Basic Brunches does Rapscallions

Rapscallion. Typically known as a mischievous person, in this case I am referring to the mischievous (somewhat) new restaurant located in Lower Greenville. Although they've been receiving rave reviews for their standard lunch and dinner options, back in September they opened up their doors just a littler earlier than usual to start serving brunch.

Rapscallions lovely brick facade.

Typically, I will admit, I keep to my comfort zone. I live in Far North Dallas where Addison, Plano and Frisco are king. I occasionally travel to Uptown for brunch because, to be fair, their brunch scene is on point. Also their demographic is 20-something career kids that love nothing more than getting turnt the night before and hitting some hair of the dog on Sunday mornings and Instagramming about it. But Lower Greenville is an area that I have yet to venture to. For this brunch a fellow Instagrammer Vicky D invited me out so we could finally meet in person and she chose the place.

While parking is slightly limited in the surrounding area, and everywhere threatens to tow you, Lower Greenville is quite quaint. Cute little walkable streets with plenty of food and shopping options. It's a place I need to explore more. Upon arrival to Rapscallions it seemed like it could accommodate our party of two but were told there was a 30 minute wait that obviously started with us because no one else was waiting yet. We said we'd sit outside but it was deemed too cold to serve on the patio, although this is Texas and really you just need to wait 5 minutes. Our wait ended up being no more than 20 minutes.

Rapscallions is the Lower Greenville version of Ida Claire. With their farm to table, "eclectic" menu and their hipster dressed waiters with ironic facial hair all over the place. The only difference really was that at Ida Claire they serve their mimosas with Rose while Rapscallions does their mimosas the traditional way with champagne. The menu is very limited and savory heavy. If you are interested in some kind of sweet dish like french toast I recommend you look elsewhere. The only sweet options on the menu were located on the appetizer section. And while, yes, you could easily turn the monkey bread into a personal meal, I wouldn't recommend it.

It's not much in way of full brunch meal

We ordered the Gammy's Monkey Bread to share which came out looking delicious and it did not disappoint. It was warm and just the right amount of goo for pull apart bread. It will get all over your hands if you choose to eat it that way. But it's very easy to pull apart so using your fork is a more civilized option.

Monkey Bread for two!

Vicky was debating about getting the "Old Soba" which is a NOLA style lo mein dish which is a pork head broth with pork belly and shaved pork collar. There are noodles and an egg in there too but you are looking at consuming all parts on a pig. She ended up picking the Duck Confit Hash because hash is her weakness, The hash is sweet potatoes, onions, peppers, poached duck egg and duck fat hollindase.

I went a different route and choose The Big Biscuit. Typically biscuits and gravy isn't my thing unless I'm getting it at Old West and it's smothered with eggs, potatoes, cheese and spinach but this looked like it would be good. It's a house-made sausage patty on top on the house-made biscuit with a heavy pour of pork fat gravy and two sunny side eggs. I personally don't like my eggs sunny side up so I asked for them to be cooked just a little longer. While the dish was as good as it looked I will admit that cutting the biscuit proved difficult at times.

The Big Biscuit!

The only, slightly ridiculous, thing that happened on our brunch trip was once we got up to leave the table next to us decided that we were inconveniencing them by sitting there because not only did they want to spread out a bit but they also wanted out chairs. As we got up to walk out we heard one of the ladies at our neighboring table say "Finally" and snag one of the chairs. Really?

Overall I would go to Rapscallions again but it's a place you need to be craving. With the limited menu and small space you need to want savory food and be ok with a wait. The food is done well and worth the wait but the menu prices are a little high.

International Basic Brunch: Fable Kitchen

I know what you're thinking. "She was in Vancouver two months ago. Why is she just now posting about this?" Well, the answer is, I was waiting on the pictures that were not mine. I just got them this week. So I can finally write about my International Basic Brunch and hope I remember everything.

Let me introduce you to Fable Kitchen. Fable is a Farm-to-Table (get it?) restaurant opened by Trevor Bird, a former contestant on Top Chef Canada. Everything, and I do mean everything, is made from scratch in this restaurant. To be fair, Canada takes more pride in the quality and preparation of their food so most places are from scratch or farm to table. Every place is delicious. Eat in Vancouver. But back to the point, Fable has an open air kitchen located right at the front of the restaurant. Right when you walk in you're practically in the kitchen. Get your apron and help expedite some food.

The Sunday we went to Fable was for International Basic Brunch. It was written into the game plan once Basic Brunches became a thing. Also, brunch. Duh.

Brunch because mimosas

The food here seems simple, but in that simplicity it is very confusing. I got the scrambled eggs. Or so I thought.

Do you see the eggs? No? That's because they are snuggled all comfy like in that little jar. Do you need a closer look?

See... eggs. More than just eggs too. The eggs themselves also have sauteed spinach and bacon and parmesan cream. Yep. You read that right. Parmesan CREAM! I would have purchased a can of that delectable cream and take it home and put that shit on everything!! All the things. It also came with toast and homemade jam, and a potato hash-brown/square with whatever that cream spread was. Eaten, but not shown, was the side of bacon. But when I say "side of bacon" I actually mean the 1/2" thick SLAB of pure pork belly that came with an apple puree. Because if bacon isn't good enough as is, let's make it bigger and add puree with it.

Here's an aerial view 

Everything about my dish was amazing. Actually, having to relive this meal while I write this makes me want to go back and eat it again. 

Mindee and Adriana both got the French Toast. Oh sorry, I mean they each got a half loaf of bread that was made into french toast. 

Not even exaggerating. It was half the size of the plate and 3 inches high. And it's topped with mascarpone, because more cheese, and candied walnuts. Adriana also tacked on a side of house made sausage that came with a black pepper jam (which is shown but in the background). 

International Basic Brunch was a huge success. Here is something I mentioned before though about Canadian Brunches... they fill up ridiculously fast. Two places I called that morning basically laughed at me when I asked about getting in. Fable told me if I got there when they opened I could probably get in with no wait. We did. We got there within 5 minutes of them opening and were seated immediately. What you can't tell is the restaurant is very small.. sorry "cozy".  Before we even ordered our food they had no more tables left. Another thing is no one in Canada will rush you. At all. No one will make you feel like you need to leave so they can get a new table in. So eating practically anywhere will take you two hours. WILL TAKE YOU TWO HOURS. If you are sitting at a table and it's not McDonald's you will be there for a long time. Did I stress that enough? Eating is meant to be a time to relax and talk with your friends and enjoy your food. The way food deserves to be enjoyed and the way we should always enjoy it. 

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.