I would be one of the first to admit American brunches frighten me. Gigantic portions, exaggerated flavours, greasy food comes to mind. However, Boondocks has been receiving such tremendous social media love, it would be a stubborn restaurant reviewer to not check it out. It is also conveniently situated close to Old Street tube station.
The striking thing you will notice when you enter is how unique the venue has been decked out. It represents a slice of the Appalachian mountain countryside from which chef Bea Vo grew up. The walls are covered by musical notes and instruments like the accordion and a violin. There are dungarees on the wall, Bea might have worn previously.
The bar serving their classic cocktails like The Mint Julep and The Stax Old Fashioned has a back wall that’s covered with retro-looking records. They have a beautiful light installation on top of their staircase using an elegantly arranged series of bottles.
They do have an issue with their brunch menu currently in that their classic burgers are not offered even around 13:00 on a Saturday or Sunday, which during our visit did lead to a few people having to walkout shortly after arriving. Although we have heard their weekend brunch menu is about to be revamped.
For brunch-lovers, there are plenty to enjoy from their current menu. It might not be the most healthy but it is the kind of hearty food that we all need occasionally to feed our souls.
I tried The Boondocks Supreme, which had a mixture of sweet and savoury items. Although I would strongly recommend they separate it onto two separate plates as the whipped cream from the pancakes was rapidly melting and soaking into the savoury items. This was one of the most filling brunches I’ve had in a long time; there were very filling spicy beef breakfast sausage, hash browns and poached eggs. I absolutely adore their sweet-tasting maple glazed beef ‘bacon’ which actually used beef jerky rather than pork; all the food they cook use halal and organic ingredients. Although the plate was crying out for some sort of vegetables whether it would have been tomatoes or mushrooms.
The highlight of the visit was their puffy, spongy, dreamy buttermilk pancakes. I am beginning to think buttermilk is the solution to the world’s problems. They were such delicate, soft pancakes, I would gladly use them as pillows to sleep on. You don’t even need fancy side ingredients, just the plain version will send you to foodie heaven.
I do look forward to revisiting them again soon to see what updates they’ve done on their menus.
baldwin@townfish.com