Last week I spotted a new Sunday Brunch in town, and it sounded pretty good. It was about 1pm last Sunday when I found it; the brunch runs from 10am to 2pm; and I decided that it wasn't a good idea to get to a brunch buffet near the end, as they tend not to load up buffets with fresh food 20 minutes before shutting down. So I went this week; I got there about 11:45am.
The place was pretty empty; there were a few people at tables outside, a few people at the bar, and maybe 4 tables inside taken. They serve their whole menu as well as the brunch, so I just told my server I was doing the brunch and that was that. The brunch comes with 1 mimosa; no you don't get a choice of a bloody mary. I headed over to the omelet station, which was unmanned. I waited a minute or 2, and then decided to try something else first. I scouted out the "buffet"; they had mini-bagels, smoked salmon, muffins and some fruit pastries on one table, a chafing dish with some pre-made crab benedict with a bowl of yellow sauce outside (the "hollandaise"). At the next table was the expected "scrambled eggs", watery after sitting for awhile, with bacon, sausage and pancakes. And the last table had what I thought was chicken in one dish and pasta in another.
So I set out to try it all. My first plate was pre-omelet, since there was no-one around to make me an omelet. When I got back to the table, I saw the thimble sized glass with the mimosa. (the camera lens make it look bigger that it was). This ticked me off a bit; the reason that they jack up the price to $18.99 per person is by adding the drink which you assume is worth $5. They could at least give you a whole drink. It's just OJ with a splash of the cheapest available champagne for pete's sake.
There was no cream cheese for the bagels; I'm not really a salmon guy. The sausage was cold, as was the crab benedict. The big problem with the crab benedict was that the muffin had gotten so toasted sitting on the bottom of the dish that I could barely cut it with a knife. The Hollandaise had no lemon taste whatsoever. Plate 1 was a C-.
The omelet dude finally made an appearance and I took advantage by heading over to the station. To cut him a bit of slack; in the 45 minutes that I was in the restaurant I was the only one who he served. I didn't see anyone else at the "buffet" during the entire time either; I think I was the only one who got the buffet.
I told him what I wanted and I went over to get some potatoes, bacon and more sausage. I also had him lop me off a slice of smoked him. The omelet dude is also the carving guy.
The ham was pretty good, and the omelet was the only hot food I had for the entire meal. The potatoes were ice cold; just plain potatoes with no onions, and the bacon was rubbery. I like well-done bacon but only when it's cooked that way; not because it's been sitting around for 2 hours. I give Plate 2 a B.
I was still hungry at this point and the pasta looked so dried out from standing that I wasn't going to try it; but I thought I'd try the chicken. While fishing out a piece, I got the idea of seeing if the pasta underneath was better; and in fact it was. So I did some tossing and got some pasta from the bottom that looked a bit more supple. I also thought that maybe the potatoes would be warmer on the bottom, so I did some digging and grabbed some from the bottom of the pan as well.
I'm not sure what was in the pasta; I'm guessing pesto from the color, but it wasn't very flavorful. Room temperature pasta. The chicken turned out to be fish; so well done that it might as well have been chicken. It might have been salmon at one point; it's hard to say. At least it was some form of protein. The potatoes were still ice cold from the bottom of the pan. I give the last plate a C-.
While I was eating the last plate a server came by and asked if I wanted the check. I'm not sure how she figured that since I had just returned to the table with a full plate. But there was nothing left for me to try, and I didn't feel like tracking down the omelet guy.
You probably have a pretty good idea of what I think of this brunch, but I'll sum it up for you. While I understand that they're probably losing money on this "idea", and they don't want to throw out food when there aren't any people eating the buffet, it also means that it needs to be avoided. I didn't see one person from the restaurant check the buffet, and I can be pretty sure that everything was put out at 10am and just left there for hours on end. If everything was hot and fresh it might be worthwhile, but I don't think that there's any chance that would happen unless you get there at 10am. Even so, there isn't enough higher end stuff to justify paying twice what you'd pay for a normal breakfast. I'd rather that they give me coffee than a mimosa; with coffee this would cost $25. with tax and tip, which is just way, way too much.