Brunch at the Empire Cafe

For brunch, I engaged in a bit of cultural anthropology by trying the "Northwestern Breakfast". It was interesting to see what a Houston restaurant thinks of as Northwestern. It consisted of a smoked salmon, onion, and tomato omelette, some not-very-ripe fruit, and oatcakes with blackberry syrup.

The Empire Cafe is a cute cafe with nice outdoor patios and great trees. It's in Montrose, almost across the street from Cafe Brazil. I'd forgotten how interesting the menu is at Empire, and how good their coffee is. We'll probably end up here more often (assuming we wake up before the huge crowds that materialize around 10am).

Overall, not bad. The omelette was good. The smoked salmon was cold, but that also meant it wasn't cooked into pallid mush, and maintained texture well. The oatcakes were bizarre- very flat, on the raw side, with gummy chunks of steel-cut oats, weird texture, and a troubling shine. I can only presume they were very, very healthy. The blackberry syrup was good, and the cakes had a nice cinnamon flavor, texture notwithstanding. The fruit was like cardboard. Interestingly, I learned from my grandmother how to pick honeydew melons yesterday- if the skin is smooth, it's not ripe. The key is slightly rough, chalkboard-like skin.