Brenda’s French Soul Food
Last week, before we left for California, I had a chance to catch up with my friend Kieran, who happened to be in London on a super quick work trip. He and his wife Rachel had spent their honeymoon in California so he very kindly passed on some excellent tips. One of these tips was to make sure we had breakfast at Brenda’s French Soul Food. So, our first morning in town, we dutifully hopped in an Uber and headed off to check it out.
When we arrived at 9 am, we were surprised to see people already standing around outside waiting for a table. Considering it was a Sunday, I had expected the place to be pretty quiet until the more traditional brunch hours.
Going in, you’re first greeted with a chalkboard and a list of “house rules”. It seemed a little intimidating at first but it’s actually a great system: come in, add your name and the number in your party, then wait outside to be called.
After about twenty minutes, the host called us (“Caitie with a C?”) and seated us at the bar. However, he then noticed he had a free table so very kindly moved us over to it. Inside, the restaurant has two very different styles of wall decor: One side of the restaurant has an eclectic mix of mirrors while the other has a giant mural of a crawfish. Despite the differences, it does have a nice southern feel to it!
I had read a little about the head chef/owner’s southern roots so I knew we were in for some legit southern dishes and the specials definitely didn’t disappoint! We ordered mostly off that list but made an exception for the beignet flight (which was a first for us!).
The beignet flight includes all four of their beignet flavours - the original, a Granny Smith apple version, chocolate (made with Ghirardelli chocolate of course), and a savoury crawfish version with cheese and scallions.
Since neither of us had tried beignets before, we started with the original to get a sense of what we were in for. The original came with just powdered sugar and was absolutely delicious. As you eat, the sugar starts to melt on the warm beignet and begins to form a deliciously simple icing... I mean, what could be better than that?!
Next, we went for the crawfish beignet. In the past, I’ve always heard of beignets as a sweet dish so was keen to try this savory version. If you’re a seafood fan, this will be right up your street. The cheese and scallions were a nice addition but managed to still let the crawfish be the focus. This one was Matt’s favourite for sure.
My favourite, on the other hand, was the Granny Smith beignet. It was basically a New Orleans answer to a classic apple pie - which is an O'Grady family favourite. I liked that the filling wasn’t overly sweet and that there was a nice filling to dough ratio. Definitely the winner in my opinion!
The last beignet we tried was the chocolate option and it was the one we preferred the least. Not through any fault of its own though! It was just very, very sweet and by this time we’d seen the sizes of the mains so were feeling pretty concerned that our eyes had been bigger than our stomachs...
For my main, I went for the pulled pork Benedict with potato hash. I had been eyeing up the pancakes but just couldn’t resist pulled pork. Thankfully it didn’t disappoint: just slightly sweet with a hint of heat. The biscuit was nice and fluffy and the hollandaise was perfect - not too heavy and managed to avoid the gloopy consistency you sometimes get.
Matt’s main was the seafood frittata made with crawfish, shrimp, andouille sausage and cheese. It came with a biscuit and hash so was a seriously filling dish! He thought it was tasty although the crawfish got a little overshadowed (but reported that he would happily eat it again).
By the end of the meal, we were completely stuffed but very happy. In total, we spent $63 for the three dishes and two drinks (a guava mimosa for me and a surprisingly dry strawberry lager for Matt). While this might be a little pricey for breakfast, I think it was about what I would expect to pay for brunch - especially since we were way too full to even think about lunch!
Full Details:
Address: 652 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA
Website: www.frenchsoulfood.com
