The Mango Lassie

Lucky old Empanada Boy didn’t have to work at all between Christmas and New Year’s. In contrast, I had to work on Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas and will be working tomorrow (New Year’s Eve day) as well. Empanada Boy spent most of the past week in Wisconsin visiting his family. Determined not to mope, I decided to spend some time catching up with friends. My friend Jamaican Jerk Sauce and I went out for breakfast Sunday morning before she took off for New York. She had been telling me for weeks that she wanted to try a brunch place in Uptown called Tweet…Let’s Eat, right down the street from where she used to live.

Tweet is a cute little sidewalk cafe tucked away on an otherwise restaurant-less stretch of Sheridan Avenue. In many ways, Tweet reminds me of Portland restaurants I’ve frequented. It has funky decor, including a glass display case filled with pretty vintage tea sets and cakes and cookies to go. There are a few tables on a raised platform that looks out onto the street. Outside seating is available in the summertime. The menu is organized around fresh, largely organic vegetables, meats and dairy products. Vegetarian options abound. This was ideal for Jamaican Jerk Sauce— a non-meat eater. She ordered the Vegetarian Country Benedict. This consisted of an English muffin topped with a vegetable or bean-based patty, topped with eggs and a thick, peppery white gravy. This dish was flavorful, but incredibly filling. And although the patty was surprisingly good, I probably would have opted for one of the other egg dishes.

In fact, my dish— the Eggs Florentine pictured above— was also vegetarian. It was classic in style with a split English muffin covered with spinach, sunny-side-up eggs and hollandaise. The sea of rich hollandaise got to be a bit too much for me after a while, but I thoroughly enjoyed everything, including the pile of hash browns.

It was the little things that really won me over at Tweet. The meal started with an amuse bouche of tasty carrot cake sqaures, a pre-breakfast treat that reminded me of the temporarily-closed O’Rourke’s Diner in Middletown, CT. I also noted the large line-up of hot sauces on the table and sampled many of them during breakfast. I also enjoyed the great graphic design (shown here) used to decorate the menus, the exterior and even the shirts worn by the waitstaff. In addition to all of these smaller elements, Jamaican Jerk Sauce and I got great pleasure from scoping out the laden plates being delivered to neighboring tables. From breakfast burritos to pretty piles of pancakes, there is evidently much more left to sample at Tweet.

Tweet…Let’s Eat
5020 N. Sheridan Rd.
Chicago, IL 60640
773.728.5576