Jaunted

Tags: Brunch / Celeb Travel / Los Angeles Travel / Food Travel / Larchmont Boulevard / → All Tags

Red Velvet Pancakes and More at LA's Larchmont Bungalow

Red Velvet Pancakes at the newly opened Larchmont Bungalow.

The scene on Los Angeles' Larchmont Boulevard yesterday morning was a zoo, literally. The Annual Street Fair brought out families in droves, with a petting zoo, pony ride station, rock climbing wall, and other carnival-esque activities to regale locals and their overstimulated, hopped-up on cotton candy kids.

Larchmont is a quaint pocket of LA, "neighborhood-y" in the best possible way. This is the street where everyone really does know your name, lined with a mixture of small, independently-owned boutiques and restaurants and a few chains, too. The requisite Pinkberry and Coffee Bean are alive and kicking, rest assured. This weekend, a new restaurant called the Larchmont Bungalow joined the street's business brood, and we decided to duck past the sponge throwing station to sample their brunch menu.

more ›

Tags: Brunch / San Diego Restaurants / Food Travel / San Diego Travel / → All Tags

San Diego's Hash House A Go Go Serves A Food Coma With Brunch

Unfortunately, the cell phone isn't included; it's there to show how ginormous the flapjack is.

Head down to San Diego's Hash House a Go Go on a weekend, and you'll see a bunch of starving and hungover folks waiting outside, eager to get in the restaurant for some hearty home-style eats. That's just the way it is and how it will always be at this famous weekend brunch restaurant. Our tip: Avoid the long wait by heading to the Hillcrest eatery during the week. That way you won't have to wait more than an hour to stuff yourself silly with brunch dishes so large you'll have to either share them or risk a food coma for the rest of the day.

Hash House a Go Go, a mix of city and country with metal chairs, old farm photos, and paraphernalia on the walls, churns out food as fun as its name. Of course, you can't go wrong with the namesake house hashes, like the ground turkey with hardwood-smoked bacon, onion and smoked mozzarella or the meatloaf with roasted red peppers, fresh spinach and smoked mozz. But the bigger-than-your-face pancakes are too hard to pass up.

more ›

Tags: Chicago Field Trip / Brunch / Museum Travel / Chicago / Olafur Eliasson / Brunch In Chicago / Art Travel / → All Tags

Eggs Benedict And Olafur Eliasson At Chicago's MCA

We luckily escaped New York City this last weekend for Chicago, just missing tornado warnings, hail, and the threat of having to stay inside for two days. Instead, on the lakefront here in Chi-town, we found a paradise of sun, brunch, and modern art. More specifically, we made a bee-line for Sunday brunch on the terrace at the Museum of Contemporary Art, which currently has an exhibition of Olafur Eliasson's works.

Olafur, in case you missed his waterfalls on the East River last summer in NYC, is something of a large-scale, light-and-color genius, and so pairing his 360-degree light room, prism hallway, and misting waterfall with eggs benedict is our highest recommendation for summer brunching in the city.

The exhibit, entitled "Take Your Time," spans fifteen years of Olafur's art, utilizing his architectural, engineering and lighting skills for constructions which, "at once eccentric and highly geometric, use multicolored washes, focused projections of light, mirrors, and natural elements such as water, stone, and moss to shift the viewer's perception of place and self, foregrounding the sensory experience of each work." It'll be on display at the MCA until September 13, and is way better than the waterfalls in our humble opinion.

more ›

Tags: Lazy Travel / Brunch / San Francisco / Boats / Champagne / → All Tags

A San Francisco Sunday Our Stomach Can Handle

Obviously, we love doing weekend jet-set trips across country, but there’s one aspect that’s consistently disappointing: Sundays—they’re so perfect when you’re at home, but so frustrating when you’re on the road.

No matter how good Friday and Saturday are, the Sunday portion of our trip inevitably goes something like this: we wake up tired and hungover from too much Fri/Sat fun, but feel guilty about wasting a day of such a short vacation, so we end up leaving the hotel hottub, begrudgingly fitting in some last tourist sites when we’d much rather be back at the bar eating a second brunch, mentally preparing ourselves for what is surely going to be a too-crowded flight home.

So we’re always on the lookouts for simple Sundays—vacation activities that make us feel active but require the very least amount of effort.

more ›

Tags: Brunch / New York City / Food Travel / → All Tags

Gourmet Gluttony On A Recession Budget at Perry St

So while we've already covered the best recession-friendly brunch in New York in terms of freeflowing booze, what about the flip-side: satisfying food that just keeps on coming? Finally, we have an answer, and it's as delicious and high-falutin' as it is surprisingly wallet-conscious.

Deep down in the West Village and on the western border of Manhattan, which is to say the Hudson River, sits star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Perry St restaurant, somewhat small and removed if you consider his other big tables like Mercer Kitchen and Spice Market. In any case, the recession strikes again with extended prix fixe menu options across the board at his restaurant, meaning that for once, we were impervious to Perry St's pricing.

more ›

Tags: Brunch / Food Travel / Stephen Starr / → All Tags

A Retro Diner Brunch in Philly? Better Make It a Double

Sometimes, we just want a good stiff drink with our omelet--oh wait, that's all the time. In the arena of alcohol and egg whites, there is one revamped classic corner dinner which does not disappoint: The Continental on Market Street in the Olde City. Back when we somehow managed to spend a weekend in Philadelphia for under $100, The Continental drew us in with its homespun good looks, kitschy olive-on-a-toothpick lamps, and retro airline lounge theme.

more ›

Tags: Brunch / Breakfast / Restaurants / Food Travel / Drugs / What Recession / Meatpacking District / New York / → All Tags

French Toast, Champagne, and Rosé-filled Flamingo Bongs: Brunch Gets Naughty in Manhattan

I'm a huge fan of breakfast, but for some reason, brunch has never done it for me. It just seems like such a wishy-washy compromise between breakfast and lunch, where neither an omelet or a salad seems quite right, and the brief euphoria of the Bellini that's included in the prix fixe soon gives way to a sense of exhaustion that lasts the rest of the day. But maybe I'm just not doing it right. The New York Times has a pretty wild story today about the rise of brunch as an intense daytime party for New York's beautiful people. In other words, my problem isn't drinking that one Bellini, it's not drinking five more.

more ›

Tags: Brunch / Breakfast / Restaurants / Food Travel / → All Tags

Confirmed: LA Is America's Breakfast Capital

You don't have to take our word for it, although honestly you should take our word for it. You can take the word of fellow Conde Nast blog Men.style.com, the online home of GQ, Details, and clothes we can't afford:

To visit L.A. is to act like you wear $300 chinos and drive a black Range Rover and wear sunglasses that would otherwise embarrass you. And to wake up in L.A. is to pretend that you don't have a job and eat breakfast at 10 a.m. L. A. is a breakfast town.... It's a breakfast town because it's a town where people actually eat breakfast, at restaurants, every day of the week, where there are dedicated breakfast spots instead of lame brunch places. And it's one of the few locations where there's no shame in ordering the egg-white omelet with veggie bacon. Because L.A. is a place where, in general, there is no shame.

more ›

Tags: Brunch / New York / Food Travel / → All Tags

New York's Best Recession-Friendly Brunch is All-You-Can-Drink

Nothing washes down a hearty plate of eggs benedict better than a pitcher-full of free mimosas. If it were possible to make this a mantra, then the all-you-can-drink brunch at Nero in New York's Meatpacking District would have it covered with their recession-friendly brunch and lunch menus.

Located on one of the heavily-trafficked cobblestone corners of this area just south and west of Chelsea, Nero stands up to neighbors Hotel Gansevoort and Pastis with their offering of free-flowing cocktails through the late weekend mornings; $24.95 yields your choice of main course (like our favorites, the brioche french toast and portabello panino) and constant refills of champagne, bellinis, mimosas, Bloody Marys or screwdrivers. This is in direct competition to Pastis, the breakfast place across the intersection once immortalized in Sex and the City, but still overpriced and with a decidedly anti-free alcohol brunch cocktail policy.

more ›

Tags: Brunch / Chicago / Food Travel / → All Tags

Chicago Has Your 'Heart Attack French Toast'

There's only two more days until Sunday brunch! Hallelujah, we love us some eggs benedict and bellinis. Not to taunt your growing cravings for the same, but you may want to consider switching to a french toast diet after feasting at Chicago's hotspot Toast.

Although their original Lincoln Park location is crowded with strollers and hungover yuppies throughout the weekend, sinking your fork into sumptuous spreads like the artery-clogging "mascarpone stuffed french toast orgy" and the pesto scramble is worth the risk of rubbing elbows with parents of DePaul University students.

What sets this snug spot apart from other brunches in the city is its decidedly Chicago atmosphere; the shelves are covered with vintage toasters, Julius Meinl coffee is on the menu, and the windowsill seats are considered prime. If Lincoln Park just isn't your bag, there's still no excuse as they've got a second location (aptly named Toast 2) in the trendier Bucktown neighborhood, and this one is BYOB. Finally, it's one of the few recession-friendly brunches around, averaging $8 for a meal and an extra $2.50 for the gourmet grounds. We don't leave Chicago without it.

Got a brunch spot to share? Pass it over.

Related Stories:
· Toast Reviews [Yelp]
· Toast 2 Reviews [Yelp]
· Brunch Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Fuchsia Foot]

Tags: Brunch / Restaurants / Food Travel / Los Angeles Eats / → All Tags

'High and Low' Options for Sunday Brunch in Los Angeles

There are a lot of reasons people never venture into the Greater Los Angeles area. The traffic is atrocious. The smog is abysmal. And the local and state politicians are--in a very technical sense--clinically retarded.

But millions of people nonetheless put up with that nonsense. Heck, some even get married amongst it! The weather is definitely part of it. There's something undeniably awesome about being able to do Sunday brunch on a sunny patio 50 times a year.

More importantly: not only can you do Sunday brunch on a sunny patio 50 times a year--you can pick whether you want to have it overlooking a glistening ocean or nestled high up in the mountains. Each option is no more than a 20 minute drive away from most parts of the city.

Reservations to both of these places are highly recommended bordering on mandatory. You should obviously insist on outdoor seating because that, after all, is why you're willing to suffer existing in LA in the first place.

more ›

Tags: Hong Kong Field Trip / Brunch / Restaurants / Food Travel / → All Tags

Heading to Brunch in Soho ... Hong Kong

We are far too easily seduced by the offer of french toast and free wifi. Having spent our week in Hong Kong eating various preparations of pork at all the random local places and a select few famous spots, we switched gears to spend our Sunday morning soaking in the universal comforting experience of brunch at the aptly named Brunch Club in the SoHo district of HK.

The more we travel, the better we identify customs which extend beyond borders and languages, and it seems to us that brunch is quickly becoming one of them. It's not just the US that goes bonkers for a bloody mary, blueberry waffle and bacon in the afternoon, but places like Korea have elevated it from a simple Sunday meal into something of a phenomenon. Similarly in China and Hong Kong, brunch has become de rigueur as it allies itself so well with dim sum. For HK's gigantic expat population, brunch is even more embraced as a neighborhood social hour, which is exactly what is going on at Brunch Club.

more ›