Brunch Review: Helen's
I've been to Helen's three times in my life: New Year's Eve 2014, New Year's Eve 2015 and the weekend after New Year's Eve. The two New Year's Eves were totally alright, but the brunch was really alright. Pretty awesome, in fact. But it didn't start out that way.
We rolled with a total of 7 of us, which I get is a number. I walked in first to see if they could accommodate, and the lady replies with, "We don't usual take that big of a party," to which I replied, "You can totally split us up and that's fine." And not in a way that indicated it wouldn't actually be fine, because it would have been 100% fine. They also were not crowded.
She goes to check with the chef to see if they are allowed to seat 7 whole people at one table. I turn around and give my crew the half-shrug indicating we may or may not make the cut.
But we did, obviously, or this wouldn't be a blog post.
I was back and forth between a chicken biscuit and a Benedict. Fried chicken won. Once I got my chicken biscuit, it was great, but it took awhile. Apparently the kitchen (as is the whole restaurant) isn't used to serving 7 people at one time, so they brought out 5 dishes and me and the other chicken biscuit orderer chilled for a bit waiting for a meal. Apparently they forgot ours.
Then we waited a bit more and my stomach started to eat itself as everyone else ate their meal. I did snack on a few neon potatoes from my roommates plate. I'm actually serious, the potatoes were rather neon. But oh my gosh, very delicious. They didn't even need ketchup to be amazing, as they were garlic-y and oiled.
By the time my sandwich made it to me, I probably could have eaten sandpaper and made it work, but my biscuit was way better than sandpaper. Had it been delivered before I was ready to gnaw on the sideboard on the doorframe, I could probably give you a better description of the meal, but it was pretty awesome. I remember thinking the sandwich was a bit dry, so a little bit more dressing would have been appropriate. I was also a bit thirsty overall, though, because they were slow on the water refill and I am a fish. My last critique would be that I wish we had more potatoes because I loved those things.
I would like to go back to Helen's, and maybe even for dinner. Considering they are a dive-bar, the menu prices are somewhat steep, so I would assume the food is pretty decent, just as it was for brunch.