A few weeks ago I went to brunch at Cafe Boulud within The Brazilian Court in Palm Beach. I’ve known about this $25 weekend brunch for some time now and have been wanting to go for equally as long. The opportunity presented itself and without hesitation I was there faster than I could hit the reply button to the invitation.
We all have them, those friends who are equally as passionate about a place or a type of food as we are; be it the local watering hole or sushi or tapas, in my case I have a brunch buddy, Gail Casale whom you met back in January of 2010 as one of the Bloggers in the Spotlight. Gail and I periodically seek out places to have brunch, to catch up with each other and to indulge in our very favorite food pastime, brunch. This common weekend food bond we share has taken us to some rather interesting places; while not all brunches are created equal we have yet to have a bad experience. And at the top of our list was this brunch at Café Boulud.
The entrée course is where my brunch buddy and I veered off in different directions. I opted for the Belgian Waffle with a Banana Walnut Compote and Gail had the Moules-Frites. The combination of banana and walnut is one of my all-time favorites; be it bread, pancakes or in this case, a warm sweet compote that just tickled my taste-bud fancy to no end. Belgian Waffle, I was thinking singular, as in one, not three. So to my surprise when a trio of steamy baked dough arrived complete with three thick slices of bacon I think I actually gasped. Three seems to be a magic number with this dish, bases were loaded….The Moules-Frites is a perfect afternoon brunch item. Not an exhaustingly filling dish but one that is balanced just so. The white wine steamed mussels were hot, sweet and tender and the twice fried crispy pommes frites were insanely indulgent. As I’m sure you can imagine, there was plenty of the white wine sauce left in the mussel bowl; neither of us dared to ask for more bread (for fear of spontaneously combusting, certainly not of shame) I recommend saving some of the foccacia from the bread basket and “fare la scarpetta” until the last bit of savory sauce is gone, or just ask for a straw.
And now for dessert, we went chocolate and cheesecake. At this point I will tell you we were both more than sated; any concerns about the $25 price tag with regard to portion size should definitely be stricken from your thoughts. I ordered Cheesecake with the House Citrus Sorbet, and Berry Coulis. Gail ordered the Chocolate Pear Sundae. Both were delightfully flavorful and equally tempting with their composite of textures, which seemed to be a constant theme throughout our brunch. The flavors worked and melded well together but it was the complimenting textures within each dish that made all three courses equally memorable.
Click here to view the photos from brunch
301 Australian Avenue Palm Beach, FL 33480 (561) 655-6060
