I'm Becoming One Of "Those" Brunchers

I've never been a big brunch person aside from when I lived with my best friend, Erica. She and I honestly morphed into the same person while living together, I'm convinced. My favorite thing about her is that she loves food every bit as much as me and our thoughts on how much happiness food provides are identical. Let's just say that this made for a lot of eating and drinking during our time as roommates.

Whenever I think of brunch, I think of her and I love those memories. One of our very favorite places back in Atlanta is the oh so simple yet fabulous Goldberg's. It's nothing fancy but they have killer food and do the most amazing homemade granola (even if it may or may not have an odd hint of garlic...). Goldberg's turned me into a brunch person mainly because the food you get is something you wouldn't do at home and it's delicious unlike so many weak places I've gone, even in this city, that serve me eggs for $20 that I could do far better myself. At any rate, there's been a huge rise here with restaurants doing these "unlimited mimosa/bloody mary" brunches with the purchase of an entree so going to brunch has suddenly become a bit more intriguing to me. This month alone, I got three consecutive Sunday brunch dates on the calendar and I've been loving it. Ever since having Bar Boulud's ridiculous croque monsieur, I suddenly have this urge to try as many new places as I can, ha!

I was at Locanda Verde a couple of weekends ago which was just delicious. I had the soft scrambled eggs over crostini with prosciutto and we got fresh squeezed blood/naval orange-pomegranate mimosas:

Gosh, I take terrible pictures. Good thing eating this stuff doesn't rely on that. :P My only complaint is that the portion was just so small. I have a huge appetite and, for what we paid, I feel I should've gotten much more than that. They don't even do a bread basket or anything which is rather disappointing. However, again, the food was fabulous and to have the only complaint be that I wanted more of it seems pretty darn good to me.

Brunch this past weekend was at a new joint that opened up in my neighborhood called MXco. I'd been once prior but only for drinks (watermelon margaritas!) which were fantastic. I've gotten so pissed off about so many places here where the service and management is just flat out rude and acts as though you're an inconvenience. After waiting tables for 8 years and doing my best to make people feel welcome, I can tell you that it infuriates me to deal with snotty service staff. At MXco, they honestly could not be nicer. The greeter, the server, the manager, the bartender...every single person we encountered was wonderful and the food totally exceeded my expectations. I got the breakfast burrito which seemed so simple comprised of eggs, black beans, cheese, tomato, and bacon but it was perfectly balanced and well done. There were five of us dining and all of us truly enjoyed the experience, enough to move to the bar after for a couple of more cocktails. ;) For $10 (with drinks only at $5!), you can bet I'll be frequenting this spot especially with it being so close to my apartment. 

Yep, I've officially become one of "those" brunch people and I'm slowly getting addicted. Next up this weekend is Gusto and I'm SO excited for it. I've only had lunch there but it was to die for so we'll see how brunch measures up! All I can say is cinnamon-ricotta fritelle. Yep, I'll be going to town on that I can guarantee.