Magical Girl Brunch
It was a little under a year ago that we held a geek girl brunch at Macondo. It was only our second brunch. It was 4 people. Fast forward to this past Sunday when our little group had almost quadrupled in size to 14. (Not bad, eh?) Returning to Macondo with our ever growing troupe of Magical Girls, we filled the venue (half of their green room) with laughter, a lot of pink, and a wealth of new wonderful memories.
Mahou Shoujo Style
I mean… a LOT of pink. A far cry from the striped Hogwarts house scarves of our last brunch at Macondo, the Magical girls were decked in all manner of kawaii goodness. Bows were bountiful. And brunchettes easily found each other. Jamila wore a full on galaxy print seifuku so she dubbed herself Sailor Gallifrey. While Yissel donned an original outfit that looked to be designed for Cardcaptor Sakura herself, with a print that recalled the artsy color-splashed battle grounds of Madoka. To say nothing of Rachel’s highly covetable “All Negatrash Must Die” shirt and tattoo printed illusion hosiery. And what magical girl gathering would be complete without colored hair? There was red. There was purple. It was green… It was painted gold. And the geek girl accessory game? So on point. Even before the sweet swag. Note: we predict the must have accessory for next month’s brunch will be…. The name tag.
We also loved that we represented many different styles and yet were still rocking our magical girl theme. Fandoms really do unite people! Even if it’s a rockabilly and a punk. Library chic with alt ’90s girl badassery. We all fit in. Due to the super kawaii outfits a stranger in the restaurant asked the brunchettes if they knew anything about the crowds on Allen St. the previous weekend (Lolitas lining up for Baby, The Stars Shine Bright aka BSSB). He asked the right people! Lolita month may have been in June, but we were happy to explain the finer points! Indeed, we found an honorary Magical Guy in that lovely blue-haired photographer, Isaac James.
Food
Eat at Macondo and you will eat well. There’s a misconception about bottomless brunch spots. The belief being that they keep the mimosas flowing to distract you from sub par food. This is so not the case here. In fact, I think the blackberry mimosas were our least favorite part of the meal. (The Orange Vanilla mimosa is where it’s at.)
Now being Dominican (this Yissel talking, but Jamila’s half Latina so she can relate) sometimes I avoid eating traditional dishes I could make at home. But as I can’t be bothered to cook up plantains of late, I surrendered myself completely to their mangu, their yucca fries, and all their other delectable offerings, entirely guilt free.
The restaurant also boasts a few vegetarian options. Our one vegan brunchette ended up just having a salad, but it looked delicious none the less.
But the food and drinks weren’t the only amazing things about Macondo. The Macondo staff helped make our dining experience truly memorable. After brunch the hostesses asked for GGB’s information because they are geek girls as well and saw how much fun we were having. But the icing on the cake (or maybe the syrup on the pancake) was our Magical Girl server, Andrea. As fate would have it, our server Andrea was a total Magical Girl with a diehard obsession with Cardcaptor Sakura. As soon as Yissel pulled out her Clow Cards she jumped back and excitedly called them out! We all applauded her reaction. She was the best server. She was perfect. We explained what Geek Girl Brunch was and she got–dare I say– emotional, which made some of us emotional. Andrea was the one keeping the mimosas flowing, and yet SHE was thanking US at the end of brunch for what we were doing. Needless to say, on top of the tip we gave her some choice swag. My guess is she’ll keep that custom brunch card forever. She is why we do this.
Field Trips
After brunch we stumbled over to the newly opened Baby, The Stars Shine Bright store. Our Magical Girl crew practically filled up the entire store. We marveled at the very beautiful (and very expensive) Lolita and punk clothing and accessories offered.
We left the cool air conditioned BSSB and were once again greeted by the hot and humid NYC summer air. That’s when Amanda had the perfect idea of going to The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory! Turns out, that was the perfect ice cream shop for Geek Girl Brunch because they had two Game of Thrones flavors (having retained their names from Foursquare’s Game of Cones competition). So the brunchettes cooled off with flavors like Khaleesi Lychee and Castle Black Sesame. One of my favorite things about CIF though, is the year-round offering of pumpkin pie ice cream. Because who wants to wait around for Starbucks PSL season for those flavors? (Side note: Amanda had actually joined us for brunch after having attended the Wasabassco Super: Heroes Vs. Villains show, in which we were the judges for their costume contest!)
The fun didn’t end there! We walked down the block to our final destination, the Maid Cafe. Now if you don’t know, a Maid Cafe is a type of “cosplay restaurant.” Now I’m basically paraphrasing Wikipedia here, but they’re increasingly popular in Japan. New to the city, our Maid Cafe isn’t entirely like those you would typically find in Osaka, for example, but it’s a charming new addition to NYC and one can really appreciate the novelty all the same. The maids were absolutely adorable in their outfits. We we’re truly channeling Usagi that day and flocked to the counter to order bubble tea and onigiri (I guess we weren’t full yet). The Maid Cafe also has a Cosplay Corner where they sell lots of lovely geeky items and of course, cosplay. So the brunchettes were all over that!
An enjoyable afternoon spent eating, and talking, and eating, and shopping, and eating, and hanging out with awesome brunchettes! Many photos were taken, many gifts were given, and I seem to recall many foods being eaten. Yeah, we made magic that day.
PS – Geek Girl Brunch would like to thank all of our Etsy Swag Bag sponsors for the magical items they sent our magical brunchettes! Check them out and buy their stuff! Or the Negaverse will win!
*SQUEE* I’m also giggling because I was in that crazy line for the BTSSB opening on Allen St. It was so worth it though and I hope the shop does well there. [Because I wasn’t able to spend any moolah at its opening!] I’ll have to get my GF to take me to that Maid Cafe on my next visit to NYC. 🙂
Everybody looks about ready to go kick some bad guy booty!! :DD
Most of us didn’t buy anythin either lol. You’d love the Maid Cafe!
This sounds like an AMAZING time! And everyone looks fab!
This both fills my heart with joy and sadness. The joy is obvious, but WHY OH WHY must distance always get in the way!!! I would love to join you girls. I vote for a virtual geek girl brunch (hello Google hangout)!!!
OMG THIS IS SO AMAZING! WISH I LIVED CLOSER :,-(
We wish you did too, Sammus! Maybe next time you’re in the city you can join us! We do have plans to expand GGB so stay tuned to hear about that.