The Brunchery, Valrico
Want to treat yourself to a special breakfast? Is a bowl of cereal or cooking your own omelet is not enough? Do you want pampering, eggs poached for Benedict, the thick-cut maple-cured bacon you won’t buy for home, and slabs of rich challah french toast stuffed with cream cheese and fruit compotes, all served in a fun and upbeat environment with pleasant, attentive service, but not too early, maybe after nine but before noon?
Oh? And what else, your majesty?
We call it brunch and it has become a verb for the masses engaging in finer breakings of the overnight fast, often after indulging in a late-night liquid snack. The word brunch invokes images of finer breakfast treats overlapping finer luncheon eats. Quality and elegance are inferred, but these days, not necessarily implied.
At its portmanteau roots, brunch is simply a menu of both breakfast and lunch items served in a window of time that envelopes both the breakfast and lunch hours, though usually indulged in by those preferring the former of the former at the latter of the latter.
Adult beverages are not a requirement, neither are omelet stations and certainly not hangovers, though it’s interesting to note that the appreciation for the meal was a hit with the late-night party crowd since its inception. Still, when I think of brunch, I picture mimosas and omelets made to order with shrimp cocktail and carved leg of lamb. I’ve worked at too many country clubs.
The Brunchery had come recommended by my cousin and I’d read some online reviews that piqued my interest. Diners are utilitarian; places like The Brunchery are where you pay a little more for atmosphere, quality, flavor, and plates of food to tell friends about and post pictures of on Facebook. But even McDonald’s serves breakfast all day. Is McDonald’s brunch?
So it was one Thursday mid-morning that we decided to treat ourselves to breakfast foods at The Brunchery. We had “went to bed in good time the night before,” but were late in feeding ourselves. When we arrived, the dining room was half full and the servers diligently buzzed around at a cheerful pace.
The Brunchery does not serve alcohol.
Now that my audience has suddenly been reduced by two thirds, here is what The Brunchery does have: a great reputation as a place to go when you want breakfast to be extra tasty, extra memorable and served through the lunch hour.
The Brunchery
4389 Lynx Paw Trl
Valrico, FL 33596
Phone: (813) 654-9036
Hours:
Monday to Friday – 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Saturday to Sunday – 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
No website. No official Facebook page.
The atmosphere was relaxed and comfortable. The interior decor is the kitschy country crap on the walls, typical of mom-and-pop breakfast joints these days. I suppose it’s intended to suggest an unpretentious mindset reminiscent of down-home days gone by; though, it can sometimes feel less like Waltons and more like Walmart. The Brunchery was toward the Waltons end of the line (without the backdrop of economic depression and world war).
We were greeted with smiles and asked to choose our own seats. Coffee was offered immediately and our server arrived quickly. Failing to have looked over the menu at home, we still needed a few minutes to decide until she directed our attention to two large specials boards; then we needed a few hours.
When we had crossed the parking lot I was struck by “$5.50 breakfast specials” painted on the window. With their reputation, and a price competitive with a standard greasy spoon, that was an offer too good to dismiss. At the table, I read that the $5.50 meal came with two eggs, toast, and potatoes. Not bad, but “Hey Goober? Where’s the meat?”
The addition of bacon (four slices) would bring the price above the Feature which at $7.95 included meat. But for the frugal diner watching his or her calories, the meatless special was a good option. I needed swine–the smell of sizzling pork was permeating the air and tickling the nose. How do you not spring for bacon or sausage when it smells so divine?
So, I was settled on the Feature (but still mulling over the eggs benedict) when I turned to the blackboard of specials. It was option overload, but my impulsive nature won out—rarely a good thing. The server hyped a few of the items in chalk, so we bit choosing two from the specials board: The orange pecan french toast for me and the 2-2-2 (two eggs, two bacon strips, and two pineapple upside down pancakes) for Christa. Our server declared both choices to be exceptional.
The orange pecan french toast is actually a standard menu item, however, the special makes it a full breakfast with the addition of two eggs, bacon, and a starch. That’s one hell of a deal. I was getting the eggs and bacon for pennies over the menu price of just the french toast. I opted for grits instead of potatoes and eggs over medium; Christa chose her usual scrambled eggs.
The food came out well before I had a chance to think “how much longer?” and everything looked fine. Are those plates Melmac?
The french toast was stacked and dusted with powdered sugar over a generous layer of chopped pecans and a creamy orange spread. My wide eyes narrowed after my first bite—there was a bitter aftertaste.
The orange spread seemed to be butter whipped with marmalade– sweet, but with a bitter finish. Compounded with the grilled bread, it had a great initial taste, but after the swallow, there was an unsatisfying lingering in the mouth of a dry, bitter finish that the powdered sugar could not obscure.
I tried various combinations of bites–with orange spread scraped off, no pecans, with various combinations of the two, and with a dash of salt and a drizzle of maple syrup to balance the bitter. I had difficulty putting my finger directly on it, but it wasn’t helped by the bland bread; there was definitely salt missing.
It was not intolerable, just disappointing, so I finished the slices so as not to waste it. No worries, I still had my eggs and bacon.
The eggs were cooked perfectly. Clearly fried in a round pan, not a flat top, they were perfect over medium with golden lacing around the firm, stark whites and a custardy deep orange yolk that made for nice dipping, yet stayed pooled in place and didn’t run into a slimy puddle under the grits and bacon. These were quite possibly the best over medium eggs I’ve had in Florida and my hope is for a consistent experience in the future.
The grits were cooked well, seasoned nicely and had a creamy consistency beyond the typical as if a soft cheese was folded in before serving. I really enjoyed them and will certainly get them again. I’m a big fan of letting customers substitute grits for a massive pile of steaming potatoes. But as I looked around I realized that The Brunchery made potatoes the right way.
I saw plates with homefries—quartered small potatoes, fried until dark brown and crispy with caramelized diced onion. Other plates held hash browns—shredded and fried a deep golden color in a thin sheet offering a nice crisp shell to soft innards ratio.
It appeared that The Brunchery would be a safe place to get my breakfast potato fix, though having kissed their grits, it’d be hard to choose one over the other.
What we believe they didn’t make right was pineapple upside down pancakes. Likely a mistake in execution, after Christa voiced her dismay and had already chopped them up I tried to forensically piece together what went wrong.
Having read “pineapple upside down pancakes,” what we each envisioned was a pancake cooked around a pineapple ring or chunks—the fruit embedded in the browned crust of griddled batter, all glazed over with caramelized brown sugar and pineapple juice syrup, moist and fluffy on the inside.
Of course, food only sometimes arrives at your table as envisioned, so I was open to other possibilities. What did arrive was undercooked pancakes with hot pineapple rings and cherries pressed into it.
I don’t know for certain how they did it but if I wanted to replicate it, I’d pour pancake batter over a pineapple ring on a griddle, flip it and plate it half cooked with a dusting of 10x and a cherry and pineapple garnish. I don’t want to replicate it. The result was a tropical tragedy. There was no caramelized brown sugar, no crunchy bits of grilled batter.
Christa ate only the circumference, leaving a large portion of half-cooked, broken bits of soggy cake, dappled with cherry juice and with partial rings of pineapple poking up like pale yellow girders amidst a wet pile of crumbled concrete.
She pushed ground zero aside and attacked her more expertly prepared scrambled eggs and bacon.
Her eggs were light and fluffy, dry and without a tinge of brown (just how she likes ‘em). Too often scrambled eggs and omelets are ladled out of a vat of blended eggs, spread flat with a spatula and flipped over to set in a sheet of yellow emulsion—less scrambled, more like egg parchment. That was not the case here at The Brunchery where they make the eggs to order in saute pans and with great care.
The bacon was the perfect mahogany brown with a nice dark crust, yet soft to the tooth and without the snap of overcooked strips. The flavor was a mild smoke, well salty and paired nicely against the sweet syrups, spreads, and fruit.
Summed up, the experience was half positive, half disappointing, but not damning. They got the basics perfect: perfectly cooked eggs, substantial and tasty bacon, and well seasoned creamy grits. The french toast didn’t suit my palate, but that could be my problem and not the fault of The Brunchery. Perhaps it goes over well with most customers. The pancakes could be a one time error or a systematic error in execution. (Disappointment could have largely been avoided by calling them simply pineapple pancakes, and eliminating the terms “upside down.” Cooking them fully would have been better.)
Our server was pleasant, took the order well, and kept the drinks filled. She did neglect to ask us how everything was, so I did not offer our concerns. Our technical complaints about the food were the responsibility of the kitchen and her service was fine, so of course, we tipped our usual twenty percent, rounded up.
Is it brunch? I guess if you serve breakfast items through lunch and lunch items through breakfast, then, yes, it’s brunch, though, in these regards, The Brunchery may just as well be called The Dinery. But what’s in a name, really? All that matters is quality, taste, service, and value. In those regards, The Brunchery comes pretty near to meeting our needs as a regular breakfast spot. As far as a lunch spot, we’ll need to try some of those items before I can opine, though I want to give breakfast another go.
My current recommendation in regards to The Brunchery? It’s a satisfactory place to grab a satisfying breakfast of quality ingredients. Stick with the basics to start and order from the menu. It’s possible that the specials are the weak link in an otherwise competent system. When we return for our second visit, I will see how they perform with eggs benedict. My wife will most likely stick with the scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. And I will try some of their home fried potatoes, though it’s going to be a sad move to forego those delicious grits.
Thanks for reading!