Day 4: Rainbow Room Sunday Brunch
Warning! This is gonna be a really long one.
So our special brunch was finally here and I was super excited.
As soon as i'd seen it online I knew I had to book it and thankfully we were there on a Sunday.
The Rainbow Room is situated on the 65th Floor of the Rockerfeller Center. The room itself is absolutely stunning and the name Rainbow comes from the light that diffracts through the beautiful chandeliers.
There are amazing views of the Empire State Building if you are lucky enough to be seated by the windows.
We headed up from the street through a separate entrance from the Top of Rock visitors enter (thank god as it's always swamped).
Up a few escalators and you are greeted with the check in podium. They take your coats into the cloak room and when your table is ready a member of staff escorts you in an the elevator up to the 65th floor. You do feel very special indeed.
Once you have arrived on the correct floor you are shown to you table. We were given a nice little table not directly by the window but we had a good enough view and were close to the buffet stations.
During brunch they have a live band playing really nice relaxing jazz music. They acts change according to date but the band when we were there were fabulous. I really felt like we had been transported back to the 1930’s or something.
They are on a platform above the dining room.
I will add photos that I took of the room/buffet before posting the food photos.
There was so much choice and each station had a theme:
Charcuterie meats, cheeses & breads
Salads
Carving station with sunday lunch accompaniments (yorkshire puddings, veggies, gravy)
Fried chicken & waffles
Breakfast sweets such as pancakes, pastries & bsgels, granola etc.
Asian section
Raw bar & sushi
A separate dessert platform with freshly made crepe station.
Onto the food..
When we were seated we were offered a complimentary champagne toast and given a plate of I guess appetizers.
It was radishes with chips and some whipped dips. I think one was tuffle and another was chivey. This was quite nice and we had a pick but wanted to save room for the star of the show.
Once we had drunk the small glass of free champagne we ordered a mimosa each (bucks fizz) which was great. The orange juice was very nice quality.
Then we hit the buffet. Here is my first plate.
Clockwise from top on first picture: Small slice of bread, fried chicken, warm honey mustard potato salad, honey carrots, breadcrumb topped cauliflower cheese, waffle, (not sure), shaved cheese slice, parma ham.
It was all great. The bread was a bit boring, I don't know why I chose that. The chicken was crispy & delicious but I found the waffle to be too soft for my liking. The carrots, cauliflower cheese & potato salad were fantastic.
Andy's first plate included some carved beef which you can see in the background just & a chicken pot pie. I didn't really focus on photographing his buffet selections. They were pretty similar to mine anyway.
The pot pie was extremely rich and had a heavy truffle flavour. Not that that's a bad thing at all but when there is so much stuff to try you really want to avoid super rich foods.
Another plate for me.
Clockwise from top: Yorkshire pudding, cauliflower cheese, honey carrots, mashed potatoes, stuffing & hand carved ham. I had a small amount of red wine gravy on there too.
Some repeats as I enjoyed them so much. The Yorkshire pudding was light and airy and the ham was beautifully tender and flavourful. The only thing I didn't really care for was the stuffing. It was a bit bitter.
I did have one last savoury plate
(Andy stuck to just the 2). I couldn't get enough of some items & there were others I wanted to try. Don't judge!
Clockwise from top on top picture: Mini pancake with blueberry compote, fried chicken, parma ham, 1 more potato from the warm potato salad, pot roast, sweet chilli chicken steamed bun, honey carrot, cauliflower cheese & red wine gravy,
Andy thought I was mad having a pancake on there but I kept it clean
The pancake was only OK in the end. I left about half as it was too stodgy to waste room on. I really didn't care for the steamed bun, not my cup of tea at all. The rest again was awesome. The parma ham is so good & I could easily eat my body weight in that alone.
Somehow we still had room for dessert after all the savoury food.
It was a relaxed brunch though and we paced it out over a few hours just soaking up the atmosphere.
The dessert station is a separate platform away from the main buffet. It has shelves of mini desserts.
And also a chef making up crepes fresh to order with various toppings. There was quite a queue for these.
Another chef was making souffles fresh but again there was qute a long "waiting list" for these.
We stuck to the desserts that you grab yourself.
They really were a work of art.
Clockwise from top: Pistachio sponge with raspberry & white choc, Not sure exactly but something peanut, mini key lime tart, raspberry meringue, churro with hot chocolate sauce, frangipane tart with pecan glaze.
These were all good, surprisingly the mini meringues were a stand out and just melted in the mouth.
Now absolutely stuffed we called it a day!
Overall we had the best time. I can't really describe how wonderful it was. The setting was gorgeous, the food was amazing, the staff were great. The music made it that bit more special. It had definitely lived up to expectations. If we are ever back in New York I think it would be hard not to book it again. It really was the perfect thing to do to celebrate at special Birthday! Ok I will stop gushing about it now.
Not cheap at $95 each, mimosas were extra and gratuity not included. Totally worth it I think though.
