you know when your mate has been away for weeks and you've been missing them and then the suggestion is made to go for brunch for a catch up, and you do, and it's great and you think "oh, i must tell people about this awesome brunch date i had, because the food was so good and pretty affordable, and i think people would enjoy it as much as i did", but then, like, life happens and you forget to do that for almost two months? yeah, that. that is what happened here, so i hope you'll stick with me as i try to remember that said brunch, because it was really great, but it also was two months ago now. let's start anyway, should we?
baaaasically, jasmin and i wanted somewhere on our side of the river (the best, south side), and near enough to both of us so that we didn't have to travel too far that day. it was right around the start of the heatwave - though we didn't know it was a heatwave back then, so we didn't want to have to travel too far for good food and a decent coffee, ya know? a few options were tossed around, but eventually we settled on foxlow in balham. nice and easy, and central for us all. we had no problems booking a table on their site - they use bookatable so it's easier than pie really, and i placed a request that we be sat near a window. when we turned up, we had a beautiful spot, big wide table, right in the front window. so far, so good.
we opted for the brunch menu, despite our 1pm kick off, and for me, that was for one reason and one reason only: waffles, bitches! i'm really hard pressed to find waffles on menus these days, and i dunno why! they're so much better than pancakes - they're crunchier and sweeter (and in this case: flakier; they were more like a flaky pastry than your typical waffle dough), and their perfect square holes soak up the delicious toppings and make every bite a party in your mouth! so yeah, i ordered the fruit waffles. they came with an apple compote, thick and creamy greek yoghurt, and a drizzle of honey, and they were jussssssst wonderful.
well, except the portion size, which was not enough waffle, in my humble opinion, which i was a bit miffed about for £8. the flavours of the toppings were perfectly complimentary though, with the apple's crisp bite soothed by the sweetness from the honey and the the tart from the yoghurt. it would have been perfect if it was only a bigger portion.
i washed my meal down with a traditional vietnamese iced coffee, which was strong espresso poured over ice and sweet and creamy condensed milk, which was jusssst the thing on that super warm day, but again, just not enough of it for £3.50. jasmin went for avo on sourdough with chilli and lime and a bonus smoked salmon ripple too, and had no complaints whatsoever. but you can't really go wrong with avos and toast, am i right? the avos seemed perfect smashed and a little creamy, while the chilli came in nice, bias-cut slices (i've been watching a lot of "america's worst cooks", can you tell?) as a garnish so you could control the heat of your own dish. for £8 jasmin was pretty pleased with her meal too.
the service was great, too. we had questions, and they were happy to answer them. they weren't pushy or shovey, or makey us leavey as soon as we were finished-ey, and in fact we sat and chatted for probably half an hour before anyone thought to come and offer us the bill. the restaurant was heaving, too, so it's not like they needed us to hang around, but we happily did. the decor and design of the restaurant is really fun, and retro, and there's something to look at on every wall; there's even a not-so-secret speakeasy down some side stairs, called "the owl" that looks very cool indeed, and somewhere i absolutely will come back to see another time.
overall, it was a great little spot for brunch, and super easy to get to from home - jas too, in fact: she cycled there, and there were plenty of places to park up her bike too, so that was a double bonus. i'm so used to heading east for brunch and the like that i rarely think closer to home, but balham isn't far from me at all. there's a great high street with lots of indie shops - and a street market too, so.. expect to see more of me, balham!
