Brunch at the Foggy Goggle

Looking back at my brunch blogs from 2014, I realize I did not eat nearly enough brunch. So my new year’s resolution for 2015 is to eat brunch at least once a month. That’s 12 months of brunch!

I got an early start this month by rallying up a crew to meet up at the Foggy Goggy on a slushy Sunday afternoon. The brunch menu at The Foggy Goggle is big and seemingly inspired – with everything from breakfast pizza to 6 kinds of eggs benny to tofu scramble. The Foggy Goggle claims to serve “comfort food with attitude” and I think it fancies itself as sort of a gastropub.

My group settled itself on the cozy couches and took advantage of the $5 beers on special while I enjoyed a virgin Caesar with a snappy pickled bean.

I love novel renditions of eggs benny, so I was lured in by this version with Brother’s pepperoni.

Brother’s Pepperoni Benny $13

The bennys at The Foggy Goggle come on whole wheat English muffins and are served with hash browns and decorative little salads of shredded carrots, beets and greens. Gluten-free English muffins are available for an extra charge. The Foggy Goggle prides itself on not having a deep fryer, so the hash browns are prepared on the stove top.

We all really enjoyed the hash browns.

As for the benny…

The fried pepperoni was nice. The hollandaise was skimpy and not particularly flavourful.

I poked my knife into the poached egg, anticipating the yolk to burst out and run down the sides of my benny, drenching my hash browns and bread -but what’s this!? A hard yolk? Whuuuuuuut?

I asked the server if the poached eggs are usually cooked hard. “Usually medium,” she said, “Why, are they too hard?”

I’m not crazy, right? The default preparation of eggs benny involves soft poached eggs, no?

Hash Brown Foggy Spuds – $14

The Foggy Spuds are perhaps the signature dish at The Foggy Goggle. They are a rich dish of roasted potatoes drenched in a cream sauce with chopped bacon, corn, red onion and topped with melted cheese. The breakfast version uses hash browns and omits the chopped bacon in favour of the bacon & eggs placed on top. 

I thought this all sounded like a good idea, so I suggested that DoomGuts order it.

The eggs, again, were cooked hard, but this didn’t bother DoomGuts as much as it bothered me.

Her first bite of the spuds was rich and creamy, but as she continued eating she claimed that the flavours became monotonous. The use of hash browns instead of roasted potatoes reduce this prize dish to slop, and the omission of the chopped bacon does damage to the flavour profile.

A better review goes to the Afternoon Delight Mac ‘n’ Cheese, with bacon, tomato and red onion, topped with fried eggs and Hollandaise.

Afternoon Delight Mac ‘n’ Cheese $15

Max received a trough of cheese, pasta and sauce. It certainly isn’t much to look at, but Max thoroughly enjoyed his brunch pick – as did everyone who stole a spoonful.

Liz ordered the breakfast pizza which comes in a 12″ size (or a gluten free 9″) but only ate a slice or two before getting bored with the lack of flavours.

So I tried a slice. The crust was okay enough, and I enjoyed the zippy tomato sauce but I didn’t really taste any of the breakfast elements, which was kinda sorta supposed to be the point.

Megan ordered the crepe of the day which involved bacon and avocado and goats cheese, I believe.

Megan’s review was basically, “MEH” – which echoed the table consensus.

We liked the hash browns best, and I think the salads were pleasantly fresh and substantial. But The Foggy Goggle has some work to do on the brunch front.

Most of all, they committed the cardinal breakfast sin of serving an eggs benny with a hard poached egg. An easy improvement would be to at least ask people how they would like their eggs.

I appreciate the vegan and gluten-free options here, as well as the health-conscious emphasis and creative menu. The problem we had was with the execution of the dishes – which is fixable.

For now all I can say is that I’ll be back for the mac ‘n’ cheese.