| rev:text
| - I visited BSBC on the final leg of a four restaurant hash crawl. Our previous three crawl stops (Marigold, Graze and Madison Sourdough) set the bar incredibly high and while I enjoyed my visit at BSBC, the quality of the food was a step below those other establishments.
Things I Liked:
* I'm a fan of the décor, a playful union of retro and modern. The robot posters, the rotating doughnut carousels, the brightly colored booths and the old school diner counter all combine to create a cheerful vibe. It's a fun place to be, even when the joint is slammed with customers.
* The playful theme of the décor carries over to the menu, which entices patrons with meals like savory French toast, the lox box, crème brule oatmeal and double chocolate pancakes. The same goes for the drink menu, which offers tempting libations such as boozy smoothies, slushy screwdrivers and spiked horchata.
* Kudos to BSBC for allowing restaurant patrons to park free in the Hampton Inn ramp.
* The quality of the ingredients of both the corned beef and the farmer's hash was top notch. The serving size was on the generous side.
Things I didn't:
* Both my visits were during peak weekend hours and service was slow. During the hashcrawl, it took over five minutes just to have the bartender acknowledge us (we took seats at the bar) and close to fifteen minutes to receive our drinks. There also was a significant delay getting the doughnut ordered at the end of the meal. On the positive side, one of the two bartenders was quite personable and did an admirable job checking in with us.
* My biggest criticism of BSBC is the weak execution of the dishes. The vegetables in both the hashes I tried lacked depth of flavor. They needed more oven time to draw out their natural sweetness. The boozy smoothie needed more fruit flavor to balance out the alcohol and the rye toast was bone dry and surprising bland. I hope that this aspect of BSBC will improve with time.
Given my family's love of breakfast food and free parking, I'm sure we'll return when we're visiting the UW campus.
|