Brunch... not bad, but not great

 

The Long bar at the Brew Bistro. Photo/JOHN FOX 

In Summary

• It may have set the bar high for its dinners, but Brew Bistro’s brunch could do with a little tweaking.

What do you do on a lazy Sunday afternoon as you count down the hours to Monday? What is the newly established “it” trend for foodies all over the world? How do you combine the greatness of breakfast bacon with quiche and possibly alcohol? You go to brunch and take up an old tradition that is getting a makeover worldwide.

Brunch was designed as “the perfect treat for Saturday night carousers;” it is a chance to get breakfast and lunch in at the same time by waking up at a later time than usual, after a heavy night out. Generally, the acceptable hours for brunching are from 11am to 5pm, but you can run as early or late as you please.

The concept has come a long way from the 1930s when it apparently gained popularity as fewer people woke up early to attend church service.

The concept has been reworked to include all you can eat and the novelty concept of the bottomless brunch, where you eat and drink all you can for a standard flat rate at a restaurant.

To the urbanite, brunch never seems complete without a fancy cocktail to wash it all down. The two most common brunch cocktails are mimosas — one part champagne or sparkling wine to one part citrus juice, normally orange — and Bellinis, which are usually sparkling wine and peach puree.

Where then in Nairobi can you find brunch? The normal coffee houses generally serve breakfast all day on weekends, but none of them have the dedicated alcohol that is customary with brunch.

Underwhelmed

After seeing a few tweets online, I decided to try Brew Bistro Lounge on Ngong Road in Nairobi for brunch. It runs here from 11am to 4pm, and has a themed drink — a mimosa in various flavours with a “buy one and get one free” deal for Ksh750 ($8.5). The price is a bit steep if you ask me, but nobody I know of can manage more than two drinks at 4pm on a Sunday, if they hope to be productive on Monday morning.

The setting on the terrace overlooking Nairobi traffic is terrific. They have a band that plays cool jazz renditions of popular music. So you will not need to shout to be heard here, thankfully.

The food though, is disappointing. Having eaten at their fine dining section, I left underwhelmed. I had fish and chips. The portion was large but my fish was greasy and I just could not get past more than a few bites. The Belgian fries though, were great and my companion and I enjoyed that.

My friend had the Texan, a poached egg on buttermilk biscuits, served with bacon and some gravy. In her words, it was not bad, but it was not great either. Lacklustre is the word I would use.

We both left feeling disappointed not because it was bad, but because it was not great.

For the price and the standard that Brew Bistro had set with their fine dining, their brunch offering was a letdown. A bit of tweaking perhaps, will resolve the issue. I hope other restaurants can take the cue and make Nairobi one of the cities with a Sunday afternoon plan solely dedicated to Brunch.