Serious brunchin’

Griffintown Café is a relaxed neighbourhood
hang out with a killer take on breakfast classics

by JOANNA FOX

If you haven’t been down to check out the Notre-Dame strip west of the downtown core lately, you’re definitely missing out on a whole slew of new spots. One of the newer kids on the block is the aptly named Griffintown Café. Named for the southwest neighbourhood bordering the canal and settled by Irish immigrants in the early 19th-century, this once working class neighbourhood, is now a breeding ground for new business.

Revamped apartments, condos, grocery stores, bars, live music and great little eateries, the whole area has been slowly undergoing a gentrification that is giving the Plateau and Mile-End some stiff competition.

Open since last July, Griffintown is a gorgeous space that offers weekend brunch, lunch and dinner with live music Tuesday through Saturday. To catch the last of the summer sun, there’s also a great terrace out back. With exposed brick walls and incredibly high ceilings flooding it with natural light, the room is open and airy. The tables are spaced nicely, giving everyone lots of room and the chairs are adorned with comfy cushions, making any lazy brunch all the more pleasurable. The menu is the same for lunch and dinner, with brunch elaborating on some of their signatures as well as your standard eggs and bacon.

On a recent rainy Saturday we went a bit bananas, letting our empty stomachs get the best of us: Crab cake and eggs ($15), Mac n’ Cheese ($14 for the souped-up dish of 2009) and the Breakfast Burger ($15). With some crispy homemade bacon and pulled pork on the side ($2), we were in for some serious brunching.

The crab was a generous fist-sized cake seasoned with Cajun spices and bits of bacon. Although not everyone would agree that eating crab first thing in the morning is the best idea, I will eat crab anytime. The cake had just the right amount of spice and the jalapeno yogurt dolloped on top added a nice cooling touch. Filled with a generous portion of crabmeat, the scattered bits of bacon gave it that delicious smoky flavour, proving once again that bacon does make everything taste better. Mix that mouthful with poached eggs and some of the mixed lettuce salad underneath and you get yourself a real satisfying dish.

The Mac n’ Cheese was served in a small old-school French onion soup bowl on a plate with the same mixed salad. Boasting aged cheddar, “beer-chamel” sauce, brioche breadcrumbs and shaved mimolette (a French cheese similar to parmesan but with a slightly nutty flavour), they really went the extra mile. This dish was everything you would expect it to be: warm, gooey, creamy, rich and it pretty much made us want to curl up and go back to bed afterward. Although perfect for diehard fans, we found that on its own it’s a bit too much—definitely a dish for spoonfuls and sharing, especially considering the price.

The burger was also good, despite our skepticism about its ½ beef, ¼ lamb, and ¼ duck ground meat combo. The fat from the ground duck melted into the patty, giving the lamb meat all the texture and not really any of that gamey flavour, resulting in a really juicy burger that tasted predominantly of beef. With a nice slab of aged cheddar and a fried egg, this dish is the perfect hangover solution. If you’re feeling extra dirty, you can also add bacon, mushrooms or pulled pork to the mix ($1.50-$2). Their house-smoked bacon and pulled pork on the side capped off the meal.

For lunch and dinner, there are a variety of casual dishes that include the three we had at brunch, as well as some standouts: confit ribs with bourbon and beer BBQ sauce with cornbread and black beans ($24), blackened butterfish with fennel, black beans and cherry tomatoes ($22) and their pulled pork sandwich ($13).

All in all, Griffintown is a great little locale for comfort-style food, a couple of beers and some live music at night. Not bad at all for a new neighbourhood hangout that’s just getting its bearings.