Ante Meridian: Brunch Pop-Up
I made another reservation at the purple house for a Sosh event hosted by the same chef as the pasta tasting, except this time I was joined by a different friend. This time around, Chef Alexander Hong was hosting a pop-up brunch that was deemed ‘Instagram-worthy’. I’m not sure how I feel about that name considering I would rather the food be delicious than pretty, but I’ll take it if he can give me both :).
At first glance, I was a little skeptical of the menu. Peas and onions are not exactly the most appealing ingredients in the world. Considering that’s half the menu right there, I was afraid I would be either walking out of this meal still hungry, or I’d have to eat several plates of waffles at the end to fill myself up.
No poached egg to start with this time, but we did have a delicious (and very Instagram-worthy) muffin instead.
You can’t really go wrong with mushrooms and ricotta, the english muffin was nicely toasted, and the pear was an interesting note that surprisingly worked nicely with the rest of the dish. The flowers were a nice touch :).
The next dish was not my favorite, but as I had mentioned before…onions? Not my thing.
Too be honest, I didn’t really know which ingredient was what, and I wasn’t the most excited to try the green parts of this dish. (I’m normally a big fan of green things, I promise!) I mostly munched on the salmon while D ate the less savory parts of the dish :).
The third course was another largely green dish, but this time I was much happier.
This was pretty much a more savory version of the ordinary Chinese rice porridge. The peas and radishes on top added a nice contrast in texture. AND…poached egg! Because really, it’s not a brunch unless there is at least one poached egg.
We finished off with what was supposed to be the chef’s famous black truffle waffles. I had heard some raving reviews around how delicious these were, so D and I were quite excited to dig in.
This was the only dish that was family style. But there were no worries around each person getting enough because we were allowed to get plate after plate after plate after plate of these decadent fried goodies. The black truffle flavor barely came out, but I enjoyed the waffles nonetheless. They were crispy, light, and not at all dense like the homemade waffles one might make from a box of mix. I didn’t need to eat 10 of these, but I had at least 5 and left feeling quite full of waffles.
Overall, D and I enjoyed this meal but I probably wouldn’t come back again. It was a decent meal, but it is a bit of a higher price point ($40 for a brunch) and I didn’t love the dishes enough that I would be willing to do it again.
One fun note – this was a BYO(drink), so people were bringing Blue Bottle coffee, orange juice, beers, etc to enjoy alongside their meal.