The Garden Brunch Cafe: Nashville Restaurant Review

What's a reunion without brunch?




Asking ourselves this, 8 of us planned to do brunch the Sunday most of my friends were in town - 17th of December. The Garden Brunch Cafe was selected as our location, and so we headed there at about 9:45 am. Unfortunately, the cafe doesn't take reservations, so there was about a 30 to 40 minute wait for us - more for those who came after us. The weird thing is that they don't seat tables of more than 6, and all had to be present for us to be seated. This meant that 4 of us got a table first - and then 2 of us had to wait an ADDITIONAL 30 minutes for the last 2 to arrive to be seated. We weren't too happy about that, but by the time we were hungry enough that we just wanted some food - a good decision, since the food was great! The ambience was chic and modern, and not too busy.

I loved these centrepieces!

We decided to get a carafe of their mimosa for the table - mimosas make everything better, and you simply can't do brunch without them. Really silly, but I got excited about the fact that they spelt 'litre' with an 're' - you can see it in greater detail in the second picture.

I decided to get the fiesta omelette, with turkey sausage, green peppers, cheddar, onions, and jalapeno peppers, and a side of pancakes to share. One of my friends ordered the same, and the others got the french toast, and the breakfast bowl - scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, a choice of bacon, sausage or ham, served over pan roasted potatoes - with an iced coffee.

Oddly enough, there was no cutlery on the table, and we had to ask for it. In fact, the service for such a popular place was slow and substandard - hopefully, this was just a one time thing. For example, one of our friends ordered a southern pecan flavoured black coffee. This came, but we had to ask for the cream, which took a while to bring. The same friend had asked for her omelette without onions - however, it came with.

Okay, back to the food. My omelette came with toast and grits. The grits were FANTASTIC. They were perfectly creamy, and I had to pace myself in order to avoid finishing them all in one bite! The fluffy pancakes also got a 10/10 - they were perfectly fluffy, and just slightly gooey in the centre. I absolutely LOVED them.

The omelette was good too - however, it wasn't closed, and the ingredients were cut really big! So this meant I had to take a bite of peppers separately, then sausage separately, and so on.

Fiesta omelette

My friend who ordered the french toast really liked it, and rated it among her 'top 5 french toast experiences'. The only thing she would've improved was to have her eggs come with some toast.

French toast with a side of eggs

My friend who ordered the breakfast bowl wasn't as pleased with his experience. While the flavours worked well individually, he felt that they didn't mix well together - it was like a deconstructed breakfast bowl. Everything was really big and chunky, and the eggs were a huge mass. However, he loved his iced coffee, which he ordered without whipped cream and deemed perfect. With a slight chocolatey flavour, it reminded him of a kid's drink from back in the day.

Breakfast bowl

Overall verdict - good food - I'd return for the grits and pancakes alone! However, service is in definite need of improvement. 

Le Grenier à Pain: Restaurant Review

"Have you been to that new French place? I've heard it's amazing!"

Well, obviously, I hadn't been, and was dying to go, which is why when I planned to meet friends for brunch Saturday morning two weeks ago, I thought it'd be great to try Le Grenier à Pain.

I got there a little earlier than my friends, and this turned out to be a good and a bad thing. Good because, well, I got to check out the place and get a feel for the vibe - very laid back chic, a place that you could go to for a lot of different things including:

• A first date
• A tenth date!
• Writing
• Working
• A (casual) interview
• Brunch with the girls
• Well... brunch with the guys too!

And that's just what I came up with in a minute.

Why my getting there early was a bad thing - I got to check out the entire menu, and realised I wanted EVERYTHING. I had gone in having casually scoped the menu online, and I'd decided what I wanted, but after having some time for a thorough perusal, the choice became more and more difficult!

To drink, I decided to go for the chai latte. I liked it a lot, and would say it's probably one of the top three you can get in Nairobi. In fact, by the time my friends came, I'd polished off my first and was ready for another! What I liked - it was spicy, sweet and steamy. What could be improved - the spice was slightly diluted, and a bit of a 'milky' flavour came through. 

I love that before we ordered anything, they gave us some bread. It was yummy, although a little on the tougher side - perhaps because I let it sit for a while!

After what seemed like HOURS of indecisiveness, I finally decided to go with my first choice - the pain perdu pomme-cannelle & sirop d'erable (I'm proud that I actually understood part of that!). For the rest of us, that's apple-cinammon French toast with fresh fruits, creme fraiche and maple syrup.

My friends decided to go with the raisin swirl and the pain au chocolat. The friend who ordered the former said that it was fresh, warm, with a great blend of flavours and it was easily in the top 5 she'd ever had. The pain au chocolat, on the other hand, was nice, but not the best she'd ever had.

On my part, I absolutely LOVED my French toast! 9.5/10 for sure. It was amazing - not too sweet, with the subtlety of flavours coming through perfectly. Even more perfection would have been achieved if there were more strawberries in the fresh fruit to go with it!

Overall verdict? I would highly recommend this place, and I can't wait to go back! In fact, as I sit here writing this, I made the mistake of looking at their menu (we never learn...) and now I'm hungry.

The ambience was great, and the service was amazing! Our server (Faith, I believe) checked in on us enough to be helpful, always had a smile on her face, and seemed like she genuinely loves her job.

For a place that's been around since Jan, with their grand opening 3 or 4 weeks ago - well done!!