RESTAURANT: The B in BLD

The BLD people, who are also the Grace people, are very clever. They named their restaurant BLD, which stands for breakfast/brunch, lunch, and dinner. Because the options are featured in the name like that, I suddenly feel compelled to try all three. It seemed best to start at the beginning, with B, so that's where we started.

The interior of BLD is bright and spacious. The design is minimalist without being industrial. The walls are white and the floors are polished concrete, but the decor comes from nature: rocks, flowers and tree limbs. There is a large bar area that has a full bar for D and some crepe-making action for B.

Upon sitting down, I felt right at home because the placemats are very similar to our own:



The very first thing, the thing that is most important in B, is coffee. So we immediately had French press coffee for two delivered. It came in a cute silver pitcher-like press:



I also like that it didn't come out to our table until it is ready, so I didn't have to be tortured by having my coffee so close, yet not be able to drink it.


For my fruit, I ordered a bruleed grapefruit. I've never seen this before, so I thought I'd try it. Normally I'm not one for warm citrus fruit, nor do I normally add sugar to my grapefruit. I like it really tart. But I was willing to change my ways for this B. It certainly was a dramatic looking dish:



The warmth and sweetness made me feel like I was eating candy for breakfast. I probably actually wouldn't have liked it, except that the grapefruit was so juicy that it made it really good. I would suggest that the restaurant provide a grapefruit spoon, because I had to mangle my grapefruit in order to get at all of that juicy flesh:



There was actually a hole in the bottom of my grapefruit by the time I was done.

And then we waited for our main breakfast. It took kind of a while to get to us, but honestly I wouldn't have noticed, except that the waitress came back two times to tell us that it would be on its way soon.

Before we got our breakfast, we got our butter and syrup. Look how cute the little syrup is! It's from Vermont:


I ordered the brioche french toast with Vermont maple syrup and cowgirl creamery creme fraiche. It also apparently came with a warm berry compote. But look above--there we have the Vermont maple syrup and some butter. Look below:



Something is missing. What could it be? Oh yes, it's the Cowgirl Creakery Creme Fraiche. That's really important, to me. But as soon as I eyed the waitress she came right over and the creme fraiche was on my table in a flash. The french toast was crazy good. The brioche was rich and eggy and the berry compote was warm and sweet and then teh creme fraiche, dolloped on top in generous dollops cut right through that richness with its cool freshness and hint of tang. Yumyumyumyum. I ate it all, which is kind of embarassing, because it was big and I am small, but it all fit inside me somehow.

J. had the blueberry pancakes. I looked at them, but did not touch because I was busy stuffing myself full of french toast:



I did however, eat some of his bacon because it was so thick and crunchy I could not resist:


All in all it was an extremely satisfying meal. Judging from the selections available for L and D I am sure I will be back before too long.






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