BEAUTIFUL BRUNCH
Central Social Hall gets it right
The weekend brunch crowd at the Central Social Hall is likely a little more subdued than the party animals who whooped it up the night before in the downtown Edmonton gastropub.
Fortunately, the space at 109 Street and Jasper Avenue has lots of floor-to-ceiling windows for zoning out and watching pedestrians and drivers negotiate the busy corner, although the view is somewhat blocked by scaffolding set up for outside construction work.
And if coming up with something to talk about seems like too much effort, there are screens displaying a stream of trivia encircling the room that might prime the pump of conversation. For example, the longest one-syllable English word is screeched. A golf ball has 336 dimples.
Of course, the other thing to occupy your attention in the subdued wood-panel-and-glass restaurant — an interior described online as industrial chic, although my wife characterizes it as urban with a cowboy touch — is the menu.
The brunch list has 10 items, most featuring free-range eggs. They show up in a bacon, mushroom and avocado omelette, on top of English muffins in the Oil Country Benny, or poached with fresh cheese curds and shoestring fries in a form of upscale poutine called The Cure.
We’d taken advantage of a warm April morning to ride to brunch on our bicycles, so I worked up an appetite. I opted for steak and eggs ($19.99), which I imagined generations of ranchers, drillers and lumberjacks chowing down on before heading out to the field. I’m certainly not in their league when it comes to hard, physical labour, but I doubt they have a tastier way to start their day.
About a dozen thin slices of grilled sirloin, medium rare as requested, came topped by two perfectly cooked poached eggs and a mildly spicy roasted poblano pepper-white cheddar sauce that oozed deliciously over the meat. A peppery arugula salad offered a fresh counterpoint to the protein.
But in some ways the crispy potatoes were the stars of the dish. These humble spuds were skilletfried and melted in the mouth, providing a rich, almost creamy feel to blend with the sauce.
My wife opted for the Italian sausage and mushroom skillet ($14.99), which came sizzling hot in a cast-iron frying pan. Once again, there was a pair of nicely poached eggs, this time mingled with gooey, sweet caramelized onions, chunks of avocado and mushrooms, along with the greens and poblano-cheese sauce.
Our server was proud to tell us their ingredients are produced by local, or at least Alberta, sources. The mild sausage, for example, comes from the Italian Centre Shop.
The skillet was done well, although my wife wanted a few more mushrooms on her platter. Another quibble was that the orange juice came out of a bottle with, as so commonly happens at restaurants, lots of ice to melt and water down your drink. They should invest in a juicer.
But overall, this was a good meal in a calming atmosphere. And there’s always that TV trivia — did you know Donald Duck cartoons were allegedly banned in Finland because he doesn’t wear pants?