The Garden Brunch Cafe: Nashville Restaurant Review

What's a reunion without brunch?

Asking ourselves this, 8 of us planned to do brunch the Sunday most of my friends were in town - 17th of December. The Garden Brunch Cafe was selected as our location, and so we headed there at about 9:45 am. Unfortunately, the cafe doesn't take reservations, so there was about a 30 to 40 minute wait for us - more for those who came after us. The weird thing is that they don't seat tables of more than 6, and all had to be present for us to be seated. This meant that 4 of us got a table first - and then 2 of us had to wait an ADDITIONAL 30 minutes for the last 2 to arrive to be seated. We weren't too happy about that, but by the time we were hungry enough that we just wanted some food - a good decision, since the food was great! The ambience was chic and modern, and not too busy.

I loved these centrepieces!

We decided to get a carafe of their mimosa for the table - mimosas make everything better, and you simply can't do brunch without them. Really silly, but I got excited about the fact that they spelt 'litre' with an 're' - you can see it in greater detail in the second picture.

I decided to get the fiesta omelette, with turkey sausage, green peppers, cheddar, onions, and jalapeno peppers, and a side of pancakes to share. One of my friends ordered the same, and the others got the french toast, and the breakfast bowl - scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, a choice of bacon, sausage or ham, served over pan roasted potatoes - with an iced coffee.

Oddly enough, there was no cutlery on the table, and we had to ask for it. In fact, the service for such a popular place was slow and substandard - hopefully, this was just a one time thing. For example, one of our friends ordered a southern pecan flavoured black coffee. This came, but we had to ask for the cream, which took a while to bring. The same friend had asked for her omelette without onions - however, it came with.

Okay, back to the food. My omelette came with toast and grits. The grits were FANTASTIC. They were perfectly creamy, and I had to pace myself in order to avoid finishing them all in one bite! The fluffy pancakes also got a 10/10 - they were perfectly fluffy, and just slightly gooey in the centre. I absolutely LOVED them.

The omelette was good too - however, it wasn't closed, and the ingredients were cut really big! So this meant I had to take a bite of peppers separately, then sausage separately, and so on.

Fiesta omelette

My friend who ordered the french toast really liked it, and rated it among her 'top 5 french toast experiences'. The only thing she would've improved was to have her eggs come with some toast.

French toast with a side of eggs

My friend who ordered the breakfast bowl wasn't as pleased with his experience. While the flavours worked well individually, he felt that they didn't mix well together - it was like a deconstructed breakfast bowl. Everything was really big and chunky, and the eggs were a huge mass. However, he loved his iced coffee, which he ordered without whipped cream and deemed perfect. With a slight chocolatey flavour, it reminded him of a kid's drink from back in the day.

Breakfast bowl

Overall verdict - good food - I'd return for the grits and pancakes alone! However, service is in definite need of improvement.

The Mayura: Restaurant Review

Happy new year, everyone! It's been a while, so I thought to break tradition and post on a Tuesday this time - I'm sure you're in need of new restaurant recommendations, right? Located in Kenrail towers, the Mayura is an Indian restaurant that you may not have been to yet. I'd heard about it, but never been, so when I was invited to do a review, I naturally jumped at the chance. Located in Kenrail Towers, the ambience of the Mayura has peacock-themed, warm interiors. There's a lot of space to sit down, both inside and outside. The restaurant is the brainchild of Rajiv Segal, who has a corporate background and being from Delhi, had a high standard of quality and had developed a distinctive palate, which he wanted to bring to the people in Nairobi. The menu was chosen for us by Rajiv (and boy, did we eat a lot!). For starters, we had some paneer tikka, mutton chops, fish amritsari and banu kebab (chicken). The paneer tikka was absolutely amazing! The paneer was fresh...

Fashion, Food and Furniture: A Night with Panesar Kenya

Pic by Catherine Muchira Now, part of being a nomad does involve socialising, although this probably hasn't been all too evident in my recent posts! The evening of Thursday, the 5th of November found me attending an invite-only event entitled 'Fashion, Food & Furniture' at the Rouge Deck , hosted by Panesar Interiors . I was allowed a plus one, and decided to make my best friend tag along with me. I must admit, when I first received the invite, I was a little curious to see how the 3 themes were meant to fit together, but everything flowed seamlessly on the day of the event! I must admit, I was quite impressed. The Fashion Pic by Official Photographer The clothes on display were designed and created by Njema Helena , a company that was formed by a mother and daughters team in honour of their late daughter and sister, who passed away from cancer a few years ago. The designs were absolutely beautiful, and I loved the modern take on traditional African prints. There were ...

If You Don't Grow, You Die

By now, most of you know Aniqah Khalid, one of my best friends and fellow writers. Usually she guest posts content she hasn't published before on my blog, but I absolutely LOVED her most recent post, and so I had to have it too! Enjoy. Today, on the 7th of May 2015, I have decided to embrace life and fight for my happiness and I would like all of you struggling to do this with me too. For three years, my life has been a downward spiral of anxieties, depression, negativity, paranoia and just everything wrong. I have decided to put an end to this and I have recently learned through a life changing video by Mimi Ikonn that you have to invest in sustainability. There is no magic pill where you wake up one day and everything is completely fine. You have to TRY and work at your salvation. Her tips are the ones I will share below and I challenge everyone who is mildly or severely unhappy to partake in this happiness challenge with me for a month and see how we feel by the end of it. Howe...

Fashion and Style

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