The decor is a little bland (and a tad awkward-- all the glass on the tables as you walk in gives me that feeling I used to get upon entering my grandmother's house as a kid-- don't bump into anything, or the crystal's going down!), the coffee was too cool and not up to snuff for a $3 cup... but the food, and service, were pretty stellar.
We came for a late brunch, at about 2pm, and it was very quiet. Sat by a window in the room closest to Central, a little noisy, but fine. I got the Country Benedict sans sausage, he got the Florentine sans salmon. We were both super-stoked because so rarely do you see these brunch essentials served in the CLT (the places we hit for brunch, anyway)... so we were both drooling a little as we looked forward to stuffing our faces with hollandaise and egg and muffin.
Man, our plates were delicious. The country benedict had some rad additions: a sweet, spicy relish and fried green tomatoes were hiding under my perfectly poached eggs and pool of hollandaise. Really interesting accents. Scarfed, and quickly.
The grits were almost a risotto, the grains so large and the flavors so rich. Flecks of mild black pepper abounding. Perfect consistency. Dude.
Florentine was piles of fresh spinach perfectly wilted, tomato was the salmon's replacement, and the slices were perfectly ripe.
Our waitress was sweet, made good recommendations, answered all of our questions thoroughly, and our water glasses stayed comfortably full.
You pay for the quality in food and execution at Lulu-- his was 13 and mine 14. But it was well worth the coin. I'll be back to try other dishes, if I have the restraint to not order the same thing every time. We'll see.