We had lunch at Brennan’s in Dec. 2016 in their garden room but this time we were in one of the front dining rooms for brunch. It feels more formal in this room where the walls are decorated with oyster plates and audubon prints. The cloth covered tables are set fairly close and some of the seating is banquette style. It is a huge place and located across from the police station in the French Quarter. Service was friendly but not particularly efficient. The menu is a la carte but they do offer a 2 course special with 2 choices for each of the courses. We chose that option with a couple side dishes for our meal. For drinks they had a special drink of the day that was strawberries, sparkler and something as well as several wines by the glass and half bottles. They also had some good prices on what they called “breakfast bubbles” and we chose a bottle of that to go with out meal.
Bread service was a warm loaf of typical New Orleans style French bread and a good butter. The bread comes wrapped in a towel and you simply pull off pieces making a good mess with the crisp exterior but the interior is light and airy. It was good but not as good as I’ve had in other New Orleans restaurants.
Seafood Filé Gumbo with Gulf Shrimp and oysters, Poché’s andouille sausage and basmati rice was the first dish on our menu. It was dark with a well seasoned stock with lots of seafood bites and rice. It was not too spicy and very well flavored.
Eggs Sardou with crispy artichokes, Parmesan creamed spinach and choron sauce was the second part of our menu. The thick artichoke bottoms were lightly breaded and fried and placed on a bed of creamed spinach then topped with a medium poached egg. It was all topped with a Choron Sauce which is a variation of the classic Béarnaise sauce with tomato paste added in to turn it a orange color. It was a pretty plate but the lovely artichokes had little flavor. It was a fairly rich dish and I was surprised to find I liked the egg as much as any of it. The creamed spinach was not thick or pasty and the spinach leaves still had texture. It was good.
We added a side dish of Nueske’s thick-cut bacon which came 3 slices to an order. As expected it was ultra smokey wonderful bacon. Cooked to a nice crisp but not overly so. A good addition.
We also split an order of Brabant Potatoes which were cut into a small cube dice. These are potatoes that are lightly boiled and then sautéed in butter. This version used peeled potatoes that were then fried in a clarified butter. They were really tasty but not as crisp as I would have liked but that can depend on the potato. Either way they were delicious.
They offered dessert and after dinner drinks but we passed. However I did snap a photo of a huge cotton candy cake that I didn’t see on the menu but it was quite a vision.
