TIME CAFÉ
2330 Broadway (corner of Broadway and West 85th St.), New York 10024 (Upper West Side). (212) 579-5100. 1/9 to 79th Street; B/C to 81st Street.
Food:
Service:
Food coma:

The remaining uptown branch is more of a diner, with no boho chic to make up for a brunch that took too so long to arrive on my visit that the main ingredients could barely be tasted. The hollandaise sauce had congealed into yellow bathroom caulk. The first thing to do with eggs Benedict run the fork across the top to taste just the sauce. It should ooze like the watches in Dali's Persistence of Memory paintings. But Time's hollandaise came off in a Frisbee-like cap, and I could not chip off the sauce that had run to the edge of the plate. Well-poached eggs were still runny inside but had lost almost all heat. The Canadian bacon was flavorful but salty. The English muffins were well toasted. Home fries comprised very spicy cubed potato. A $4.75 side order of bacon was generous and crispy. The mimosa was good, with lots of icy champagne still bubbling upwards. But bread, taters, bacon, and booze aside -- oh, the bloody Mary was bland -- the central dish disappointed. As I chomped through it, a clueless busperson mistakenly offered me someone else's eggs Benedict. Maybe that second wrong would've made a right.

Time Café eggs Benedict is hardly worth the price at either location, but at at least the downtown one has a scene.

Rest rooms: Downtown: clean, spacious, and glossily black. Uptown: clean, spacious, and institutional.
Handicapped access: Downtown: All on one level except rest rooms, which are up a long stairway and then down a twisted hall. Aisles are narrow. Uptown: All on one level, and restrooms are fully accessible.