SATISFYING BRUNCH BECKONS NOT FAR FROM LEGISLATURE
The commercial towers near the legislature are mostly empty on weekends, but that doesn’t mean all life in the area disappears when the civil servants and office workers go home.
Visitors and downtown dwellers peckish after a stroll around the provincial capital buildings or looking for somewhere to hang out for brunch with friends have a few good choices south of Jasper Avenue.
One of those places is the District Cafe & Bakery, part of Edmonton restaurateur Nate Box’s string of local bistros that includes the Burrow in the Central LRT station, Elm Cafe and Riverdale’s Little Brick cafe.
District, primarily facing 109 Street on the main floor of the Peace Hills Trust Tower, is a modern space with lots of plants, big windows, a vast high ceiling, plain white walls and exposed painted ductwork.
A curving wood-topped counter runs along one side to give staff a place to work and sell bakery treats.
On a recent weekend, the place was hopping, full of urban hipsters as well as stroller-pushing parents and grandparents out with a cheerful collection of babies. We grabbed the last table available.
The brunch menu is eclectic, a mixture of lighter options such as granola ($6) and fruit salad ($6), comfort food in the form of rice pudding ($5) and steel-cut oats ($6) — what my mother would simply call porridge — and heavier high-protein fare.
I skipped the breakfast sandwich ($8), despite the lure of the rich egg-bacon-gruyere cheese combination, and was instead drawn to the enticing feature scramble ($12), a melange that on this day combined roast mushrooms, roast peppers, gruyere and pulled pork. Delicious.
The ingredients played nicely together and the pork was cooked to smoky, tender perfection. It’s accompanied by four slices of sourdough toast with a pleasing, chewy texture.
Unlike many brunch spots, they offer freshly squeezed orange juice, my favourite morning drink. Best of all, the juice wasn’t made too cold and, eventually, too watery by throwing in ice cubes.
My wife wasn’t as thrilled with her breakfast bowl ($14). The ingredients were good, bringing together a poached egg with hollandaise sauce, roast potatoes, manchego cheese, cherry tomatoes and a side of bacon.
Presented on a bed of fresh sunflower sprouts and sliced radish, most of it was commendable. But the potatoes weren’t hot and their hard, crunchy exteriors tasted overcooked, so she didn’t finish them.
She also found the coffee more bitter than she enjoys, and had to order an Americano to replace it, which was much better.
However, her spirits rose when our Liege waffle ($4) arrived. It was thick, light and fluffy, a decent serving by itself for one person, but plenty as a sort of late-morning dessert for two people who’d just eaten entire meals.
We dipped it in a little pot of salty caramel sauce, which was just as sweet and delicious as it sounds. No need for butter or maple syrup on top of this decadent delight.
While there were a couple of missteps with our meal, the brunch menu is interesting and has a good assortment of dishes without overreaching — as the weather warms, ride over on the bike trail west of 109 Street and grab a bite.