24 Small Plates in 24 Hours: Breakfast
10:46 a.m.: Explorers Club
Our first stop is one of the only places in town I could find breakfast-y small plates-the independently minded Explorers Club has a Small Dishes section on its Latin-inspired weekend brunch menu.
My itinerary specifies four plates for breakfast, so we order nearly all of those Small Dishes. Best are Sweet Potato Fritters ($6), lightly fried nuggets of diced potato, corn, black beans and chiles served with a hot sauce for dipping.
I also love the Chile Relleno ($6.50), a cornmeal-crusted poblano stuffed with gooey cheese, drizzled in a spicy jalapeno dressing and resting in a pool of chipotle sauce.
Sweet Plantains ($6.50) are a natural breakfast snack and a welcome break from the heat of those other plates. A tangy salsa yogurt sauce cuts through the richness of the caramelized fruit. Less traditional are the House Greens ($6), a small leaf-lettuce salad topped with tomatoes, onions, jack cheese and more of that salsa yogurt as a dressing-a nice addition to the day's lineup, which was otherwise devoid of vegetables.
And then we make our first tactical error. None of the Small Dish options include eggs, which I happen to be desperately craving this morning. So we tack on two over-easy eggs and Cuban toast, which aren't technically eligible to be applied to our tally of 24 plates.
It is a mistake I will come to regret about 10 hours later.