Diners & Dives: The Lowbrow Brunch

When I last wrote, I waxed poetic about my love of The Fancy Brunch (TFB). But it's not the end all, be all of brunch. In fact, many of life's greatest surprises are found in diners and dive bars. There's more than a few hole-in-the-wall joints, breakfast focused diners, and (most surprisingly) dive bars that serve up a great brunch on the weekends.

Nova: The low end of lowbrow brunching

In San Francisco, possibly the most brunch inundated city in the world, the lowbrow end of the brunch gamut is filled with a ton of places where you can have a quality brunch without spending much money. What are some of the indicators of a good lowbrow brunch joint?

Price is clearly an issue. If you're paying more than $10 for an entree but having a lowbrow brunch, you've likely wandered into a casual dining purgatory (e.g., a Chili's). I suggest running as fast as you can, unless you enjoy your brunch with a side of screaming baby. Worse, you may have found yourself in a Hipster Hell, which is a place that over charges for shitty food based on the premise that the venue is cool. I would also suggest running. A proper lowbrow brunch shouldn't cost more than $20 per person including drinks and a small plate to start.

Seoul Patch's Brunch Menu

Lowbrow brunches also have a high correlation with ethnic food. Do not fear the lowbrow ethnic brunch: it is a testament to the multi-culture quilt that is American society... And I fucking love lowbrow fusions. The breakfast burrito is only the tip of the cheap ethnic brunch iceberg. In San Francisco you can find lowbrow brunch visionaries such as Punjab, the confusingly named Chinese food restaurant that doesn't serve Indian food but does serve a free mimosa with brunch (and only $2 for each mimosa after), and Seoul Patch Korea, a popup that dishes out Korea street food for brunch at places around the city including Dear Mom in the Mission and The Window in Soma. But I digress, despite their high overlap on a venn diagram, this post isn't about ethnic food or popups.

Full of kitsch: Friendly Toast, Cambridge.

The venue itself should be a great tip off as to weather or not you're having a lowbrow brunch. Are you in a bar? Is someone in the place already drunk? Is the place covered in kitsch? Does it feel like you're eating at a creepy old lady's estate sale? Did you just order from the window of a truck? Those easy questions to ask that will very quickly illuminate the classiness of your brunch.

Diners, the hillbilly cousin to the café, are often home to breakfast, which bodes well for their ability to have a solid brunch offering. In San Francisco, Dottie's is a plastic menu diner and breakfast/brunch mecca -- despite it's claims of being a properly accented café. The pancakes are delicious, the specials are messy, the chairs fairly uncomfortable, and presentation means very little at Dottie's. All that really matters is serving up a good, quality meal for relatively cheap.

And that, friends, is the essence of the lowbrow brunch. It is something to be enjoyed, loved, and most of all experienced. Don't be afraid of finding yourself on the wrong side of the tracks for a delicious brunch.

...Oh, and for the record, my personal favorite lowbrow brunch in San Francisco is hands down Red Door Cafe.

Long Time, No Brunch.

Oh, hello there. It has been awhile, hasn't?

With good reason I've been MIA on the blog, though I've been much better about adding musings and observations to my Twitter (@brunchblog). I was in Zurich, Switzerland for a bit, which is a land where brunch isn't a tradition (though it's starting a scene). Was in Seattle, where I did indeed brunch my heart out, but didn't have a reliable internet connection.

But excuses aside, where have I been in the last month? Some highlights:

15 Romolo Poached Egg Over Duck Hash

15 Romolo Waffle Shot & Bloody Hammer

I've indulged in a Punch Drunk Brunch at 15 Romolo. A longtime favorite watering hole, it's now a favorite brunch spot too. They have a fantastic bar bites menu available every day, and their weekend brunch menu is just as well done. All dishes are bigger than small bites and cost $8-$9 -- one dish makes a meal, but you can have a giant feast for the same price as a single entry anywhere else.


I dived even further into the bar brunch scene at Dear Mom, where a cash-only snafu aside, I had the perfect hangover remedy brunch. I'm pretty sure there was Kraft cheese singles on my breakfast burrito, but it was strangely perfect. I wouldn't take a date, but if you're a hardcore hipster, you'll win cool points coming here on the weekend.

I've also enjoyed the finer things in life at Serpentine, the Dogpatch delight that never disappoints. Between reasonable prices and a well honed menu, it's hard not to leave with a smile on your face. 

Dungeness Crab Benedict

While they don't have the world's greatest dungeness crab benedict, but it's pretty damn good for less than $15. Slightly blander than you expect, the hollandaise doesn't do well competing with the buttery biscuit at the base of the benedict. While the fried lemon rind on top doesn't really do much for flavor, when it comes to presentation it's incredibly pleasing to see with the friend capers.

Banana Pineapple Pancake

Serpentine's pancakes on the other hand, actually can claim to be some of the best in San Francisco. If you leave without sharing a $5 banana walnut pancake as an appetizer or dessert, we're not friends.

The breakfast sandwich my friend had was also one of the better in the city -- so simple, yet so delicious.

And the most unexpectedly delightful dish was the biscuits & gravy -- Serpentine isn't a southern joint, but they do it justice.

Serpentine Biscuits & Gravy

Those were just a few highlights, I'll try to catch up a bit more this week... Having not been to brunch in two weeks (come the weekend, at least), I'm starting to suffer from withdrawal symptoms.

Restaurant Info:
15 Romolo
15 Romolo Place, San Francisco, CA 94133
Brunch: Saturday & Sunday, 11am-3pm

Dear Mom

2700 16th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

Brunch: Sunday, 11am-5pm

Serpentine

2495 3rd Street  San Francisco, CA 94107

Brunch: Saturday & Sunday 10am - 2:30pm

Brunch: You Fancy, Huh?

As a follow up to my last post, I decided to elaborate on my musings about brunch venues and expectations by breaking down one of my favorite types of brunch: The Fancy Brunch.
The Fancy Brunch (referred to henceforth as "TFB") is the most easily recognized brunch. It has it's fingers in a lot of pots, serving as something to do with your parents on a holiday weekend, a date activity, or, if you're a yuppie, any Saturday or Sunday.

An artfully crafted cheese plate is a sure sign of The Fancy Brunch

The reason I dub TFB the most easily recognizable brunch is because it's likely the type of brunch you hated going to as a kid, wishing instead that you got to go to McDonalds for hotcakes on Easter instead of some stuffy place that forced you to sit the whole time. At least that's what I've heard; my family did not brunch, unless you count lunch at the 24-hour IHOP.

Me being fancy.

These days, I love me some TFB. I feel especially privileged living a life in which I can afford to drop an egregious amount of money on TFB. The TFB is pretty much the antithesis to my childhood when a fancy meal was one that didn't come out of a box or the school cafeteria.

I don't want to pigeonhole TFB into a price bracket. While in a sense it could be defined by a price point, really it's much more than that. It's the service. It's the presentation. It's the seasonality of the dishes. It's the range of cocktails deemed socially acceptable to drink before noon.

But there's a dark side to TFB. It's the lurking danger that exists in any relationship. It's expectation. When I indulge in TFB, I expect to pay a premium. I expect my portions to be so small they're considered un-American. And along with those expectations, I except stellar food and great service. It takes much less to make me upset. Slow service, sloppy presentation, un-knowledgable wait staff. And the biggest blight: mediocre food -- I don't care how luxurious your leather seats are, I could spend a lot less on mediocre food. Hell, I could spend a lot less on good food.

Baked Kale... Yeah, you Fancy.

Many times the risk is worth the reward. Being doted upon by an attentive staff. Elderberry and champagne. Delicious dishes. But don't let your guard down and assume that menu prices alone ensure you a good TFB.  With that in mind, go forth and get fancy.

The Brunch Gamut: From Fancy to Far Less Fancy

Inspired by a sentence in the introduction to SFoodie's latest Top 10 Brunches in San Francisco list, I got to thinking about the types of brunches:

"This city is home to many flavors of brunch spots, from chichi raw bar restaurants to good old-fashioned American breakfast diners. We have brunches based in almost every cuisine at almost every price level in almost every neighborhood."

It's true, San Francisco has brunch offerings that run the gamut of price, taste, atmosphere, and expectation. What are some of the criteria that define the brunch venue spectrum? For the most part it's exactly what you'd expect: Price, Cuisine, Seating, Service, Full bar. But the easiest way to align your brunch expectations is to look at the meals regularly served.

If it's a dinner venue that doesn't open it's doors before 5:30pm  Monday-Friday, but supplements it's serving hours with a 10am-3pm brunch seating on Saturday and Sunday, you're looking at a pricey, potentially bandwagoning, brunch. A lot of restaurants on the finer dining end of the spectrum have begun serving brunch, offering up little variation on Benedicts, semolina waffles, and crispy/battered/bourbon french toast. Sometimes it's a fantastic gastronomical experience (see: Foreign Cinema), while other times, it can be a bit of a disappointment (see: Beast & the Hare).

If it's a breakfast joint that closes after the lunch rush and offers actual seating and table service, then you're likely about to enjoy a fine diner experience (see: Butler & the Chef). If laminated menus are involved, you can set your spending expectation a bit lower and enjoy your standard diner fare. Sometimes it'll be exceptional (see: Dottie's True Blue Cafe) while others it will be well, standard.

If you're in a bar that has a bar snack menu, you're in a very mixed bag situation. You might be at 15 Romolo, in which case you're in luck. You might have stumbled into Dear Mom on a Saturday they have a bartenders brunch, in which case you're in even more luck. Or you walked into Nova Bar, in which case you should get the hell out and go anywhere else.

In sum, whatever you're looking for can be found. This is just one way to whittle down the million and one options to the one you want.

Dear Valentine's Day: Suck It.

Warning: This post is a Valentine's day rant and contains nary a mention of brunch.

I don't mean to sound like a spoil sport, but I don't like Valentine's day. Yes, obviously I hate it more when single, but I don't like much more when paired. Expectations are hard enough on relationships without Hallmark trying to reenforce that if your boyfriend doesn't buy you something (choose 2): a) heart shaped b) delicious or c) expensive then he probably doesn't deserve to live.

But that aside, there are more practical reasons for hating Valentine's day. Reservations are impossible  to make (thank God, it's on a Tuesday this year). Prix-fixe menus take over the world. TV sitcoms become uniquely horrible rehashing the same 5 plots of wacky romantic gestures gone awry.

And to top all of that off, there is simply no avoiding it: Valentines Day is everywhere.

It's the most insidious of all holidays (well, maybe tied with Christmas), usurping window displays in convenience stores; being the default theme of every event from February 1st - 14th; and being the object of affection for every marketer of perfume, panties, candies, and even life insurance (because if you really love her, give her the gift of security this year!).

Unlike Christmas, you're not allowed to dislike Valentine's day without being a bitter asshole.

I'd love for Valentine's day to be more optional (I have the same dream for Christmas), so that one could choose to enjoy it. But, alas, I don't see a reversion from the stuffed-down-your-throat war path the world's most annoying holiday is on.

In sum: Suck it, Saint Valentine.

DIY Afterbites: Adventures in Poaching

I wrote a lengthy post proclaiming that I would learn how to poach an egg, and I'm proud to say I wasn't all talk. Here's a quick photo recap of my adventures in poaching.

To start I took Alton Brown's advice and used a skillet with about 2 inches of water instead of a deep pot, and set out on my adventure.

Once I was at a low boil is when things started getting "real" (said with the kind of emphasis that hip young kids use to denote an increase in situational intensity).

The egg was cracked and waiting to be dropped in -- would the yolk break and dissipate around the skillet like shattering glass to the floor?

This was a moment of truth.

Which went surprisingly well.  On the first try I was able to get the egg cracked and going in a simmering swirling vortex.

This probably falls into my top 10 proudest life moments. Definitely in the top 10 of my domestic life at least. Probably top 3.

But it wasn't time to celebrate yet. It wasn't until I lifted the egg out of the pan and saw it sitting in poached perfection that I could pat myself on the back. Since my own delusional sense of pride weren't enough, I forced my two roommates to come into the kitchen and congratulate me on my glorious achievement.

The final result was served over greens & toasted challah with a balsamic vinaigrette, cranberries and capers... and I enjoyed every last bite.

After Bites: Sports & Brunch = Oil & Water

I thought brunch at a sports bar would be a magical mixing of worlds. My favorite foods. My favorite friends. Sports. Mimosas. We headed to Public House, one of my favorite bourgeois sports bars (TVs everywhere! cleanliness! good beers on tap!) in the city, with high hopes and happy spirits. We left having learned a lesson.

All the ingredients were there, but they just didn't mix. Maybe we made a mistake or two -- like starting with a communal nacho plate -- but ultimately it was the atmosphere. The incongruity of trying to watch a game over brunch was near impossible. The game was distracting from the conversation and no one was in the mindset to watch a game.

Oh, and did I mention we that started with the nachos? Huge mistake.  Every subsequent bite of anything wound up tasting like refried beans. Things didn't get any better when our main dishes came since I had ordered the huevos rancheros, but there weren't that many menu options.

I might try this experiment again, 21st Amendment would be the next on my list. Maybe I won't. If I do, I can promise that I will not be eating nachos before noon ever again.