Metrobrunch

Mrs. Waffle loves to go to Metropolitain for brunch.

She regularly organizes outings there with her girlfriends.

She loves it. They offer Brunch cocktails, the classic breakfast is her favorite and she often orders a Chocolatine to end her meal. (Apparently, most of her friends do too.)

From time to time, she organizes brunch at the Met for other friends – out-of-towner types. And that’s when I get sucked in.

The 3 of us arrived on schedule, at 10:30. The Met wasn’t very busy, on this Post-Canada Day Day. The patio was fairly full, but we could have elected to sit there if we had wished to do so – or even in the new patio annex, which includes comfortable couches under the trees – more suited for casual drinks than a meal with a toddler.

So we settled in one of the left corner booths inside, and waited for Tara, Cameron and Mary.

The Met’s brunch menu is available until 2 PM, which is not bad if that’s what you are looking for. If you’d like something out of their lunch menu, you’ll have to wait until 11AM for it to be available – though they have shown some flexibility.

The menu has a focus on eggs: The M Breakfast (eggs any style with choice of meat), Omelette Française with fine herbs and Gruyère, Scrambled Eggs and Smoked Salmon with chive crème fraîche, Steak Frites with Poached Eggs and béarnaise sauce, Broccoli Fritatta, and of course, the Classic (two poached eggs on crispy potatoes with smoked country ham and béarnaise sauce) which is what Mel always orders. She did again, leading the way for the rest of the table who all ordered the same. I stubbornly did not.

I ignored the interesting Brunch Sharing Platter since no one seemed keen to share – boiled egg, house pickles, country terrine, 2 cheeses, smoked salmon, apples, berries, figs, mustard, chutney – and also ignored the baking side of the breakfast menu – Buttermilk pancakes with lemon poppy-seed and quinoa pancakes or the Banana Bread French Toast. I Also took a pass on the Oyster and Seafood Bar, also available for brunch.

Instead, I went with l’Asperge Milanese ($15), served with eggs sunny-side up, black pepper, romano pecorino, lardon, and white truffle oil. For good measure, and mostly to share with Waffle Jr., I ordered a side of Sausages.

Here we have a nice looking plate. However, one of the yolks had broken, unfortunately contaminating the fresh fruits served on the side. The eggs were nicely seasoned with salt and fresh cracked pepper, but they could have used more cheese on top. They didn’t feel greasy at all, very creamy.

The eggs were served on the lardons and asparagus. The lardons were the real deal, big cubes of pork belly, nicely rendered, a good, salty chew in each bite. The asparagus were cooked fairly well, maybe a bit undercooked. Therefore they had a nice crunch, but the truffle oil was just too subtle to fight the yolk and lardons flavours combined.

I was glad I ordered the sausage as this is a small dish. The sausages were cooked perfectly, and what they lacked in size they made up in flavour. The Waffle Jr. simply couldn’t have enough of them, ignoring her own scrambled eggs and trying to poach my links instead.

Overall, this was a good meal. Fairly well executed, but not perfect. Therefore, one could argue that it is pricey considering the time of day and I would agree with that assessment – at that price, you’d think the yolk would have arrived intact.