I’m totally enamored. Thomas and I were finally able to dine at Snooze, an AM Eatery for brunch and we were happily surprised by the entire experience. Whenever we are in the area, Snooze is either closed or they have a large crowd of diners waiting for a table. I detest waiting in lines and they do not take reservations, so it’s taken us over a year to dine there. I didn’t really have any expectations, which is rare, so this was probably the purest dining experience I’ve had in a long time.
Despite arriving around 1PM on a non-holiday Monday for brunch, Thomas and I still had to wait twenty minutes. I didn’t let my monstrous and near cannibalistic hunger sway me from the wait. Fortunately, my darling D Bar San Diego was not open (they are closed on Mondays) – otherwise my purposeful Snooze dining attempt would have been thwarted. Waiting wasn’t so bad. Why? Because the staff at Snooze is seriously and genuinely friendly. We are talking about the high level of authentic friendliness that caused me to move to Denver (where Snooze is based) over a decade ago. The staff is clearly happy to be there. With the fresh décor that utilizes motifs of old school metal jacks (remember playing jacks as a kid?) on everything from seating to lighting to serveware, lots of light and fun colors like orange, blue and yellow and loud lively music – think Rick James’ Give It To Me Baby and the Ohio Players’ Rollercoaster. A person cannot help but be happy in such an environment. Oh yea, add good food. Throughout our meal, Thomas and I noticed servers dancing as they walked – some of them strutted, some of them stopped whirled around and then continued walking, and others busted out more complicated moves. Some were also singing. And, I detected the pop of a champagne bottle at some point. Champagne is always festive! Are you smiling yet? You know you want to check out Snooze already and I haven’t even talked about the food yet.
Thomas and I started off with some coffee. I ordered a decaf latte and Thomas ordered a spiced chai latte. I was happily surprised to find that Snooze brews their own chai. They forego the overly sweet and milky chai latte powders that most chai latte hawkers serve. See how beautifully the coffee drinks are in the pictures below. The decaf latte had a gorgeous little latte foam leaf adorning my drink while Thomas’ chai latte was lovingly sprinkled with cinnamon. There were no bitter notes to my latte and for that I was very pleased. Thomas’ chai latte was delicious (he let me taste some but almost had to ward me off with his fork and knife because it was so tasty). It had distinctive notes of clove, cardamom and cinnamon with the fragrance of black tea. I loved it – it reminded me of the chai with milk my Pakistani friend taught me to make years ago.
While reviewing the brunch menu, I was delighted to see signs of high quality ingredients such as Niman Ranch pork and eggs. Hooray! For brunch, I ordered a breakfast burrito with corned beef. This was a result of me having a tough time deciding between the breakfast burrito and the corned beef hash. Our server, Justin (aka Freshly), suggested the breakfast burrito with the corned beef together and indicated the meat is superb. He was right, the corned beef is superb – tender, moist and flavorful – however, combined with the burrito’s salsa verde the result was overly salty bites so I pulled the beef out and ate it separately. The standard burrito is a perfect amount of food for a hungry person and doesn’t need any meats added as the balance of flavors from the Niman Ranch cage-free eggs, house black beans, hash browns, cheddar and jack cheeses and salsa are sheer perfection. No need to mess with perfection.
Thomas ordered the Ham Benedict III and he loved it. He said the poached eggs were poached perfectly – not too soft, not too hard with just enough runny yolk to create creamy goodness to offset the Niman Ranch ham, crunchy English muffins and luscious smoky cheddar hollandaise. Kudos to Snooze for knowing less is more – they don’t smother/drown their benedicts with hollandaise.
For dessert, we ordered the Pancake Flight – a choice of any three of their pancake varieties. We ordered a sweet potato pancake, a “coffee and donuts” pancake, and a pineapple upside down pancake pictured in order below, from left to right. Our favorite was the “coffee and donuts” because of the maple icing and espresso cream paired with the crunch of pecans that created satisfying mouthfuls of happy familiar and comforting flavors! The presentation was very cute too – a hole cut out of the pancake to create a donut and donut hole. The pineapple upside down was tasty but I could have used more pineapple flavor throughout the entire pancake. It was served with vanilla Crème Anglaise and cinnamon butter, both of which enhanced the overall flavor of the pancake. We were disappointed with the sweet potato pancake because it lacked the deep sweetness we get from a roasted sweet potato and the traditional flavors we expected such as cinnamon, cloves, and brown sugar. Had we actually read the menu, we would have noticed that the pancake had few of these expected flavors. We detected orange flakes of sweet potato throughout the pancake but, again, it lacked any deep sweet potato flavor. A nice touch was the ginger butter, paired with a drizzle of caramel and pecans.
I highly recommend Snooze to anyone who enjoys breakfast, good food, and likes to have fun. On our next visit, we are going to order another pancake flight and try the chocolate-peanut butter pancake, Chestnuts Roastin’ pancake and order another “Coffee and Donuts” pancake. But first I’ll start with a Breakfast Pot Pie – or perhaps the Sandwich I am (upscale sausage breakfast sandwich on a soft pretzel roll served with that insanely delicious smoked cheddar hollandaise and their house hash browns). OMG, I’m salivating already.
A quick tip – if you arrive within an hour of closing, you may not have to wait for a table. Also, Snooze offers gluten-free varieties of their Eggs Benedicts and their pancakes.
