WHITE GOLD BREAKFAST ROLL

It is assumed knowledge that there is nowhere to eat on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. When we tell people we just moved to the neighbourhood they will routinely suggest that there are great places to get fresh produce, pointing to the cornucopia of olives, the fine selection of cheeses and the exhaustive baked treats at Zabars; or the tender fresh pasta, sumptuous roasted chickens and buckets of pretzel pieces at Fairway Market; or the finer delights of lox from the seven seas, caviar that makes you heartsick for love, and cold cuts that warm you from the toes up from Barney Greengrass. You can buy it all, west of Central Park from the Trader Joes at 72^nd Street to the Whole Foods on 97^th. But, where oh where, can you eat? Surely nowhere there, at least according to the myths that circulate from people we have been speaking with.

Yet, since we have been here, we have found thick, silky, deep ramen from Jin on 82^nd and Amsterdam, and, rich, cloying, melty cookies just down the road from Levain Bakery. Both of them are dishes that one gets all over New York. However, the real test, the real indicator species of a neighbourhood, one that tells it apart from pretenders, is the breakfast roll. Some might prefer to think that pizza counts, that bagels are the litmus, that sushi in its arriviste pretension is how one determines where to live and whether the property prices are truly reflective or astronomical or if you got a bargain for what you paid. To me though, it is the breakfast roll that matters most. You get it in every deli and in franchises of every name, from the bodega on the corner to Dunkin’ Donuts. It is only egg, cheese, breakfast meat (ham, bacon, sausage) served on a bread roll (or a biscuit, muffin, croissant). So, what is it that sets an Upper West Side example apart?

From the outset, it must be said that K (my trusted life and dinner companion) only eats this breakfast roll, it being the best to be found. It makes her judgement depend on whether a particular example of it was as good as the last (or first) not where it fits in the universe of others. I work to a different frame. I have eaten breakfast rolls in no fit state, dropping egg yolk on my pants, wiping it away so that it only leaves a suspicious stain, hurrying the whole of it into my mouth at once; ‘wolfing’ it would be correct to say. This has been back home in Australia, where the variety is usually bacon and egg with barbeque sauce, often from a gas station when you are on a roadtrip. But I have been there too in America, where they often add a layer of cheese to the experience and it comes without sauce. That is the first difference from what I am used to; the second is that bacon in Australia is of a thicker cut, what Americans would call a Canadian rasher, which often has less fat than those on offer here. In my time in New York however, I have sampled the breakfast roll in a number of places – sometimes they are greasy and limp, having sat for too long under heat lamps, or the bread is dry and unable to absorb the oozing combination of egg and cheese, or the meat is just tasteless.

On the other hand, the White Gold Breakfast Roll is a perfect vision of what this dish can be. The bread is toasted on the inside with a light char that comes from being placed on a griddle and then generously buttered. Its outside retains a springy freshness and is sprinkled with poppyseeds that miraculously do not fall off, in which case they would get stuck in the beard or on the lap like ants. Inside, the ham, in my preferred case, is folded into a neat, generous stack, cut to the perfect thickness and generously portioned. It is salty, deep, savoury with a hint of smoke that suggests a richness uncommon in cold cuts. Beneath them the cheese sits atop the egg; they should be considered as one, for they combine to be creamy, juicy and tender; the cheese melts to become a sauce one might find in a dreamed of dish that combines nachos with raclette. All the parts work in harmony, a synthesis of salty good times that approaches sweetness if not umami. It is a textural treat with the springy crunch of the bread, the chew and firmness from the ham, and the fluid softness of the egg-cheese. For something made in a few minutes, it tastes, impossibly, like it has been cooking for quite some time. 

If the breakfast roll is approachable, it must be said that White Gold itself is a little upscale. I do not mean that in a bad way; one can be comfortable here and it is not pretentious, snooty or exclusive. It is a butcher that is kitsch and local even if that means it is well to do given where we live. And, for an $8 well spent in the morning, you can have a bite from heaven that sets you up for the day.

White Gold Butchers,  375 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10024
8 AM – 10 PM (Breakfast till 3pm, Lunch at 12pm, Dinner at 5:30pm)
Subway: 1 at 79th Street; C, B at 81st Street.