Scandinavian Joy

Disclaimer, if I’ve to get to a restaurant for brunch on Saturday morning, i.e. 10-10:30AM, my expectations are absurdly high, mainly for being denied the right to sleep till noon. So the stakes were raised even before we had taken our seat.

This time the destination was Café Broder, a Scandinavian place in SE Portland. And unlike the previous weekend, this was worth everything, the “early” morning drive, the hour long wait, the cramped sitting arrangements.
The scrambled eggs cooked (and served) in a cast iron skillet, stuffed with tasty ham and fresh green peas, were delicious to say the least, as were the walnut toasts. The side of fresh, crispy bacon confirmed the rule, bacon makes anything better. But what really clinched it for Broder as my current favorite brunch place are two things – potato pancakes, perfect balance of mashed potatoes fried with what I think was pancake batter, and Hollander, an advocat and coffee cocktail. I didn’t know what advocat was until today. Wikipedia tells me it’s a traditional Belgian/Dutch liqueur made from eggs, sugar and brandy. This was the perfect early morning cocktail, if there’s such a thing. It had coffee, a must have every morning, blending deliciously with the creamy advocat. Plus the fact that the coffee is from Stumptown, a perennial PDX favorite, must contribute to the cocktail’s potency in no small measure.

I don’t remember precisely, but I think one of my friends had the lost eggs or förlorade ägg as the menu calls it. It was eggs, cooked sunny side up, on a bed of assorted goodness (spinach, potatoes among others) under a parmesan-panko crust.

Fiery Food!

Housed in an old building with lofty ceilings, chandeliers gathering dust of many decades, surrealistic paintings hanging on the walls, all fitted within two not quite big but comfy rooms, Pied Cow Coffeehouse is Portland in every way, a coffeehouse straight out of an Instagram snap shot.

A good beer list included seasonal beers, some local microbrew as well as offerings from across the Atlantic. For the teetotaler there were a few milkshake combinations, most of which sounded interesting on paper. (Sorry, when I see a Guinness, I usually don’t look elsewhere)

The chocolate hazelnut nutella banana (…and the kitchen sink) crêpes came out on fire, quite literally, and was delicious without setting anything ablaze.

The brioche with toasted hazelnuts was good, the slightly bitter hazelnut pairing nicely with the sour brioche.