Q Restaurant and Wine Bar

Shhh! Don’t wake the sleeping Dragon.

http://www.qrestaurant.com/

(Sorry, there really aren't that many "Q"-related EweToob videos.)


Place: Q Restaurant and Wine Bar 
Location: 225 Clement Street (between 3rd and 4th Avenues)
Hours: Saturday and Sunday open at 9:00am for "Brunch" (well, I can only assume that this is the case; their web-site says 9:00am on the home page, but on their "Brunch" menu page it says that it is "Served Saturday, Sunday and Holidays 10am-3pm")
Meal: Pumped Up Benny ~ poached eggs, bacon, and avocado with hollandaise on a black bean corn cake; served with home fries


While still working my way through my Breakfastary Rotation before the end of the regular Baseball season, I went back to Q Restaurant and Wine Bar (see last 'blog-entry from April 20th, 2013). Thinking that they didn't open until 10:00am (as they always had in the past ~ the 9:00am time must be something new in the past five months since my last visit) I got there about 9:45am and saw that they were already open and serving. I sat at the Sleeping Dragon tableau table again.

stupid parklet mini-rant of the day
As mentioned in the 'blog-entry from two weeks ago, there is a new, large 3-space wastelet located right across the street from the restaurant. 

I didn't see anything extremely exciting on the weekend "Brunch Specials" menu. I was just going to order the Grilled Portobello Benedict off the standard "Brunch" menu, but the Pumped Up Benny sounded pretty interesting, Ahnold.

Of course, I ordered this without the bacon stuff in it. The black bean corn cakes were fresh and homemade. I was really expecting these to be made with cornmeal (sort of a cornbread muffin or such) and with black beans in them, but they were actually black bean cakes (with rice in them, or however they are made) and lots of fresh and roasted corn kernels in them. Plus, there were lots of diced up red bell peppers, Pasilla peppers (I asked the waiter/server person-guy and he confirmed this for me with the kitchen; I figured they were either Pasilla or Anaheim chillies as they had a bit more heat to them than normal green bell peppers), and red onions (there is no truth to the rumour that the secret binding ingredients were "gunpowder and gelatine", though). I really liked the black bean corn cakes in place of Mr. Thomas' lame baked goods. However, both poached eggs were way undercooked and runny. I know that "poached eggs" are supposed to be soft and runny, but these were almost opaque and totally undercooked. I still ate them; I figured enough Hollandaise and hot sauce on top of it would make anything palatable. This was a nice thick and tasty Hollandaise sauce, too.

I also had a cuppa their house coffee with the meal. I have no idea what brand it was. It was good enough to have a few refills.

Q has several bottles of condimentary supplementation on the tables: Tapatío®, The Original "Louisiana" BRAND The Perfect Hot Sauce, and a few others. It really didn't matter what they had to offer as I was planning on using the two brand new bottles that I received while in Massachusetts last week (Thanks, Kerry!). Born to Hula presents Devon Allman's[1] All Natural Hot Sauce Chipotle Blues[2] on the potatoes; this has a nice smoky flavour, not really too much heat (still more than "gringo hot", though). Florida Gold Premium Habanero Hot Sauce Salsa Picanté Latin Flavour[3] on top of both eggs (mixed into the Hollandaise sauce); now this one packs a lot of heat, but nothing way too hot and it was also very good.

There were two Tootsie Roll® Midgees (original cocoa flavour) with the check this morning. Sadly, no Moët & Chandon was offered, though.


Glen Bacon Scale Rating: Pumped Up Benny ~ 6.4 (this would probably have been 6.6-6.7 or higher if the eggs had been cooked properly/thoroughly)


1. Devon Allman is the nephew of legend(wait for it…)ary Blues guitarist Duane Allman. Devon has his own Blues Rock band called Honeytribe. Oh, yeah, and his dad is Gregg Allman.

2. Ingredients: Distilled white vinegar, Roasted tomatoes, Cayenne pepper, Chipotle pepper, Roasted garlic, Salt, Onion powder, Lime juice, and Xanthan gum.

http://borntohula.com/

3. Made with Spring Water, Vinegar, Garlic, Florida Habanero Peppers, and other exotic herbs and spices.

http://www.floridahotsauce.com/