Brunch it Yourself – Buttermilk

Posted on April 26, 2014 by Sarah

The key to good, fluffy-as-fuck pancakes is buttermilk. Buttermilk is, at it’s heart curdled milk. It’s super easy to make and there’s basically no reason to pony up for the pre-ruined stuff. Here are a few simple but fab tips for making your own buttermilk AND non-dairy buttermilk:

You can sour your milk with basically anything acidic, but I prefer lemon or lime juice. It goes fast and doesn’t give your pancakes a sour taste. The most common alternative to this is vinegar.

Ratios for lemon or lime juice: 3/4 cup milk, 2 tablespoons juice.
Ratios for vinegar: 1 cup milk, 1 tablespoon vinegar.

Fat content in the milk does not matter. I use 1% because I want skim and my partner wants full fat, but do whatever youse feel.

You can sour soy milk with the same ratios listed above! The pancakes will be slightly less fluffy, but still wonderful. I am more than happy to have this when a non-dairy friend comes by.

Take these notes and go out and make amazing, fucking fluffy pancakes. You can never go wrong with these at a bitchin’ American brunch!

Trail’s End Cafe – Concord, MA

Posted on April 25, 2014 by Sarah

Trail’s End Cafe

Trail’s End is a newer, smaller place than Helen’s that’s way nicer than what was here before. Also, the nail place above the Rite Aid in the same complex is owned and operated by a lovely group of ladies.

Trail’s End is pretty, but their selection is small and their prices higher than I’d like. What they have, though, is goddamn fucking delicious.

This is French Toast Bread Pudding. I have now died from glee.

This is Apple-Cinnamon Baked French Toast, which is essentially a drier bread pudding. I have now died from glee.

If you have read any other posts here you know of my extreme french toast problem, and thus would be unsurprised I barely glanced at the menu before settling on this. And then, when it arrived, it got better. I looooooove bread pudding. Carbs and sugar bitches! And this? This was the delicious lovechild of french toast and bread pudding if bread-based food reproduced like cats and so apple pie managed to get some genes in there. EAT THIS NOW.

This quiche is so tasty it basically jumps into your face unaided.

The generally have a selection of quiche, but Talls went for bacon and mushroom. Can you tell he has a Ph.D.? What can I say, I like my men brilliant. This quiche was the right texture, right amount salty, and packed with bacon and mushrooms. They tried to balance it with fresh fruit, but of course he and I balanced it with my meal instead. So they absolutely nailed both the sweet and the savory.

In conclusion, the food was great but as it’s not in my immediate area, has a smaller food selection, and costs more than most brunch places I don’t think I’ll be back a ton. Definitely worth a stop if you’re passing through though!

Helen’s Restaurant – Concord, MA

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Sarah

Helen’s Restaurant – no website, goes to Yelp! page.

I grew up in Concord, and still remember when this place was Brigham’s. Alas, there is but one Brigham’s left – the original in Arlington, MA. Helen’s replaced Brigham’s a while back, and makes some very tasty food. I also can’t speak highly enough about their raspberry lime rickies, the very first carbonated beverage I actually liked.

Okay, enough fucking nostalgia. On to the brunch!

The food was so good I forgot to take pictures before I started eating.

I was out with Talls and a friend, and if one of them hadn’t reminded me I wouldn’t have even snapped these photos. The blueberry pancakes were lovely, as was my requisite real maple syrup. I also enjoyed my bacon, which was thicker than other places and still wonderfully crunchy.

The home fries were gigantic and wonderful.

The plates were huge and so were the portions. The coffee is very much diner coffee, which I more than enjoyed. Talls, the non-coffee citrus connoisseur, reported that the orange juice was delicious.

Seriously forgot to snap pictures.

Key things to note:

This place gets busy fast when the local churches let out, so basically after 11 it’s a mad house on Sundays. If you’re willing to wait you’ll be well taken care of – the waitresses are all pros who know how to make a packed house run smooth.
Many families with small children means it can get loud and kid-like. I’ve never had a problem with this, but if kids around at all isn’t your thing this place may not work for you.
This place is CASH ONLY. There are plenty of ATMs walkably nearby in town.

If you’re in the area to Walden Pond or North Bridge it and it’s brunch time, hit this place up for some great down home dinner food.

Acitron Cocina Mexicana – Arlington, MA

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Sarah

Acitron Cocina Mexicana

When the Talls and I first moved into this area, we immediately went on the hunt for a regular brunch place. We were shocked to find none we liked within walking distance. This was before Madrona Tree started to do brunch (although their hours are still fucking short. Who the hell stops breakfast food at 11am on a Sunday!?), and we were bereft. Where would I get my french toast fix? Who would ply us with sausage and bacon? It was all very sad, especially since Somerville and its fabulous collection of brunch places were right fucking there and we had easy access to both a car and buses. But we sobbed anyway. It was really pathetic. It did lead to the creation of the Brunch it Yourself shit though, so that was good.

But lo, the Internet did say that a fancy-great Mexican place nearby had a great brunch! We were skeptical, but desperate. So off we went to Acitron, which has since become our local brunch go-to. Isn’t that always how these melodramatic stories go?

Huevos Benedictos – please note the inclusion of an ENTIRE avocado.

Acitron’s food is great and the staff are fabulous. They tend towards the savory and you can even get a really great omelet with cactus in it. There’s still crepes and french toast, but I haven’t even tried that yet because their egg-based concoctions are JUST SO GOOD. Also, every plate gets tasty fresh fruit as a side, and how can I say no to that?

Fresh made tamale! So delicious she forgot to eat her black beans.

There’s some fab hash under all that egg.

Learn from me, brunchies: don’t be afraid to go to a restaurant that makes no intuitive sense as a brunch place. It may just be the greatest brunch place of all.

The Ball Square Cafe – Somerville, MA

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Sarah

Ball Square Cafe

Holy fuck there are lines at this place. There are so often lines there were fucking heaters in the awning above our line. The coffee is self serve even when you sit down partially to let line-standers drink coffee while they wait. If you hate lines this is not the brunch for you. On the plus side: this place has heaters and coffee for you when you stand in line, so as waiting outside for a table at a brunch place goes, it’s pretty damn comfortable. My little party of three waited for about 20 minutes for a table at 10:45am on a Sunday. We were attempting to arrive early to skip the wait when we did this, and were clearly utter fools. Ah well. Ball Square Cafe is small, but they apparently own a deli next door that was being used only for overflow seating when we went.

Seriously though, coffee in line!

I didn’t mind the line too much with my purple marshmallow coat, coffee, and lovely people to chat with. The wait also gave us time to decide what we were all going to have before we sat down, so we got our food pretty quickly. Our waitress was awesome and memorized my order when I told it to my friends so they could order for me while I ran to get a coffee refill.

I, as I am sure you are shocked to hear, went for the french toast. A pear and goat cheese french toast, to be exact. They have many delicious-sounding options, but I’ve never heard of a stuffing quite like this. The slices were ginormous and I only finished two of them. I completed the delicious meal with real maple syrup and bacon.

Those white lumps are Cool Whip. 😦 Not my store-bought whipped cream of choice.

My friends had the Eggs Benedict with Hash and the Caramelized Banana with Walnuts Belgian Waffle, which I sampled and were both lovely. Their eyes were a better size in comparison to their stomachs, so they were able to finish their meals. I, on the other hand, got to take my last slice home in an adorable container and relive this glorious experience as part of lunch on Monday.

So many noms, you guys.

I recommend this place unless you can’t deal with lines without whining constantly/breaking into hives/flipping the fuck out. They have a picture of one of their lines as a header on their website. A line is going to happen here. But for those who are willing to chat standing up for a bit, it will be well worth it.

The Burren – Somerville, MA (Davis Square)

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Sarah

The Burren

Pub Brunches are to be found all over the place, I’m sure, but I associate them closely with Boston and its surrounding towns because that’s where I’ve eaten them most frequently. I also spent a year of undergrad in Lancashire, England, so I have some pub brunch feelings left over from that. Basically I would like there to be a lot of meat on the menu.

The Burren in Davis Square is an Irish pub that has benches and tables that remind me strongly of my week in Dublin. They do great food, drink, and music during non-brunch times, and some pretty solid brunch Saturday and Sunday mornings. They are also THE place to go in this area for a full Irish breakfast. What is a full Irish breakfast you ask? From their website:

2 Irish rashers
1 Irish sausage
black & white pudding
2 eggs
grilled tomato
Irish baked beans
Irish brown bread

Neither I nor my lovely brunching companion order this as we and our stomachs are small. But if you’re a tall person with lots of space in your legs, please order this and chow down. I’ve stolen parts of this from others, and it is all delicious.

The Farmhouse Omelette: cheddar cheese, ham, onion, tomato, and onion

Although they have french toast I decided to branch out and go omelette. It was delicious and perfectly cooked. I didn’t even touch the toast and potatoes because the omelette filled me up so well. The Burren is a place to arrive hungry.

The Black Bean Burrito: Scrambled eggs, black beans, onion, green pepper, spinach, avocado & salsa, rolled into a fresh tortilla & served with homefries or grilled mash

My friend went for the above, and although I didn’t steal a bite whilst challenging myself to defeat my omelette, I have it on good authority that it was super tasty and also very filling. Said friend is an avocado authority, so if they gave this a thumbs up they definitely nailed that aspect.

They also have a kids menu (with a mini Irish breakfast!), french toast and pancakes both come automatically with real maple syrup, and vegetarian dishes. As far as I can tell, all of the servers also have real Irish accents. I’ve always gotten great service here, and that combined with lovely food makes this a nice place to grab a simple but very filling brunch.

Brunch it Yourself – Crepes

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Sarah

When I want to feel I’m eating a fancy brunch, I make crepes. They’re super easy, very versatile, and since they aren’t something most Americans have grown up eating they seem more lavish than other breakfasty brunch foods. Note: if you are feeding English people this will not work, as crepes are their standard pancakes. Which means they have crepe stands in major cities where you can just walk up and get a fresh, delicious crepe for lunch or something. Dicks. Why the fuck did that not come over on the Mayflower?

Ingredients: (this amount feeds two adults)

1 cup flour
2 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk/dairy substitute
2 tablespoons butter/oil
1/4 teaspoon salt

Ingredients!

Tools:

mixing bowl
whisk
1/4 cup measure
low edged pan (ideally small)

The perfect crepe pan.

Whisk flour and eggs together. They will clump. This is fine.
Slowly add water and milk to eggs and flour. There will be much less clumping, but still a few lumps here and there. This is not considered perfect for a crepe, but I like the texture so I keep them in.
Melt butter. Mix salt into butter. Pour butter and salt into the rest of the batter and stir.
Set the stove to medium and wait to put batter in until a little water flicked in sizzles on the pan. I never have to grease my pan due to the butter content in the crepes themselves, but if you want to do so sparingly.
Use the 1/4 cup measure to pour batter into the pan. Then pick up the pan and slowly move it so that the thin batter coats the entire bottom surface. Replace pan on stove.
When the edges of the crepe curl up, flip it. The second side will take roughly a minute or two to cook.
Place finished crepe on a plate and repeat steps 5 and 6 til you use up your batter. You can stack finished crepes right off the stove as they won’t stick together.

A finished pile of crepes.

Now comes the fun part: what will you put inside them? My giant sweet tooth means I always have at least one jam and nutella as an option. Anything that goes on toast well goes in a crepe. Fresh fruit and nuts also work well. If you want to go savory get some shredded cheese, meat, veggies, or cooked eggs. Cheddar, apples, ham, and a fried egg is one of my favorites.

Nutella, Strawberry Jam, Crystalized Honey, and cooked down grapefruit were the options today.

Fill, roll, enjoy!

Le Om Nom Nom!

The Madrona Tree – Arlington, MA

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Sarah

The Madrona Tree

I’d already been here for sandwiches and their great, made-on-the-spot sodas, but this fall they started including a breakfast/brunch menu and so I had to return. Seriously, this is the list of their standard sodas: blue-raspberry, raspberry-lime, lemon-lime, strawberry, strawberry-basil, and blackberry-mint. When I went for brunch, their seasonal option was maple. They had already earned a gold star with their drinks.

Red Sox French Toast

They have a good range of sweet and savory, and some very tasty twists on brunchy standards. They’re all Boston or Arlington themed as is so common here, but regardless they are good. The above contains apple, berry, cream cheese, and crumb topping. Also, all french toast comes with real syrup, and both the toasts and the pancakes can be made gluten free.

A scramble, a.k.a. egg-containing pile of food

Many of their dishes have a slight Mediterranean take on things due to the origins of the family who owns the place. I think they do a good job of making this work.

This lured me away from french toast. So worth it.

At other times they just go crazy with their variations on breakfast themes (this is an eggs Benedict variant) and those are super tasty as well. Those who prefer old standards will not be as happy here as those who want to branch out, but there are still options for the classic brunchers here and there.

It’s a little small so it fills up fast, but they do have a clip board so you can get in line on there instead of in person. During the summer they double their seating with some lovely tables outside that also get service.

Brunch it Yourself – BrokeAss Gourmet

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Sarah

I am not a good creator of recipes, which is why I have the allrecipes app on both my phone and my iPad. I am also not a good creator of podcasts, which is why I listen to Read it and Weep. It has little to do with brunch (although they have come out in favor of it,) but it did have the blogger behind BrokeAss Gourmet on twice for Hunger Games stuff, and she was both hilarious and culinary. This led me to go to her site, and I am now addicted to her recipes. She shows how to make fantastic food on a budget, and generally fairly quickly. Any time I can’t think of a meal, I pick an ingredient and look it up on brokeassgourmet.com.

Gabi M is so awesome she even has a tag for brunch. Let’s look at what’s on that list:

Go there. Make these things. Eat them. And if you like to listen to comics make witty fun of bad books, movies, and TV shows, listen to Read It and Weep while you do these things.

Mike’s City Diner – Boston, MA

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Sarah

Do you need vast amounts of omelet in the South End of Boston and you’re willing to wait in line for great food? If so, Mike’s City Diner is the brunch niche for you. It has also been reported to me that their lunch on weekdays is grand, but I cannot speak to this. Brunch on the weekend here is breakfast only.

Mike’s serves you an amazing amount of food.

This is a SMALL serving.

The french toast is also delivered in the above stick/slab form, which is glorious. The white glob on the right is a plastic container filled with butter, which always upside down on your bread product for easy of application.

Mike’s specializes in the egg side of the breakfast spectrum, and if you like a wide array of omelets this is an excellent place to eat. They have their standards, like the Southender.

A gigantic classic.

And their specials, like the Cambridge.

Seriously, there’s an entire avocado on that thing.

Starch fiend that I am, I went for the belgian waffle buried under a pile of fresh fruit.

With real maple syrup on the side, of course.

That bacon in the background was also mine, since protein is an import part of starting one’s day. It was that thin, crispy, diner bacon, and it was excellent.

Mike’s always has a line because it’s so good and also rather small. The meals they serve are entirely worth the wait in my mind, but if you think lines are the worst thing ever then this may not be the joint for you. It’s not too bad especially if you go early, but at 11am on a Sunday my party of four sat in about 30 to 45 minutes. Really, just go by yourself and grab a counter space or have friends you can talk to for the extra time. You will be buried in delicious food and so glad you did.

Brunch the Fuck Up

pretentious yet edible

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