Allium: Another Amazing Brunch Place in East Nashville [Eat]

Thanks to the enterprising minds behind the Groupon concept, I've been able to try out some new restaurants that I might not have otherwise. I bought the Allium Groupon – $25 for $50 worth of food and drinks – a few months ago, and we tried it out a week or two ago.

Let me just say this: I LOVE brunch. It's my favorite meal (along with breakfast for supper and straight-up breakfast), and I probably should do an entry on my top 10 favorite brunch places in Nashville at some point. (Though it would be tough to pick a winner. Mad Donna's is definitely the most often frequented, for sure. I think I've been there three times in the past month.)

But this is about Allium, which is located in the bottom of the "embattled" 5th and Main condo complex, so it's on the East Nashville side of the river, though not as far east as Five Points, so I don't know if that's still considered part of our 'hood, but it's so tasty that I'll claim it.

I was surprised by the prices, in a good way: The food was nowhere near as expensive as I would have imagined. Entrees were around $11 with hearty portions, and even with cocktails, coffee and sides, it was hard for us to reach $50 (I think we got close, though, maybe $48). So this is an incentive to go back, because most of the time I will not be trying to gorge myself in order to get our money's worth.

Since we were trying to spend a certain amount of money, we did get bloody marys, which were amazing. I'm also a bloody mary connoisseur (goes hand-in-hand with brunch loving), and this one was the perfect mixture of tomato juice and alcohol – not too strong – and garnishes (celery and lime). Though I think Ty was disappointed at the lack of olives.

Our server was pretty attentive, but he looked eerily like a younger version of Jacob from Lost (with a pompadour). When he came to take our order and gave us some sort of option, we were like, "Do we have a choice?" At the end of the meal I did ask him if he had ever seen the show, which of course he hadn't. Oh well.

One more note about the atmosphere: The soundtrack included "Cruel, Cruel Summer" by Ace of Base, which Ty had never heard. I'll leave it at that.

Now, onto the good stuff:

The entrees, as I said, were hearty portions. Ty ordered the Allium Benedict, which is sliced black forest ham, poached eggs and hollandaise in a popover, with pepper jack grits and a side of Benton's bacon. The popover was a bit much... too much bread to egg/meat ratio. But still good, plus you don't feel as overindulgent if you don't clean your plate. The eggs were poached to perfection, and the grits were surprisingly edible... I am not a fan of a grits that don't have some sweet aspect (either white grits with butter and sugar like my grandma made them, or yellow corn grits with maple syrup like my mom made them), but these were not bland, and the pepper gave them a flavor reminiscent of gravy. So, yum.

Meanwhile, speaking of overindulgency, I had the Wild Mushroom Scramble, which is scrambled eggs and mushrooms over a puff pastry with asparagus covered with mornay sauce, along with a side of roasted potatoes. (Sidenote: I recently read My Life in France by Julia Child, and became obsessed with the various incarnations of béchamel sauce, so I know all about mornay.)

This dish was so decadent that I couldn't finish it. I was thankful for the asparagus making me feel like I'm getting something healthy in this butter-laden meal, but oh, it was amazing. The puff pastry was light and airy, like the inside of a croissant, and the mornay was so rich that I wished they hadn't used quite so much of it. But it was so delicious that I'm sure Julia would have been proud.