Wake me up for Brunch

One of the pleasures of the weekend is the brunch. To wake up late on a Sunday morning, laze around the house, and then have a good meal without cooking, c’est la vie. Include a stroll on the Board Walk near Lake Ontario or a theatre matinee après brunch and life is perfect.

A combination of breakfast and lunch taken as one meal, the brunch is usually served at mid-morning but can extend to mid-afternoon. It is perfectly excusable to linger at the restaurant, to make a slow transition from breakfast to lunch and to take a digestive break by reading the newspaper or delighting in small talk with a companion. Ahhh, the day is mine to spend as I please.

It is this leisurely style that makes brunch so decadent and so seemingly out-of-place in a modern world. A Chinese friend once told me that dimsum was the original brunch. In olden times when life was not as harried as it is now, rich Chinese partook of several small dishes served one after another, feasting almost the whole morning till the afternoon. Many of us still treat dimsum as brunch. A person who loves brunch and variety in life, I sometimes go to Chinatown for my first and second meal of the day. I choose a restaurant which I know would have a very large selection of dimsum, then stick to the steamed dishes that are light on the stomach so I can try as many as I want.

Sometimes, a late, heavy breakfast is enough to double as lunch. Eggs benedict with a green salad and fresh fruits, preceded by a nice cup of café latte or café Americano, and topped by a Morning Glory can make my day.

But the real brunch experience is the buffet. There are standard breakfast things like bread, jams, eggs, sausages, bacon and cereals and then typical lunch items like assorted pastas and salads on the table and I can mix and match them on my plate. I can even reverse the order of the meal. My favourite brunch buffet includes an egg station where I can choose the fillings for an omelet and a staff can cook it for me (can take time) and a roast beef carving station with servers. Dessert --- and that’s another table with a wide selection --- is included in the price of the buffet although coffee and juice are not.

Some restaurants and cafes serving brunch have a live jazz band. This is indeed a special treat. Who would want Sunday to end, especially when the next day is Monday, the beginning of another crazy work week?