1018 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, Canada
What’s the yummiest thing on top of an english muffin? Eggs benny with extra creamy and gooey hollandaise sauce. it’s even better with diced tomatoes, some red onions and instead of the traditional breakfast sausage or ham, a curried crab patty with light spices and a side of hash browns, home-style. That’s how eggs benny are served during brunch at the reef on the drive. The moist crab patty absorbs just the right amount of hollandaise sauce to meld perfectly with the poached egg and the english muffin, acting like a glue for the dish. But somehow the patty is still firm and strong enough to not get mushy, maintaining its shape and texture. The crab meat is mild and does not challenge the traditional (and comforting!) taste of the hollandaise sauce that makes this dish such a sunday brunch favourite! The hollandaise sauce at the reef is also much stiffer than hollandaise I have had elsewhere, and there was also a cheesy and delicious flavour to the sauce.
Now what’s the best thing to pair with creamy eggs benny at a Carribean restaurant? Oxtail stew, obviously! A slightly spicier dish than the eggs benny, our Oxtail stew was served with a side of rice with beans and potatoes and carrots- all perfectly cooked, and all perfect sponges to soak up the thick, spicy stew in the bowl. The Oxtail was also very tender and fell off the bone quite easily. It was charred in some areas but I’m sure that was all in the tradition of Carribean cooking. The spices in the stew gave the dish a refreshing kick, but were not overbearing so that we could still taste the natural sweetness of the oxtail meat. The beans in the rice gave the dish an extra texture, little firm niblets that contrasted with the potatoes that were cooked soft in the stew.
Both dishes get full munch points from me and I would definitely return for brunch, lunch or dinner.