C. and I had to leave and catch our buses (C. back to Philly, I up to Vermont to visit a friend), V., who was meeting up with another friend, and was waiting for her to get downtown, said, "Maybe I'll just get some food and wait for her here." He ordered huevos rancheros and started off his AYCD brunch with some sangria.

Twenty minutes later, at the bus stop, C. got a text from him: "I'm tipsy and full this is great!"

Summary:
+ good food
- not all their drinks get you drunk
+ huge time limit