dddane wrote:riverside cafe... is a unique dining experience that's for sure. it always feels a bit pricey when i get the check too. the spread they put out for breakfast is amazingly diverse... everything from boxes of twinkies to empanadas to mexican food.. i felt kinda let down the past 2 times going there though and haven't been in awhile..

I'm always torn on Riverside Cafe. It's a fun, quirky little spot and I love the eclectic diversity of the spread, but the truth is that most of the food ranges from passable to pretty bad.

The Harrison location of Orange was very good today. No obnoxious wait, pleasant service, fresh fruit (orange, lime, and ginger smoothie), and just barely-done omelettes, the way I like 'em. I had the "11.5," which had a generous handful of coarsely chopped leeks, crispy bacon, and rind-on brie, with their signature smashed potatoes and english muffin. The rosmary-orange french toast I sampled was also excellent.

After multiple trips to both the Original Orange (on Clark, North of Belmont) and the Orange on Harrison, my wife and I have come to the conclusion that the location on Harrison is better. The whole experience is better. MUCH better food, easier wait, more pleasant service. In fact, after our last outing to the original Orange, we vowed never to return to that location - and it is much closer to us that the South Loop. I think next time, we'll try the location in Roscoe Village...

I've only been to the harrison location, so I can't speak for comparison, but I've been a little let down by Orange the couple times I've been there. Every time I go I get really excited by the creative menu choices, but the end result doesn't quite live up to the expectation. Caprese benedict is pretty good, but I have consistently better quality and cheaper experiences nearby at Yolk (who needs to work on serving size for their specialty french toasts)

Still on a personal search for the best brunch. Have yet to try the bongo room. Might head down there right now actually.

Teira wrote:Have yet to try the bongo room. Might head down there right now actually.

One thing I really like about the Bongo Room is that they can do variable portion sizes. For example, when they have a regular portion size of three pancakes, they're willing to serve lower-priced portions of one or two, rather than three. That makes it easy to try several things on their menu.

While I praised a recent experience at Orange above, my candidate for the best brunch experience in Chicago is Cuatro (highlighted at bottom of linked page):

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.ph ... ght=brunch

They bring out the best of the space, service, and food on Sundays with innovative and less-expensive-than-usual drinks and plates, and a dynamite bossa nova trio, excellent musicians playing at a laid-back volume and decidedly good humor.

I haven't done it in a while, but I also greatly enjoyed the Sunday brunches (11-2) at Meson Sabika in Naperville:

http://www.mesonsabika.com/mesonsabika/

Where else in Illinois can you have all-you-can-eat tapas in a stunning 1847 mansion.

briansemerick wrote:very true - although if you're just a couple you should be fine within 15 minutes. any more than that and you could be looking at 45 easy. since most of their tables are two-tops.

I ate brunch at M. Henry this morning. We arrived at 9:30 am and our party of two was seated immediately, although there were quite a few people waiting for tables for larger parties. When we left at 10:30 the waiting time was 35 minutes for two-tops and 45 minutes for parties of four.

Super Cup Restaurant at the northwest corner of Lawrence & Central

Howdy y'all. The GF and I went to a place by home that we've been meaning to try - Nellie's on Division, just west of Western. I searched the forum but didn't find anything, but did find something here and it is sometimes in the Time Out Chicago listings...

Anyway, it's a terrific breakfast/lunch place specializing in Puerto Rican comfort food. They offer a buffet brunch on Sundays for $12 and includes coffee & juice. They also offer a lunch buffet Wed-Fri from 11:30 to 1:30. Since it was Saturday, we chose the desayuno Jibaro and GF got the scramble w/ham, with toast and home fries...and a side of plantains.


Desayuno Jibaro, Scramble plate, Plantains

The restaurant's special was quite delicious - omelette with plantains, filled with cheese, sausage, bell pepper, onion and tomato - and came with toasted french bread, and a starter cup of their delicious avena de coco, oatmeal infused with coconut milk and sprinkled with cinnamon.

When we asked for hot sauce, the waiter brought over Tabasco, El Yucateco, and their "house sauce" which was Puerto Rican peppers mixed with habaneros and garlic marinated in vinegar. It was quite tasty, and when I asked him for a knife to scoop out some peppers to go with the vinegar, he offered the "really hot" house sauce, which was more viscous than the first one and had a really nice heat (more after-burn than flaming heat).


The regular (small bottle) and hot house sauce

All the food was great, and they served steamed milk with their coffee (cafe con leche, yo) and the people there are very friendly.

We were trying to figure out what was there before Nellie's took over, since the restrooms were labeled "Rams" and "Ewes" - definitely not a Puerto Rican tradition to my knowledge...

Nellie's Puerto Rican Breakfast & Lunch Restaurant
2458 W Division St @ Campbell
773-252-5520
Wed-Fri 9am - 3pm
Sat 9am - 3:30pm
Sun 9am - 3pm

And the flyer we found said that their avena de coco is available every day at Cafe Colao 2638 W Division.

nsxtasy wrote:
3. Buffet places that only serve brunch on Sundays, including Seasons at the Four Seasons

We are thinking about meeting up w/ a few friends@ Four Seasons this Saturday afternoon, is the brunch still only served on Sundays? If so, how's the afternoon tea at Four Seasons which I would assume it's served on Saturdays (as well as Sunday)?

fenger wrote:We are thinking about meeting up w/ a few friends@ Four Seasons this Saturday afternoon, is the brunch still only served on Sundays? If so, how's the afternoon tea at Four Seasons which I would assume it's served on Saturdays (as well as Sunday)?

The buffet at Seasons (which is lavish and spectacular) is only served for Sunday brunch. However, Seasons is open for lunch every day, so if an a la carte lunch works for you, that's an option. You can see their lunch menu here.

Of course, there are lots of places you can go for lunch on Saturdays, as long as you're looking for a regular lunch (i.e. the same lunch they serve during the week, not something specifically designated as brunch). Nicer places in the Michigan Avenue area that serve lunch on Saturdays, in addition to Seasons, include NoMI (in the Park Hyatt), the Lobby (in the Peninsula), the Cafe (in the Ritz), Pane Caldo, Cafe Spiaggia, Bistro 110, and most of the steakhouses.

Places that serve a Saturday brunch (not just lunch, but brunch, i.e. they usually include breakfast dishes on the menu) include Frontera Grill and Adobo Grill in the downtown area and, away from downtown, Sola in North Center, and Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook

HTH

I'm w/ a bunch of girls (including the wife), who wants some of that afternoon-tea "stuff" to "catch-up"...not sure how I got dragged into this, but I'm pretty sure I'm just there to pay the bills. I think we are headed to the four seasons, per wife's order.

Thanks for the detailed info! I know it'll come in handy down the road.

I don't know much about afternoon tea, but these topics may help:

High Tea
Afternoon Tea

Today we went for the first time to Between in Wicker Park for Sunday brunch, and it was superb; we loved it.

Walk in, and you immediately notice that the atmosphere is comfortable/cozy; I can see why their website refers to it as a "boutique cafe and lounge". There's a long bar along one side of the room, with thickly-upholstered bar stool type seats with backs. There are three kinds of tables: high two-tops with the same seats at them as at the bar; conventional-height four-tops with conventional chairs with matching thick upholstery; and huge overstuffed couches with low tables (like wide coffee tables) in front of them, some of which are behind a thin curtain-like arrangement. Comfy and nice, wherever you are.

We chose Between because the brunch menu on their website sounded unique and different from even the usual breakfast specialty places. That's essentially the menu they had there today. We observed the frittata and bacon-croissant bread pudding delivered to the next table, and they looked so good we wondered whether we should have ordered those instead, but as it turns out, we loved everything we got, too. We got their eggs benedict, which may be a misnomer because it's not like any eggs benedict we've had before (and all the changes were for the better!). Instead of an English muffin, they use a yummy buttermilk biscuit; instead of conventional poached eggs, the eggs had whites and yolks mixed, like very light scrambled eggs; the hollandaise was smooth and mellow; and the sliced beef tenderloin was a wonderful addition. The house bacon-potatoes were like excellent (and non-greasy) home fries with bacon chunks added. It was just an excellent dish all-around. So was the duck confit club sandwich. The menu refers to it as "pulled duck confit" but the consistency was more chopped, almost minced. The rest of the sandwich was as described on the menu, with avocado, bacon, arugula, and herb mayonnaise, on wonderful brioche bread; there were also capers, unmentioned in the description. This, too, was excellent, as was the accompanying salad. Both portion sizes were ample, but we decided we had barely enough room to split one of the sweet entrees for dessert. We got the tiramisu waffles napoleon, and they complied with our request to omit the espresso syrup (so they had no coffee flavor). This was another excellent dish, with two layers of waffles, with the mascarpone between the waffles and topped with whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

We arrived shortly after they opened, but even when we left around 11:15, there were plenty of empty tables, so you should have no concerns about long waits like at some of the other Sunday brunch spots.

We were thoroughly delighted with our brunch at Between and look forward to returning in the near future. Highly recommended.

Between - Boutique Cafe and Lounge
1324 n. milwaukee ave.
Chicago, IL. 60622
phone 773.292.0585
Sunday brunch 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.

I feel sort of bad writing a bad review, to say, for a place, but I really just don't get the enthusiasm or high praise for the Bongo Room. I have gone twice now, and waited until after my second visit to comment, but the food is really not as good as it should be for one of the "Best" brunch places in the city.

The first time I went, I ordered the Banana toffee pancakes. The pancakes were very dry and very dense, I felt like I could of thrown one out the window. And for my liking, there was just too much stuff on them, it really masked the flavor of the cakes, for me. The service, this time was a lot better then when I went yesterday. Now, yesterday, I decided to go with the savory and I ordered two eggs scrambled (one egg white, the other regular) and as soon as I ordered that, I was told that the waitress could not promise I would get this as they are too busy to take personal requests. I continued my order, sort of shocked by this comment, as aren't all busy restaurants in this same predicament, and asked if I could get my bacon and potatoes well done, to which the same comment was given. My friend ordered the pretzel pancakes and again they were so heavy and dry, it's like they just put out whatever they can because they are so busy, I don't know, but the entire experience again was very disappointing and I could think of several other places that are way above my experiences at the Bongo Room.

I guess some of it comes down to what kind of food you want for brunch - sweet, or savory, pancakes, or eggs, or lunch-type dishes, etc. I really love the pancakes at Bongo Room. As noted above, you can get partial portions so you can try several, and I usually do. I haven't found them to be overly dry or overly dense (although if you're looking for plain, very light, fluffy pancakes, you might be better off at Walker Brothers or even IHOP - yes IHOP is a chain but they have "country" pancakes containing cream of wheat that are actually quite good). The real attraction at Bongo Room is not just the pancakes themselves, but the preparations and added ingredients that make up each pancake dish. Most of the pancakes come with an added ingredient as well as a sauce, either on top or alongside. You can even mix and match, one type pancake with the sauce shown on the menu for a different type of pancake. One of the very best pancake dishes I've ever had (topped perhaps only by the Walker Brothers apple pancake) is when they had blueberry pancakes topped with almond panna cotta cream. Of course, if you don't like dessert-y preparations like that (and think that's "too much stuff"), then maybe the Bongo Room isn't the best place for your tastes, but that's where the food at Bongo Room really shines, IMO. As for the service, I've always found it to be fine; in my experience, their servers tend to be very young (I'm guessing there aren't that many places for those under 21 to get restaurant server jobs, since they're limited to places that don't serve alcohol) and maybe not all that experienced, but helpful and eager to please.

Disclaimer: I have only been to the Roosevelt/Wabash location (several times), never to the location in Bucktown/Wicker Park.

I should probably add that I've only been to the WickerPark location and that I am definitely a sweet breakfast person. Personally I find the variety at Toast and even Yolk a lot better.

Shaggywillis wrote:Personally I find the variety at Toast and even Yolk a lot better.

That's funny; I ate at Toast (Wicker Park location) about a month ago. I thought the quality of the food (I had stuffed french toast, OJ) was very good! They're both really good choices, although if I had to choose, I would still prefer Bongo Room, both for their sauce-based pancakes and for their wider variety of pancake selections. My three favorite places for breakfast/brunch are Walker Brothers, Bongo Room, and M. Henry. Unless you include the once-a-year Mother's Day brunch at one sixtyblue, which beats them all.

I haven't been to Yolk yet, but their website menu doesn't show a lot of pancake offerings. They have a lot of egg dishes, which is not surprising based on their name.

I'm not sure about Yolk's menu online, but I was there in January and they had a nice selection as well as a nice french toast selection.

You know what pancakes I really love, the Oak Tree in the Bloomingdales mall off of Michigan. Their pecan banana cakes are just really fresh and taste so good, to me.

I think the Bongo room is fine. I have also only been to the South Loop location, but Im not sure if its quite worth the wait (at least for me). Probably to some.

Lately, I've really enjoyed Meli Cafe in Greektown and Sweet Maple Cafe on Taylor Street. The wait always discouraged me at Sweet Maple but its usually only 15-20 minutes when they say 40-45 minutes. I also think the food it worth the wait. Great savory dishes and great pancakes. Yum!
Meli Cafe also has a bit of a wait if you get there after 11, but otherwise it hasn't been that bad, and I have been very happy with the brunch there, too.

it's been mentioned in their own thread, but since this seems to be a summation type thread... Frontera Grill's brunch is quite good... and unique. Saturday, they aren't open Sunday.

dddane wrote:it's been mentioned in their own thread, but since this seems to be a summation type thread... Frontera Grill's brunch is quite good... and unique. Saturday, they aren't open Sunday.

It's also been mentioned above...

nsxtasy wrote:Places that serve a Saturday brunch (not just lunch, but brunch, i.e. they usually include breakfast dishes on the menu) include Frontera Grill and Adobo Grill in the downtown area and, away from downtown, Sola in North Center, and Prairie Grass Cafe in Northbrook

though I love breakfast foods, I hate going to brunch - the crowds, the wait, the strollers... But if we can manage to get up and out the door early enough to avoid the crowds, I'm all for it.

that said, I would reaffirm the recommendation of m henry:

M Henry
5707 N Clark St
Chicago, IL 60660
(773) 561-1600
www.mhenry.net

they have these pancakes which they call "bliss cakes" that are amazingly tall and fluffy. I can't even imagine how they are made. I can only guess that perhaps whipped egg white are involved. Wonderful with blackberries and mascarpone.

I also enjoyed Over Easy this weekend, though at 8:15 on sunday there was already a 30 min wait.

Over Easy
4943 N Damen Ave
Chicago, IL 60625
(773) 506-2605

I was impressed. There was not one weak link in our experience.

I ordered a pot of tea, which is my preference over coffee but I know better than to expect much. It was excellent: good quality leaves, a generous sized pot (a bodum-style glass pot with a french press filter mechanism inside), and actual HOT water. It was one of the better pots of tea I've ever been served. The tea and coffee at Over Easy come from Julius Meinl, and they offer free coffee while you wait for your table.

My brioche french toast was lovely and moist, with a house made strawberry compote (whole berries, not too sweet) and mascarpone cheese. My husband had a breakfast sandwich thing that was very tasty and accompanied by fantastic roasted red skin potatoes. I looked with envy at the neighboring table, where a gal had ordered the special eggs benedict made with wine braised beef. Wow, that looked amazing. If I go back soon and that is still on the menu, I will definitely order it.



All this being said, I would still prefer to go to Chinatown for dim sum than out to brunch.

HI,

I am not much of a brunch person. I either eat breakfast or I eat lunch, I don't like combining them. I will occasionally brunch if there is a social reason or if the menu is interesting.

Washburne Culinary School has opened a new African restaurant named Sikia, whose Sunday brunch menu sounds interesting:

They have the usual pancakes and eggs, then they take an interesting departure:

Senegalese Peanut soup

Breads: Akara: black eye pea fritters, African fry bread,

Moroccan Salmon cakes

Entrees: Shrimp and Grits, Catfih Po'boy, Jerk Chicken, pan roast salmon Chermoula, Kebob trio: chicken and grapes, Piri-Piri shrimp and Kofta meatballs.

Entrees serves with your choice of Jollof rice or hand ground yellow grits.

Desserts: AFrican cookies and sorbet, sweet potato pie, corn meal pie, pound cake with banana ice cream and tropical salsa,

They also have a dinner menu.

I haven't attended either service, yet, though it is on my short list of places to visit.

Sikia Restaurant
Washburne Culinary School
740 W 63rd St (located within 2 blocks of the Dan Ryan)
Chicago, IL, 60621
Tel: (773) 602-5200

Hours:
Dinner: 5:30 pm-10 pm Thursday-Saturday
Brunch: 11 am-3 pm Sunday

Regards,

Nicer places in the Michigan Avenue area that serve lunch on Saturdays, in addition to Seasons, include NoMI (in the Park Hyatt), the Lobby (in the Peninsula), the Cafe (in the Ritz), Pane Caldo, Cafe Spiaggia, Bistro 110, and most of the steakhouses.

If you're closer to the river, also the Intercontinental. I ate Saturday brunch there recently with a friend who was staying at the hotel & was pleasantly surprised. They offer both a buffet & a la carte service, with all the usual suspects. A made to order smoked salmon omelet quite hit the spot & there was genuine maple syrup (in a bottle, I forget which brand) for the waffles etc.

M. Henry is one of those places with a fair number of mentions but no thread of its own; this perhaps comes closest, so I'll toss it in here.

I've hesitated going there for weekend breakfast because of the Bongo Room-like wait, although I did grab some brioche here once, but today we were up early enough and the rain looked discouraging enough that I figured we could sail in right after 8, and so we did, entering a nearly empty restaurant. By the time our food came, it was packed-- which fact will play a part later on in this saga.

Much like Over Easy (whose proprietor previously worked at M. Henry), the menu is a mix of over-the-top breakfast sweet things using lots of fresh fruit and creamy stuff, and Mexican or Italian-tinged savory stuff. Short answer, I found the sweets much, much better than the savory stuff. The vanilla bread pudding with fresh fruit and candied apples is sheer indulgence:



and sour cherry pancakes with some kind of gooey fruit center were also quite good (and damned pretty):



A poblano-filled quiche was reasonably well made, but if you order it, you'd better like poblano. I mean really, really like poblano.



None of which, however, prepared me for the train wreck that my dish would prove to be. Maybe I should have regarded the mixed messages on the menu in an Italian take on Southern breakfast as a warning. But I foolishly thought, polenta, grits, what the heck.



But this is just one of those dishes that keeps vamping in the hopes that something will make it all work, and it never did. An indifferent, vaguely Italianate chicken sausage, a baby food-like plomp of gooey grits (excuse me, polenta), some rather tough collard greens turned salty by pancetta wrongly placed where the sweet-savory mix of real bacon or ham needed to be, and two perfectly reasonable eggs. Oh, and the one thing that was on the plate that was really tasty, a tomato half with some blue cheese-crumbly stuff in it.

Worse yet, I'm not the guy who normally fixates on little details gone wrong, but there was more carelessness in this meal than I would have expected at this price-- signs that even when you enter the place empty, it gets so busy so fast on the weekends that balls start getting dropped. I might have liked my plate a little better if everything besides the eggs hadn't been lukewarm. I might have liked the eggs better if the needless pineapple garnish wasn't crowded in on top of one of them. The sour cherry pancake was fine, but I did notice that the underside of one of them was well past brown. And, well, let's just say that today at closing, they need to assign one of the line cooks to take a scrub pad, and some baking soda, and return the inside of my coffee cup and any others like it to white.

I'm not writing M. Henry off by any means, but to judge by what comments do exist on this board, it seems to be ranked near the very top of all brunch places in Chicago, and it certainly has the business on even a rainy Sunday to back it up. Unfortunately, my experience, as good as parts of it were, also clearly fell short in places.

In what Mike G notes has become the closest thing LTH has to an M Henry thread, here's my take based on a recent visit - probably my fourth since moving to Chicago. This place... sucks. Wow does it suck. What in the world are people waiting in line for? I had something called huevos borrachos (drunken eggs) served on "homemade" tortillas that were as dense, chewy, and stale as one could imagine, with a way overcooked poached egg and dry chorizo. I know people rave about that vanilla bread pudding here, but please - I implore you - get thee to Green City Market and try Floriole's bread pudding. M Henry's will seem comically amateurish. Cappuccino was served with overwhipped cream - practically butter - instead of steamed milk.

Thank goodness I got to follow by M Henry breakfast with a short visit to Mekato's. Again, what in the world are people doing at M Henry????

Kennyz wrote:Again, what in the world are people doing at M Henry????

Personally, I love their crabcake Benedict, and I think the staff does a great job in all that chaos! I've never had service problems there. Maybe I'm just lucky?

I also like Cafe 28 (chorizo Benedict), Luxbar (steak n eggs), Lula (strada), Orange (green eggs & ham), Arnold's (grits; biscuits & gravy), Wishbone (southern Benedict), & Tempo (skillets). Then I like laying on my couch the rest of the day!

Kennyz said:

Again, what in the world are people doing at M Henry????

I like M. Henry. I don't adore it. For our neighborhood -- it's a great choice for a good (albeit slightly overpriced) breakfast. And those blisscakes -- i do adore them. They're light and airy and delicious and covered in beautiful berries and granola and mascarpone cream. I've never found the service less than friendly and decent -- and I like the room -- the fake windows hanging up and the mismatched chairs and tables...i just like it. They've also got good coffee (either Intelligentsia or Metropolis, I forget which) and good juice and excellent bacon.

I would agree that their egg dishes aren't the star here. But I've not found them sucky either. My overeasy eggs are always perfectly done and if I get them scrambled, they're not done to the texture of rubber, which is something I've had at other places in the hood. And getting your eggs done the way you like them (as we've discussed in other threads) is half the battle at breakfast.

But I'm prejudiced in that I don't mind paying $20 for a good breakfast -- I like going out for it. I like sitting and drinking coffee, organizing my day, reading, people watching and enjoying some good chow while I do it. I think Tweet is superior to M. Henry on quality and variety but then again, it's further away from me. And they both focus on organic food, if that's important to you. I don't know that I'd come to M. Henry if I was from another neighborhood, though. But for a locally sourced breakfast -- it's a good choice.

Anyhow..that's why I go to M. Henry.

I go to M. Henry for the same reasons so nicely articulated by earthlydesire. (Particularly the blisscakes!) Even though, unlike him/her, I'm not right in the neighborhood.