Brunch Review: Casa Del Barco

April 17, 2016 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Richmond Brunch Review

Last Sunday afternoon my friend and I headed downtown to Casa Del Barco for brunch. Casa Del Barco was one of the first restaurants to jump onboard for Richmond Brunch Weekend, and I had been looking forward to checking them out.

I had been to Casa Del Barco once before for a birthday dinner and enjoyed my meal then. I was pretty confident they wouldn’t lead me astray for brunch. If you can’t tell from the name, Casa Del Barco offers generally Mexican cuisine. While writing this review, I decided to Google what “barco” means. It means “boat.” (Obviously Spanish III did freshman year of high school did not deliver necessary life skills.) So Casa Del Barco translates to “Boathouse.” This makes all the more sense since Casa is owned by the same people as all three Boathouse locations (who are also participating in Richmond Brunch Weekend, don’t you know?).

Casa Del Barco is a bit hard to find once you get to the general location. It faces onto Richmond’s Canal Walk, and parking is situated on the backside of the building. Their website is probably the best at navigating where to park and how to get there.

Brunch Review: Maple and Pine Restaurant of Quirk Hotel

Maple and Pine Restaurant

April 10, 2016 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Richmond Brunch Review

Since the fall, my Facebook feed has been spotted with friends’ Instagrams featuring trendy cocktails and aerial shots of flowers and/or food (warning: aerial shot ahead), all tagged at the Quirk Hotel. This past weekend I finally got to see the Quirk Hotel myself when I brunched at Maple and Pine, Quirk’s onsite restaurant and a participating restaurant in Richmond Brunch Weekend.

I feel not a lot of people know that Maple and Pine is the name of Quirk’s restaurant, or maybe I just need to namedrop Quirk Hotel, so every time I explained where I brunched, I go, “At Maple and Pine of Quirk Hotel.” Duh.

Quirk opened in downtown Richmond this past fall. It’s part of a hotel chain called Destination Hotels. So it’s not exactly a chain like the Marriott. It’s hard to really pin down what Quirk is, because it’s definitely more than a hotel: it’s a gallery, a restaurant, a bar, an event space, etc., etc. Its name should be “Trendy, Etc.,” to be honest because of how millennials on social media treat it.

Brunch Review: The Boathouse at Rockett's Landing

The Boathouse at Rockett's Landing

April 03, 2016 by Sara Woznicki in Richmond Brunch Review

Cazey and I have been meeting some really cool Richmonders in the quest to make Richmond Brunch Weekend as amazing as it can be. Today, we got to sit down with Faith Wilkerson from UnlockingRVA to chat about how we can share resources to get more restaurants onboard and more people to know about the event. We decided to conduct our "business" in the only fashion we know: over brunch.

Despite the weather being a bit gloomy, we decided to try out The Boathouse at Rockett's Landing. Since I never go into a brunch cold, I previewed the menu the night before and decided that I was going to get the Southern custard bread pudding French toast.

When you first walk in to brunch at Boathouse at Rockett's Landing, the first and most noticeable change from their nighttime set-up is the wide array of breakfast foods laid out for the taking in the semi-buffet set up by the far windows.

6 Things You Need for the Perfect Lazy Sunday Funday

March 28, 2016 by Sara Woznicki in Leisure, Life In Your 20's, Richmond Brunch Review, Sara's Column, Tweets and Mascara

When people use the phrase, "Sunday Funday," my mind goes straight to the pitcher -- a cheap mimosa pitcher shared amongst friends/ yourself. It makes me think of that time we accidentally ordered too many pitchers at 3 Monkey's and I ended up adopting my friend's dog for the day instead of just letting her out. Or that time Lauren and I ended up randomly drunk at Buddy's without much of a warning.

Mimosa soaked Sunday's definitely are Funday's, but sometimes nursing that hangover is almost as fun. I'm not talking about the throbbing headache, because that's never fun, but everything that comes with the Sunday hangover is actually pretty great. Think about it, what's more fun than a perfect excuse to lay on your sofa and use your chest as a plate?

Brunch Review: Southerly Patio & Restaurant

Southerly Restaurant & Patio

March 27, 2016 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Richmond Brunch Review

The first Saturday of March, I suddenly realized Richmond Brunch Weekend is a lot closer than I thought, and ATOB needed to start reviewing all these participating restaurants. I called up two friends and we headed to Southerly Restaurant & Patio, which is the dine-in portion of Southern Season. Now Sara and I have been to Southerly one other time, but not for brunch. I’ve been meaning to go back, and it only took nine months, no biggie.

We arrived around 12:30 with no reservation, but were seated promptly. The first thing my friends remarked upon was how fancy Southerly is. Now it’s not fancy in the “you need to dress up” way, but it’s the sort of place “you go to after church,” my friend explained. “Or you take your grandmother for her birthday.”

I definitely agree with this. There were rosebuds in water on the tables. Southerly’s target demographic is not the hungover millennial demographic, but it doesn’t need to be. We have the Fan bruncheries for that. The Southerly is, like its name implies, a taste of the South – a brunch place to take your parents (or rather, they take you) and then have them buy you stuff next door in the Southern Season.

Brunch Review: Citizen

Citizen

March 20, 2016 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Life In Your 20's, Richmond Brunch Review

My friend Joanna and I grab coffee or lunch about every other week. Joanna usually grabs food at a cart while I pack lunch like the frugal grad student I am. (She’s also in grad school. Maybe I’m just frugal.) Recently, however, the wind chill was a bit too much, so Joanna suggested we go to Citizen.

This wasn’t my first time at Citizen, but it was at their new location on East Main and 12th. Their old location was this small joint underneath what can only be described as a plaza on the side of a skyscraper (okay, it’s Richmond, so the SunTrust Tower is a skyscraper). Honestly, finding the old place made me feel like such a hipster; I needed to put on my thick-rimmed glasses. The new place faces right onto Main Street.

Citizen is basically a city café. You walk in, and half the joint is the bar (like a Waffle House bar, not a bar bar, where you can see them preparing your meal) and the other half is one long row of seating. We decided to grab a table since we weren’t going to sit outside. A waiter soon helped us, which is an upgrade from their old location where it was order-and-seat-yourself.

Brunch Review: Silver Diner

Silver Diner

March 13, 2016 by Sara Woznicki in Leisure, Sara's Column, Richmond Brunch Review, Tweets and Mascara

When I was planning car shopping, I also needed to plan brunch beforehand. You know the saying, "Never go car shopping without brunching beforehand."

Okay fine -- that's not a saying. But anyways, I brought my friend and her husband to help me, and left it in his capable hands to recommend where we go since we wanted it to be close to the Mazda dealership, which is outside my normal brunching radius.

Brunch Review: Citrus

Citrus Breakfast & Lunch

March 06, 2016 by Cazey Williams in Cazey's Column, Richmond Brunch Review

As a native of Virginia Beach, I started to hear about Citrus Breakfast & Lunch, or just Citrus, a couple of years ago. It became an even bigger deal when they opened a second location in VB. On a trip home, my friends and I tried to get a table there. The hostess promptly informed us that the wait for the table was 45 minutes to an hour.

LOL

Me: “I think we’ll go somewhere else.”

Ain’t no brunch worth that wait.

Brunch Review: 10 Italian Cafe

February 28, 2016 by Sara Woznicki in Richmond Brunch Review, life lessons, Tweets and Mascara, Sara's Column

On the quest to get Cazey food before he might experience his first hangover (can we really all just pause here and sulk in the fact that this kid NEVER gets hungover), we decided to go to Weezies. Then we got to Weezies and said, "hell no," when we saw the line and crowd. We decided to then head west like our ancestors (just kidding, my ancestors didn't head west, nor do I actually know if we were heading west), and thought maybe we'd see if Water Coastal has brunch.

As we headed in that direction, our roommate Liz, who will eventually be featured in a blog post entitled "Living with Liz," said, "I've always wanted to go there!" And pointed to a corner restaurant with a patio. So, we went to the corner restaurant.

Brunch Review: KANOA Latin Cuisine

KANOA Latin Cuisine

February 21, 2016 by Cazey Williams in Richmond Brunch Review, Cazey's Column

Sara and I have the high honor of living with Liz (the title of a future requested blog post by Liz herself), our third roommate. Liz happens to have been born in Venezuela and knows Spanish, which is only important because she’s supposed to start helping me with pronunciation on Duolingo, a free Rosetta Stone-esque app that teaches you foreign languages.

Recently Liz’s parents visited and took all three of us to KANOA. Sorry, I don’t mean to yell at you, but upon investigating KANOA’s site, they happen to put caps lock on every time they write the restaurant’s name. KANOA calls itself a Latin cuisine restaurant, but it’s actually Venezuelan cuisine. Liz and her family would know.