Icebrunch

On Sunday J and I woke up with a need and desire for a good big brunch. This is not as easy as you might think. We started by inspecting a new place, the seaman's favorite, Kaffivagninn. It turned out to be a Luby's style cafeteria, complete with the ancient mariners in the corner, enjoying their post-breakfast smoke. Not quite the atmosphere we were looking for, so we headed to a more upscale joint downtown.

Brunch is a relatively new concept here, and it's obviously not caught on as a fun weekend activity. The place we went is one of the ubiquitous cafe/bar/restaurant places, so it was quite empty at so early an hour. 11 am on a weekend seems to be considered indecently early here (if you went to bed at 5, it is pretty early) so our only company was the guy next to us who downing his first beer of the day.

We ordered coffee to start with, which is a do-it-yourself pot here. There's no peroxide blonde waitress with blue eyeshadow that swings around with her coffeepot, calling you honey and asking if you want your cup topped off. The cups have saucers and proper teaspoons to stir with, the sugar is all in cube form, and the milk is in a tiny pitcher. If you want water, you'll have to ask, since the only other beverage you get at this place is a tiny glass of club soda. Maybe it's to aid digestion? It's definitely not enough to quench thirst.

As for the meal, we both ordered the Stór Brunch (big brunch) which was not misnamed. It came on a square trencher of a plate, and included every brunch food you can imagine. There were pancakes (complete with Aunt-Jemima style maple syrup), a swarm of bacon, toast, potatoes, eggs fried or scrambled, sauteed mushrooms, and a grilled half tomato.

Altogether, the content was excellent- the pancakes were fluffy and nicely cooked, the bacon was superb but in excessive amounts, the fried eggs were just right, with the runny yolk and firm white, the mushrooms were a nice addition. The toast was ok, but I missed the jam, and the potatoes needed work. They weren´t sinfully fried enough, and they lacked secret seasoning like all good brunch homefries must have. Both of us were also befuddled by the tomato- I know it's an English thing, but it's nothing I've felt was missing from other breakfasts.

All in all, it was worthwhile, and calmed some of the yearnings for a good brunch, although it still cannot touch the majesty that is the Deluxe Town Diner breakfast. J and I were actually talking about how we could buy a dilapidated diner and import it, set it up here, and teach these people how to make a proper homefry.

now there's a plan.