Drop it like it's hot!

Last Sunday  morning, after church but before the food truck rally (yeah, we had an epic eating day on Sunday), my wife and I decided to stop into The Drop to have one of these gigantic cinnamon rolls that we have been hearing about (since everyone and their brother has bought their brunch Groupon). You may know The Drop as the martini bar, that was co-founded by Ernesto from Blanc (which he has long since divested), that serves the edible cocktails. You may have even had their bruschettas during a happy hour, but you have probably not had their brunch (unless you bought, and used, the aforementioned Groupon), at least I hadn't.

A few area bars have what they call a "Hangover Brunch". Very few of them are well done, some push a bunch of stuff out on a buffet and go with quantity over quality *cough, Tomfooleries, cough*. With that being said, along with the fact that multiple Groupons had run for this place, I was not expecting too much from The Drop. I don't know if the fact that I was not expecting much led to this conclusion, but I was quite surprised with the brunch that we got. 

We walked in and ordered two mimosas. They were brought to us in stemless flutes, that we wouldn't mind having at home, but luckily for The Drop: this was not New Year's Eve 2009 (funny story that involves me getting busted trying to lift our midnight toasting flutes from a bar). The mimosas were legit (no Andre in these mimosas), not too sweet, not too strong. We sipped them and talked while listening to what was probably the best brunch mix ever! I don't know if it was Pandora or someone's mix, but it was perfect for brunch (mix of Jack Johnson, Colbie Caillat, and other young easy listening music).

Then came the giant cinnamon roll; it was huge. I estimate it to be the size of a large human face. As you can imagine, with a cinnamon roll that size, the outsides will get a bit crispy while waiting for the middle to get done. Myself, I am a ooey-gooey cinnamon roll guy, so I do not particularly care for the crispy outer layer. Despite the crispy outer layer, the roll was good. Not the best roll of all time, but good. What was great, however, was the frosting. The frosting was laced with cinnamon and pieces of pecan. While this may not have been the best cinnamon roll that I have ever had, it probably was the best cinnamon roll icing that I have ever had. The icing is so thick that it almost looks like gravy in the photo.

For entrees: I had the Croque Madame, my wife had the Crabcake Benedict, then we switched half way (as always). The crabcakes are topped with: prosciutto, poached egg, and white truffle honey hollandaise sauce. The crab cakes had way too much garlic for my taste, I don't know if this was a bad batch or if that is just the recipe. The rest of the dish was good, but with the crab cakes being the center of the dish, the rest of it is just auxiliary. The Croque Madame, on the other hand, was excellent! The Croque Madame was a capicola & gruyere sandwich in cheesy bechamel sauce, topped with a fried egg. I love anything with capicola on it and they were not stingy at all with the capicola (for those that don't know: Capicola is a spicy, salty, cured ham. It is basically what you would get if ham and pepperoni had a lovechild)! Add that to the nicely toasted bread, the melted gruyere cheese, what was essentially a cheesy gravy (bechamel sauce), and top that with a fried egg = brunch perfection. The yolks of the eggs on both dishes were perfectly runny. You also get your choice of sides, we got fried polenta bites and fruit salad. The polenta bites were like fried chunks of cheese grits (which is nice if you love grits like I love grits) and the fruit salad, well it's fresh fruit (pretty hard to that screw up, just don't let your fruit go bad), both very nice brunch selections.

My recommendation: Give The Drop and shot for brunch, while you are there, listen and see what I mean about the awesome "brunch" music. It's worth the price of admission and it's a really nice brunch spot.

P.S. Writing this made me realize how much the trolley going out of business has reduced my Martini Corner time, we will have to remedy that. We always used to run into Tech N9ne on that thing as well. R.I.P. Trolley!