Brunch Review: Pearl Raw Bar
In lieu of our new blog name, I thought it'd be fitting to actually do some brunch-themed posts. On top of that, I've ALWAYS wanted to be a food blogger, so basically there's no way I couldn't now do brunch reviews from around Richmond. So look forward to that happening every Sunday!
Here goes nothing. Up first, we've got Pearl Raw Bar.
A bit about my relationship with Pearl: I've been there three times. The first, with my roommates. We were all hungover as hell, and the waitress treated us as such. The second time I went with my sister and a roommate. 2 out of 3 of us were not hungover, and it was my favorite Pearl experience yet. The third time I went with a group of friends and the service was on par, but not memorable.
When I went the first time, I got the smoked salmon Benedict. I remember it being good, but when hungover, the fishy taste wasn't quite what I wanted. The second time, I ordered the roast pork omelet. In all honesty, you could probably stop reading right here as long as you remember those three words: roast pork omelet. It was one of the most wonderful brunches I have ever had. It was savory and a mix of everything I love: eggs, pork and avocado. Order it. Order the roast pork omelet. My mouth is watering all over the keyboard as I type it.
The third time I went to Pearl, I was back and forth between ordering the roast pork omelet again, or trying either the quesadilla or breakfast burrito. In the age old struggle between going with what I know I want or trying something new (you don't know until you try, right?), trying something new won out. In a spur of the moment decision, I went with the breakfast burrito.
You know what regret tastes like? The breakfast burrito. It was so mediocre, it made the highly-salted bloody Mary seem alright, simply because it had something memorable happening in it. Salt. The salt was what was memorable about the bloody. I think it was actually just red salt water in a glass.
I should also probably mention, this was my first bloody Mary. I knew it was a savory drink, much unlike my usual go-to brunch drink of a mimosa. But oh gosh, was this bloody not good. I got the bacon one (because what can't bacon cure?), and I think it just added to the salt flavor. All I could taste was salt. But since I paid like eight bucks for it, you bet your ass I choked it down. Every last salty sip of it.
And like you could guess, I was almost as salty as the drink was, knowing that there were way better menu options than the breakfast burrito I was consuming. My peers ordered the quesadillas, and those looked waaaaaay better. They were huge, had sausage in them and a ton of cheese, so based on looks alone, I'd say that's the route to take if you want mexi-brunch.
The takeaways from Pearl are: don't order a bloody unless you know what you're getting into OR like consuming a week's worth of sodium in one drink. And order the roast pork omelet.