Critic's Review
Brio is a chain "Italian" restaurant in the mold of Olive Garden and Carrabbas; they also own restaurants named Bravo! Italian Cucina, which is not to be confused with Bravo Ristorante on SE 17th, which is not part of this chain. I know a couple of people who work for Brio on Hallandale and they say its quite busy; I tried the Hallandale location and I can't say that I was impressed. I've been doing weekend brunches lately, and Brio has one.
This shopping center is under construction, and the parking lot is largely empty. I was worried that the place might be like Sunday at the Cheesecake Factory, but the center was fairly deserted. They have a menu on the sidewalk, but it's a regular lunch menu, so I thought that they may not be doing brunch anymore; it was 2pm and they run their brunch until 3pm on both Saturday and Sunday.
I asked the hostess about brunch and she said they were indeed serving it. I looked into the bar, thinking I might catch some of the last day of the Olympics, but the bar was deserted and TVs were off to the side, so it's not a great bar for watching TV. So I got a table in the vast dining room that had a total of 2 other tables occupied.
They have an open kitchen, which seems to be all the rage these days. Garish is the word I'd use to describe the decor; bad Italian music like Vendero and Proto plays a bit too loud. I'm not sure who they're trying to appeal to.
Service here is strange. I asked for coffee, and he kept swooping by, each time bringing something different. He brought the coffee and then asked if I wanted cream or milk, then he came back with the cream, then he came back with some water, and then some bread; not stopping at any time to take my order, which I'd long ago decided upon.
This place has the same chain problem as the Cheesecake factory; even though they serve brunch, they still serve the same bread as they do at a regular lunch, even after you order coffee. Who eats crusty bread and butter or herbed flatbread with coffee and eggs? It would be nice if they could give you a choice of a muffin or something more suitable for breakfast.
Finally he took my order, I wanted to try the eggs oscar. While I waited, I struggled with the wireless. They have one of those annoying setups where you get a splash page and have to agree to terms to use it. They also try to get you to join some sort of mailing list. Just another chain thing that does nothing but annoy customers. When my server delivered my food, I was immediately disappointed.
I'd pictured a much larger portion, and it was clear from the color that the asparagus was overcooked. "Oscar" style is an old steakhouse topping for steaks with asparagus, crabmeat and hollandaise, which can be pretty decadent. The menu said that this item included spinach and artichokes; but this was just an incompetent recipe. Hardly any spinach, a few pieces of asparagus and a ridiculous "lemon butter" sauce that was ruined by the artichokes. Hollandaise is largely butter and lemon, so why add some other crappy sauce? And the eggs were undercooked; runny-poached isn't good.
The crap cake (no I didn't spell it wrong) was mostly bread; it had some rock shrimp bits in it but didn't taste much like a crab cake. This was clearly and without question the worst anything Oscar I've ever had.
Adding to the niceties, they were using the table next to me as a repository for garbage; the table was deserted and dirty when I arrived and wasn't cleared until after I asked for my check.
My lunch experience at Brio in Hallandale was more pleasant, but my impression of the food was about the same. This place is more like the Olive Garden than anything else, with inauthentic recipes made with a lot of filler. Eggs Oscar is hard to ruin, but they did a spectacular job.
