Double Brunch Weekend

You know what's better than brunch? DOUBLE BRUNCH! You heard me. Brunch on Saturday and brunch on Sunday. Brunch for days. That's exactly what I did the other weekend and it was glorious. Both the places I went are in Uptown, admittedly probably the best location in Dallas to have brunch. I'm not an Uptown girl, nor do I live in an Uptown world, but I will visit to eat there sometimes.

Saturday Brunch:

Little known fact, in Klyde Warren Park on Saturday mornings there are a bunch of free workout classes. I found this out via D Town Sweat. On the last day of the month they post a calendar of free workout events all around Dallas, and who doesn't love free? Alex agreed to go with me and we planned on doing the 9 AM Bootcamp followed by the 10 AM yoga. At 9 AM it was already blistering hot and terribly humid so by 9:15 we knew that yoga wasn't going to happen. The class was brutal, but it's a workout.

After that we grabbed Alex's roommate and walked over to Company Cafe.

Walked because Company Cafe is right off the Katy Trail.

That's the sign off to the left. See literally right off the Katy Trail.

Couple of pluses to Company Cafe. Everyone was there in workout clothes so you don't have to feel pressured to get super fancy or "Uptown Pretty" as I call it. Also, it's a farm-to-market type restaurant, so all the dishes were fresh with quality ingredients. 

Alex got The Morning Glory:

Good morning glory.

It's buffalo meat and scrambled eggs over a bed of spinach, onions, peppers, mushrooms, with some guac and salsa on top. If you sub-out buffalo meat with turkey, because I assume buffalo meat is hard to find, you can easily make this dish at home.

Her roommate Brittany had The Deep Bowl:

This was sweet potato hash with bacon and beef, topped with avocado, two eggs and salsa. Another dish easily replicated at home.  

I created my own concoction of the Yard Sale over some biscuits and gravy:

The Yard Sale is an egg scrambler with bell pepper, onion  and giant chunks of mozzarella and either venison or turkey sausage. Naturally I went with venison because I love that deer meat. But I put all this over biscuits and gravy mimicking a Panhandler from Old Went Cafe in Denton. 

All this food was deserved after that workout, plus the walking to and from Company Cafe on the Katy Trail. 

Sunday Brunch:

Sunday Alex and I were supposed to meet up with a couple new Instagram Girls for an Insta-Brunch (if you will) and Boxwood Tap and Grill. The girls didn't end up making it so it was just Alex and myself.

This place was so cute. It's right on the corner of Thomas Ave and Allen Street. It's in a mixture of residential and shops so you have a nice view from the patio. The patio itself was like a little oasis.

With ivy growing on the walls, misters outside to cool you off, picnic tables with umbrellas for shade and TVs along the wall. It's a great little get away. 

Since it ended up being just Alex and I we got ourselves the Mimosa Trio. That is a bottle of champagne with three seasonal juices. We had the classic orange juice, strawberry-kiwi, and white cranberry. I prefer non-traditional juices for my mimosa when given the opportunity so I was hitting the strawberry-kiwi and white cranberry.  

Neither of us were overwhelmingly hungry so we decided to split the chicken fried chicken.

Gravy on gravy with gravy on the side.

We had the chicken fried chicken, which was fresh out the fryer hot topped with gravy, scrambled eggs, and cheddar biscuits topped with gravy. Basically everything was topped with gravy. No problem with that. The gravy was delicious. The cheddar biscuits were not Red Lobster but they were still good. Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits are hard to beat though. One person could probably eat the dish but you would have to be hungry. It was the perfect size to split between two people. 

At the end of this weekend my blood had been replaced with gravy. Thick, delicious gravy. #NoRegrets. If I had to pick one over the other it would probably be Boxwood just because of it's patio, but it's hard to call because the food in both places was incredible. 

Chocolate, Cheese and Bubbles! Oh My

This post is centered around my most favorite of favorite foods in the word. Cheese. I love cheese. Seriously, I took a Buzzfeed Quiz once that asked "Would you rather give up cheese or oral sex?" and I gave up on the quiz.That first question was too hard. But upon further discussion about that with my coworkers we all decided we would keep cheese in our lives. That's how important cheese is.

A picture of my food pyramid. 

A couple weeks ago Megan asked me if I would ever be interested in a cheese tasting class. I then realized that she clearly didn't know me well enough if she needed to ask me that. Obviously a cheese tasting class is something that needs to happen in everyone's life, but especially mine. So we bought tickets to Scardello's "Chocolate, Cheese and Bubbles" class. They have multiple classes but chocolate, cheese AND bubbles was something that needed to happen like yesterday.

So artisan. 

Upon arrival the shop is small but it's got a rustic country chic thing going on. Based off the size you can see why these classes sell out quickly, at best you can maybe fit 40 people. Also, unless you go in a big group, be ready to become friends with your neighbors.

Look at all the chic-ness happening. So many pickled items.

I was more than ready for the cheese to come. For real. Cheese me please.

Cheeeeeeese!

What was disappointing? The sample sizes. To be fair, yes it's a tasting, and additionally no amount of sample sized cheese would ever win my heart, so I can't put that as an actual negative. I would, maybe, be satisfied with individual wheels of each cheese, plus chocolate bars and whole bottles of champagne. So being realistic here, those are hard expectations to accomplish.

Look at that glorious cheese plate.

The way they do this is they pair two complimentary types of cheese with one piece of chocolate and one type of champagne. You then, essentially, have four tasting rounds. There is also bread for you to spread cheese on, or clear your palate a little between tasting courses. As you go through the courses you learn a little background on the cheese and the champagne (not so much the chocolate but you get a little bit). They tell you the difference between one type to the other, the processes they go through. It's interesting little tid-bits of knowledge dropped on ya.

Seriously, look at that set-up. Cheese and chocolate goodness.

At the end I wanted another tray of cheese. I thought about buying a few wheels as well (as you can in store), but knew they wouldn't last (which I guess is the point). But I would absolutely buy some of those cheeses, I marked down the ones I liked for future consumption. There were only two cheeses I didn't like. One was a bleu cheese, but I don't like bleu. That one was difficult to eat too because I could tell I was trying a great quality bleu cheese, I just couldn't bring myself to like it. But the chocolate it paired with cut some of the overpowering bleu cheese flavor for me so I did finish my piece. It also dawned on me almost immediately upon starting the class that, "I'm totally bringing Caitlin here." I already told her we were gonna go to a class here, she's excited. Because cheese.

So Scardello. Go buy cheese there. There sell other things too, like wine and ornate tasting salts and pickled things. It's artisan, so you know it's fancy.

Fancy wines

Fancy salts

Take a class if cheese is your thing, and it should be. If cheese is not your thing, and it's not for a medical reason, you should keep that to yourself. Never trust a person that doesn't like cheese.