On Sunday we were headed through Guelph to visit friends and decided have a little brunch on the way. On the recommendation of a friend of a friend, we ended up at
Earth to Table: Bread Bar. Their website looked really promising with lots of fresh looking dishes. As you may have noticed by now, we are breakfast & brunch connoisseurs with a critical eye for an egg. The brunch situation here is a kind of breakfast tapas, with small plates you can share or eat all yourself. It isn't what we started with, but I will start here with my favourite dish: Brisket & Potato Hash with Poached Egg. The brisket was delightful, so savory and flavourful, with a perfectly poached egg. Yolk on potatoes is one of the greatest joys of breakfast.
Brisket & Potato Hash with Poached Egg
My biggest disappointment was the French Toast. It wasn't very eggy, instead rather dry. The whipped cream made up for some of the lost moisture, and the caramel was tasty, but the bread was entirely the wrong choice for french toast. The bread was seedy and not very absorbent. I was very glad this wasn't the focus of my meal.
French Toast with Caramel & Whipped Cream
We were also a little underwhelmed by the Eggs Hammy. There was just very little seasoning, making it boring. The bread used here was fabulous, suiting of the Bread Bar name.
Eggs Hammy - poached egg with ham & hollandaise
The Root Beer-Baked Beans came in an adorable mini cocotte dish and were full of flavour. They were actually a little too spicy for me, and the beans were undercooked, so Scott ate most of this one.
Root Beer-Baked Beans
The Potato Latkes were the most confusing dish. It really wasn't clear how it was intended to be eaten. It reminded me of a pile of hickory sticks in both appearance and taste. I was really not into the taste of the salmon roe, way too fishy for me - although that is probably just my uneducated palette.
Potato Latkes with sour cream and cured salmon roe
While we are on the topic of fish, let's move on to the Smoked Salmon on Toast. This was much more how I prefer my breakfast salmon - classic, delicious combination. The only way this would have been better was more of it, luckily it was all you can eat!
Smoked Salmon on Toast - with cream cheese, capers, lemon, dill, & red onion
The breakfast nachos were better than they looked. They have found a really good guacamole recipe, there was just not enough. Not a huge egg presence, but it was good.
Breakfast Nachos - jalapenos, guacamole, scrambled egg, sour cream
Last but definitely not least, Scott's favourite dish: Eggs in Purgatory. This was a stunning example of the bread quality, that I hope and assume they make in house. The poached egg in tomato was excellent for dipping, being very rich and tasty.
Eggs in Purgatory - tomato, garlic, olive oil, Parmesan, toast
We were there right when the restaurant opened, and were really excited about it conceptually. The dishes themselves weren't that impressive, and left us thinking wistfully of our fabulous breakfast in Kitchener, ON at
Gilt Restaurant. Nothing was terrible, but for $28 per person I would rather be impressed than overwhelmed with amount of food. There was also a cold food bar available with cold salads and cold, disappointing pizza. We tried a couple, and they were big mistakes. Served hot, perhaps the pizza would have been better, but they weren't good. The pastry cart on the other hand, was filled with delightful treats. There was a salted caramel brownie that I couldn't get enough of, and actually bought 4 to take to our friends. Our service was great, very attentive, informative, but not too overwhelming.
Likes: Selection and concept of breakfast tapas is great.
Dislikes: I wasn't impressed by most items, cold pizza shouldn't have been included.
Food: 3/5
Service: 5/5
Would I go again?: No, and I wouldn't recommend it either. It just wasn't worth it.
