Brunch at Alana’s is truly an experience, unlike anything found elsewhere in Columbus; perhaps that’s why she only does it a few times a year. I must admit that I have a few regrets about my Easter Brunch experience; first of all, I forgot to bring my camera and therefore do not have any visual documentation, and second, Husband did not pace himself, as warned, and we were unable to continue eating as long as I might have wished.
There is no menu for food options; only for cocktails. I opted for the guava champagne cocktail and Husband chose the Page mandarin variety. I had heard that the homemade non-alcoholic raspberry lemonade was very tasty, but I have been brunch-deprived for nearly a year, and really felt that something with champagne was in order.
There was a decent buffet set up in the wine shop, full of cold salads, fruit and muffins, but when we started there, Alana told us not to get anything because soon we would be very, very full. We settled on some grapes and only two salads; spicy egg noodle with beef, and chickpea with feta and mint. As we started nibbling on our fruit, a coworker of mine, who was almost finished eating, stopped by to say hi and warn us not to eat anything cold, that there would be plenty to eat soon. See how many warnings we had?
How the brunch works is that Alana, some of her cooks, and the servers walk around with various dishes, and they stop by your table to offer it to you, at which point you can accept or decline.
And so we commenced the eating. Following is a list of courses we were offered:
Moroccan spiced lamb stew with cous cous
Indian Duck Runner eggs Benedict on sourdough with good ham
Macaroni and cheese with fresh, homemade ricotta and cheddar
Brunch "whopper" with gravlax and creamy dill sauce on a tiny biscuit
Gorgonzola and truffle stuffed rugalech
Oysters "shockafeller" gratin with goat cheese and fennel
Gumbo with smoked chicken, andouille and tiny shrimp
Cous Cous, goat cheese, currant and hazelnut stuffed quail with citron, honey, and pomegranate reduction
Top round of lamb, cooked rare and sliced, with tiny zucchini
Amish eggs Florentine with spinach, cheese and sauce Mornay
Spring vegetable risotto
Tiny crab cakes
Grilled soy and mirin glazed salmon with baby bok choy
Eggplant crespelle with marinara and ricotta
These are all of the things we could have eaten; unfortunately, Husband was too full to continue after the round of lamb, and so we had to move on to dessert, which I ate rather petulantly I’m afraid. My coworker said his table had something like 18 dishes before dessert. We decided to come back for Mother’s Day, with more people, in order to have the complete experience.
But we still have to cover dessert:
Homemade Peeps
Shortbread petticoat tails
Tiny rubber duckie and Easter egg cutout cookies
Raspberry Panna Cotta
Peanut butter cookies
Spicy pecan brittle
Chocolate covered strawberries
Peanut butter pie
Chocolate black walnut tart
Unfortunately, it was raining when we left and we were unable to take the 2-hour walk I felt was in order after all that indulgence. Oh well, today it’s back to work anyway. That’s exercise, isn’t it?
