Foods from Backdrop
Comments
2014 Aug 3
Had late weekend breakfast here two days in a row on their shady-in-the-morning-with-sun-adjacent (my preference) patio.
On the Saturday I had 'The Usual' which, as you'd expect, consists of two eggs, potato, beans, slice of tomato, choice of meat and toast. Eggs were perfectly poached soft by request, for the meat I had the choice of bacon (smoked in-house), brisket (I believe also in-house), pulled pork (again...), and tandoori lamb (!). I opted for the brisket, which was sliced thin and quickly crisped up in a pan, resulting in a really tasty kind of 'beef bacon.' The potato hash was a flattened ball or puck of shredded potato with seasoning and maybe a bit of red pepper? Dark and crispy on the outside, nice and moist on the inside. The beans are a bit like a glommed-together white bean salad, served on top of the slice of tomato, also quite good. For $10, including bottomless coffee (which they get from Grounded, only a few buildings down), I felt I got my money's worth.
This morning I decided to go for the steak and eggs. The steak was a marinated bavette, textbook medium-rare. Next to it were TWO of the hash potato pucks, topped with mushrooms and two poached eggs (again, perfect poach), and accompanied by the same white beans and slice of tomato, and toast. Left very satisfied again, service was attentive without being the least bit smothery. $16 for the steak and eggs.
Took a photo of the first breakfast, but the brisket wasn't very photogenic, so I'm accompanying my review with a photo of the Bloody Caesar I had with the straight breakfast yesterday; it was a thing of beauty.
Will definitely be back (there's nothing on the brunch menu I don't want to try), as it's only a couple of blocks from my place. Looking forward to trying out lunch (they have a take-out window around the side specializing in waffles (with bison chili poutine or coconut-lentil curry on top, for instance) and waffle sandwiches (pulled pork, tandoori lamb with raita, &c) and dinner. Doesn't hurt that I live only a couple of blocks away, but even if I didn't, I might make the trip to check it out. Wish them well.
On the Saturday I had 'The Usual' which, as you'd expect, consists of two eggs, potato, beans, slice of tomato, choice of meat and toast. Eggs were perfectly poached soft by request, for the meat I had the choice of bacon (smoked in-house), brisket (I believe also in-house), pulled pork (again...), and tandoori lamb (!). I opted for the brisket, which was sliced thin and quickly crisped up in a pan, resulting in a really tasty kind of 'beef bacon.' The potato hash was a flattened ball or puck of shredded potato with seasoning and maybe a bit of red pepper? Dark and crispy on the outside, nice and moist on the inside. The beans are a bit like a glommed-together white bean salad, served on top of the slice of tomato, also quite good. For $10, including bottomless coffee (which they get from Grounded, only a few buildings down), I felt I got my money's worth.
This morning I decided to go for the steak and eggs. The steak was a marinated bavette, textbook medium-rare. Next to it were TWO of the hash potato pucks, topped with mushrooms and two poached eggs (again, perfect poach), and accompanied by the same white beans and slice of tomato, and toast. Left very satisfied again, service was attentive without being the least bit smothery. $16 for the steak and eggs.
Took a photo of the first breakfast, but the brisket wasn't very photogenic, so I'm accompanying my review with a photo of the Bloody Caesar I had with the straight breakfast yesterday; it was a thing of beauty.
Will definitely be back (there's nothing on the brunch menu I don't want to try), as it's only a couple of blocks from my place. Looking forward to trying out lunch (they have a take-out window around the side specializing in waffles (with bison chili poutine or coconut-lentil curry on top, for instance) and waffle sandwiches (pulled pork, tandoori lamb with raita, &c) and dinner. Doesn't hurt that I live only a couple of blocks away, but even if I didn't, I might make the trip to check it out. Wish them well.
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Started with a very weak Caesar - watery, boring, and adorned with a foot-long piece of boring celery. At $10.50 this is the worst Caesar I've ever paid for. I left half of it in the glass and the clueless server didn't ask about it. Nor did I say anything though.
To eat, the fried chicken and waffles. The chicken, though it was fried very very dark, tasted really good. Still juicy. Had some spicy aoili on top with pickled onions. 2 pieces of chicken sat on top some lettuce and ranch-ish sauce on top of 2 decent waffles. They were anything but crisp by the time they got to the table but tasted decent. Came with a generous serving of very good (but salty) fries. $15, not bad.
Friend had the lentil curry. She said it tasted good but the rice was undercooked. How can a restaurant serve undercooked rice of all things???
Servers were odd. One forgot my order, one leaned over the table and got about a foot from my friends face before interrupting with something unintelligible. We asked him to back off and repeat, just trying to take our order. Very odd.
Nice patio. Won't rush back but won't avoid it either. They have to learn how to make a real Caesar before charging a premium price and need to train their servers to be normal people but my food was good.