Take yourself back to 2010 for a moment. Lost ended its six-year run of maddening plot holes, that Icelandic volcano made morons of TV reporters, and a little fast food joint called KFC ushered in an era* of stunt foods that will outlive us all. The Double Down has been mocked, heralded, imitated and now imitated again at a new restaurant called Hudson Jane, which opened Monday on Myrtle Avenue and Adelphi Street in Fort Greene. Chef Megan Johnson is serving the "Double Brown" ($15)—which she has trademarked!—an egg, bacon, tomato, lettuce and Aleppo pepper aioli sandwich served between two hash browns.
There are few who wouldn't answer the siren's call of a well-fried hash brown, and if stunt foods are here to stay they may as well be made by a former Gramercy Tavern chef. The all-day restaurant serves a number of fun dishes in line with their "life's too short to eat sh*tty food!" motto. Guacamole ($15) is served with "chips" made from puffed chicken skin, cheese curds ($10) are served wrapped in bacon like pure protein mozzarella sticks, and there's a "Patty's Melt" ($24) sandwich with a grass-fed beef patty topped with bacon, swiss cheese, tomato, dijon mustard and mayo on chive pain au lait.
The restaurant—which is co-owned by Johnson's partner Jen LaPorta—serves breakfast, lunch, brunch and dinner with offerings both for grab-and-go (pastries and burritos for both carnivores and vegans) and sit-down (the soft-boiled eggs are topped with a potato nest with cow-shaped butter for the toast). Forthcoming dinner entrees—the meal will launch in full in the coming weeks—will include Spring Chicken and Dumplings with cheddar biscuit and garlic scapes, Grandma Johnson's Beef and Noodles, and an all-natural wine list.
We can celebrate the restaurant's gratuity free status, but cannot take their suggestion to "tip our cows instead" because those babies are sturdy af.
*We're aware the Double Down was technically a reality in 2009 but it wasn't officially released until 2010.
360 Myrtle Avenue, 347-987-3881; hudsonjane.com
Hudson Jane Opening Menu by Nell Casey on Scribd