By now you guys know how important brunch is. (Wow, that's just 3 posts - a search for "brunch" on my blog returns like 10 posts.) Part of the importance of brunch is trying new places, so in that spirit we checked out Uva Enoteca in the Lower Haight for brunch on Saturday.
Not too crowded at 1 pm on Saturday. In fact, not crowded at all. It was just us (me, Wife, Sister), a table of like 7 hipsters, and one table with 2 girls. I was told there would be bottomless mimosas, but there were bottomless bellinis instead which I'm not too crazy about but whatever.
The food was pretty good. I got the fried eggs, which were 2 sunny side up eggs that arrived cold. Maybe not cold, maybe room temp. Still, warm would have been good. Came with what was advertised as "bacon" but I'm sure was pancetta. Also a salad and a little "potato cake" thing. The best part is that, pre-tip, the total tab was $60 for 3 people, including 3 bottomless bellinis. We ended up drinking 2 pitchers of them but based on the table of hipsters it looked like you could pretty much hang out all afternoon and keep getting pitchers brought to you.
Anyway, just OK, not great. 3 stars out of five.
Then we had pints on the back porch of Mad Dog and then some more things happened and the upshot is The Wife was super-hungover yesterday. The end.
We tried Brunch Drunk Love at Bruno's yesterday. Very friendly service. Super good food. But I felt like they were pushing the limits on price-point. $10 non-bottomless (i.e., one) bellini. $3.50 coffee. $13 pancakes.
ReplyDeleteNow, all these things were VERY good, and if the prices don't distress you, you should definitely go, but yeah, the prices.
Thanks for the review, TK! Always looking for new places for brunch. San Francisco really needs to get it together... I feel like LA totally shows us up when it comes to good breakfast/brunch places.
ReplyDeleteOK, innocent inquiry because I just have never gotten this: Does brunch have to be at a special brunch place? Does having a Bloody Mary/mimosa/bellini on the menu make it special? Is a line/sign-up sheet required? Why can't just any place that serves all-day breakfast be a brunch place? Then wouldn't the difficulty of finding a brunch place --that luxury problem that I've been hearing about forever in SF-- be solved? Or are there not many of those places? What is the necessary je ne sais quoiness of brunch? Can just eating lunch at a regular lunch place --but it's your first meal of the day so it's technically breakfast-- count? I mean, can I roll out of bed at 10 and call an 11 am pupusa brunch? Do all these ridiculous questions (but valid ones, all!) automatically disqualify me from any potential brunch invites because who wants to explain this shit before they've had their weird weekend savory-sweet-caffeine-alcohol meal?
ReplyDeleteWow, Tam, that's a lot at 2:30 am. I'm not even gonna ask.
ReplyDeleteI'll try and answer, as best I can:
- Yes, any place that serves breakfast can be a brunch place. Having alcoholic drinks is preferable but not required.
- Pupusas are not brunch. Dim sum is not brunch. Pad see euw is not brunch. Brunch involves eggs and either bacon, sausage, or ham. Without those things, it's just lunch.
- Any place could conceivably be a brunch place, but the fact is, most places aren't. You have to serve eggs at around lunchtime on the weekend. Not everyone does that.
Actually, SF has really stepped up its brunch game in the last few years. It used to be much harder. Now it's pretty easy to have a go-to place without a wait. We have one, but I'm not disclosing it because right now it doesn't have a wait and I want to keep it that way.
Yeah, that was clearly the Unisom talking. Brunch, okay, noontime eggs on the weekend. I had watermelon salad for dinner, not sure what that was.
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