One of the things that we’ve liked about being in Southern California is the proximity to the beach. Saturday and Sunday mornings, when it’s not angry rush hour, it takes only about 15 minutes to drive out to Santa Monica and stare out at the awesome Pacific. For the past two weekends, we’ve done exactly that, get up at the butt-crack of dawn and drive to the coast and walk around for a bit and watch things brighten up. It’s a nice way to start the day.
Santa Monica is a pretty town. It also seems to have a lot going for it in terms of plant-based options and I really appreciate that. Two weekends ago, we had a most excellent breakfast at Erin McKenna’s Bakery place and I’d love to go back!
Initially, I was skeptical, since it calls itself a bakery, but the food was spot on and the weekend brunch had just what I wanted for brunch: namely, biscuits and gravy.
I’m a stickler for my gravy. I’ve had mock “sausage” gravy made with seitan and more recently with tempeh, but what I’d never really cared much for were gravies made with mushrooms. It just never hit the right note for me. One of my earliest vegan gravies I ever had I ribbed mercilessly because it used mushrooms and those little sponges just didn’t seem right. Until now.
The biscuits themselves very much reminded me of Bisquick biscuits. The texture and the taste was just not that different. Now, that might be saying something if they’re made gluten-free, but I simply do not care about that. What I do like is my food without glyphosate – I’ll add gluten for the sponginess – but I can do without the added poisons. The gravy though, had the perfect right flavor. Creamy umami.
The first week we were there we tried the chickpea frittata, which was really delicious. It came with a nice side of fried potatoes and carrots that we both really enjoyed. Both weekends we had the biscuits and gravy. This past weekend we also tried the breakfast sandwich, an entirely vegan sausage, egg and cheese biscuit that was pretty much a dead ringer for the “real” thing. It was delicious. I could have eaten 12 of them.
My only complaint was that I thought things were a little high, but costs, margins, odd ingredients etc….I get it. Maybe more places should charge more and deliver a higher-quality product? Maybe, also, it was perception. That’s not a lot of food on that plate, though it is just enough food. Maybe they should use smaller plates? A little parsley?
Erin McKenna’s Bakery is 100% vegan and therefore has a VegScore of 100.