Brunch N’ Dubs (a Brunch N’ Eats Review)

March 1st, 2023

Authored by Nina Wilson and Dynisha Murray

Pictured aboveCaramel Iced Coffee ($5), White Chocolate Iced Coffee ($5), Salmon Avocado Crostini ($13), Buffalo Chicken Sandwich ($15), and Hazelnut Cream Pancakes ($16). Photo Courtesy of the Brunch Besties.

For the month of February, we have made a concerted effort to review black owned restaurants. If you have been following us from the beginning, you may know that last year for Black History Month, we did the same thing. Celebrating Black History Month in this matter has become something short of an annual tradition for this blog. Last year was a bit of a mess. Of the three restaurants we reviewed, only one received a positive review. However, this year went a lot better and we even had hopes that we could have an entire month of positively reviewed black owned restaurants but that changed when we visited Brunch N Eats.

We could not find a lot of information on the history of this restaurant or the owner. The only things we know are the following: Brunch N Eats opened just under a year ago and the owner is Naya Campbell. That’s it. We could not find any additional information beyond what paperwork we found through city permits. We couldn’t even find anything on social media. That’s how little information was available. So with that being said, let’s move on to the details of our visit.

We visited Brunch N Eats, on February 25th, 2023. Few things to note about what we learned on our visit: The restaurant does not offer reservations to parties under 5 people, gratuity is automatically included on your bill, It is BYOB but there is a $20 corkage fee to open your bottle inside of the restaurant which is per bottle.

When we arrived, there was frenzied energy in the air. Which initially appeared to be normal, because the restaurant was extremely busy. We put our names on the waitlist and had to wait about 30 minutes to get a table. First impressions of the space was that it was dimly lit and small. The lighting did not look new and there were these old fans from the 70’s that were floating above the dining area. The kitchen was open concept, but was a basic restaurant grade kitchen. The walls of the restaurant were painted a teal green, and had fake grass and neon lights and witty sayings posted everywhere and the tables and chairs were nothing special. There was a small TV that provided the music for the entire space, and there was no sound system for the TV, so once the restaurant got packed it was hard to hear any of the music. Overall, the vibes were pretty underwhelming.

After we were seated we ordered the following items: Caramel Iced Coffee ($5), White Chocolate Iced Coffee ($5), Salmon Avocado Crostini ($13), Buffalo Chicken Sandwich ($15), and Hazelnut Cream Pancakes ($16).

Drinks and Appetizers

Iced Coffees

So normally you can’t mess up coffee. It’s pretty straight forward. Besides alcohol, coffee is one of the few items that we look forward to. The presentation of the drinks were cute. They came in mason jars and were topped with whipped cream and had condiments drizzled on top. But the coffee itself lacked flavor and was a bit watered down. The caramel and chocolate that were drizzled on top of our respective drinks pooled onto the table and became messy over time. One of the iced coffees that we ordered was meant to be white chocolate, but as you can see above that is not white chocolate. It is for these reasons that we rated these iced coffees 3 out of 5 stars. Nothing special, you could probably make it better at home.

Salmon Avocado Crostini

This was a menu item that we were looking forward to. The menu describes it as containing “smoked salmon, avocado mash, crostini (toast), cucumber, pickled onion, red pepper flakes, and lemon aioli.” Please note that the menu describes a crostini as being toast and normally it is toasted small cuts of bread.

The presentation of this dish missed the mark. You could tell by looking at it that the bread was not toasted, and everything was ill proportioned to say the least. The only redeeming quality about this dish, is the fact that the flavors were really good. The pickled onion made it very light and airy, the salmon was delicious, albeit there could have been more, and the cucumbers were fresh. The avocado “mash” was more of a thin spread than something I would call a mash.

This appetizer was not worth 13 dollars. It was good, but considering how ill proportioned everything was, how little smoked salmon you received, and how rudimentary the execution of the dish was, which it wasn’t even that because the bread wasn’t toasted, it could have easily been a 6-7 dollar appetizer. But that critique aside, we rated this dish 3 out of 5 stars.

Entrees

Buffalo Chicken Sandwich

We picked this item, because we like to try new things when we review places. And especially so if it’s a popular menu item, or something we wouldn’t normally get. The menu describes this item as containing, “fried chicken, buffalo sauce, red cabbage slaw, on garlic waffle bread.” The presentation was decent enough. The sandwich itself was not the greatest. The chicken was soggy and bland, The red cabbage slaw was not really a slaw. The buffalo sauce tasted store bought and like store brand buffalo sauce at that. The only good thing about this dish were the fries, and even they were a tad bit salty. So we rated this dish a 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Hazelnut Cream Pancakes

We had such high hopes for this dish. Especially because the menu described it as “3 pancakes, hazelnut creme, chocolate ganache, crispy wafer pieces, roasted hazelnuts, and powdered sugar.” It sounds delicious and even with the presentation, although messy it made the pancakes look delicious as well. However, the running theme of our visit is that everything is not as it appears to be. These pancakes tasted like easy bake oven pancakes. They are probably amongst the worst we have ever eaten. And we have had some pretty bad pancakes. They were gummy, but crispy on the outside. But it had no flavor. The only flavor that I could detect was that it most likely came out of a box. This was a smooth 2 out of 5 stars.

Conclusions…

This was a nightmarish experience. We didn’t even receive proper cutlery, we got plastic cutlery set. At one point we asked for water and there were particles floating in it. Our server started off being really nice, but towards the end of the visit she was nowhere to be seen and we soon realized it was because she was taking turns serving and cooking in the kitchen. We also got kicked out of the restaurant as we were getting ready to leave, because they needed our table so badly.

This restaurant was a catfish experience. If you check it out on social media, you would think that the food would be delicious and that you would have a good experience. However that was far from what we dealt with. We would only consider going back here if there were severe overhaul on essentially everything about this place. Our final rating of Brunch N Eats is 2.6 stars out of 5. We wouldn’t even send our pets to eat here.

So this was a rather unfortunate end to our black history month, but please feel free to check out some of the other black owned restaurants we have checked out in the past. Like Amina, Craytaste, or Aksum.

Thank you all so much for reading and for the support!

XOXO,

The Brunch Besties