I felt that the brunch menu for Julian's was sufficiently different from the main dinner menu to warrant its own review. As you may remember from a previous post, I do enjoy Julian's as a relaxed dining option with high quality food without an unreasonable price tag. This is the second brunch experience we have had there, but I think the better of the 2 meals.
The brunch menu does include some more lunch-type options, but I am a huge fan of breakfast, so even though we arrived a little after 1pm (they only serve brunch until 2pm on Sundays), I was sure to stick with a combination of sweet and savory breakfast options. We did start with some interesting drink options - I ordered a passionfruit bellini and my fiance got a mimosa. The bellini was not as I was anticipating, but was yummy. The bellinis I have had in the past were a 50:50 combination of pureed fruit and champagne. This was more 10% fruit and 90% champagne. Don't get me wrong, this was certainly more of a bang for your buck alcohol wise, but just not as strong in fruit flavor as I was anticipating. It was almost more of a passionfruit mimosa. There was a sugar rim to the glass, which was an interesting touch for texture and a stronger punch of sweetness. My fiance got a mimosa - very traditional, no surprises there.
I actually couldn't choose between sweet and savory for this meal, so I got both. I ordered the spinach and goat cheese omelet with whole wheat toast on the side. The omelet was very good, although it may have been a it heavy on the goat cheese for my taste. The egg part of the omelet was very thin and tender. I've never had an omelet where the eggs were so thin - almost crepe like. They were light in color, making me think that there was less egg yolk in it than normal, but I don't know if that was the case. I am definitely going to have to attempt to replicate this. The goat cheese provided a wonderful creamy texture with that hit of tang in the background, warm and rich. The spinach was tender with an earthiness that grounded the dish. Crunchy and hearty, the bread was also excellent.
My Fiance got the eggs benedict. Now, he hammered this before I even got a real bite to comment on it. The one interesting thing to comment on this dish about was that the eggs are on corn bread instead of the traditional english muffin. While this adds some texture to the meal with the grains of the corn meal, it did mean that it was a it more messy to eat as the corn bread breaks up much more easily.
My mother got the smoked salmon omelet with feta, onions and capers. Now, this was an interesting combination. To me, smoked salmon and eggs are a pretty classic combination, but the feta, onions and capers are a twist on the traditional. I'm not a big fan of capers or onions, but they were good in this dish. The onions gave some crunch and the capers were little bursts of saltiness. Now, I think this dish was a bit heavy on the salt factor - the smoked salmon and capers are both salty and the feta also have a bit of saltiness. The feta did provide the creaminess that cream cheese normally has when paired with smoked salmon, but the additional tang took a it of getting used to. Overall, an interesting twist on some classic flavors.
The crepes were my side dish, and an excellent addition to the meal. The crepes were super thin and tender, much better than the last time I got this dish. Now, the interesting thing about ordering this dish was that it came out with a pool of whipping cream (not whipped cream) as it had all fallen with the heat of the crepes. now, I find this to be odd, since wouldn't they have found a solution to this problem previously? Mine can't have been the first set of warm crepes to have the whipped cream put on top and then melted. Maybe they could start putting it on the side since then the warmth would not affect the volume of the whipped cream. However, they were still yummy and full of tender, summer ripened fruit. A definite repeater, maybe with the whipped cream on the side to keep it intact.
I have one comment on service. There was only one waitress in the dining room for this meal. When we arrived, there were two other tables finishing up their meals, and after they left, we were the only table. The service was remarkably slow considering the lack of other customers. I had the feeling this waitress was still getting into the swing of things - maybe she drew the short straw of working Sunday morning because she was new. We gave her the benefit of the doubt, but the meal just did not run smoothly.
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