Eggs Benedict

Last week, Pasadena’s La Grande Orange Cafe, which is opening a new location next week in Santa Monica, invited a bunch of food writers/bloggers to “brinner,” or breakfast for dinner. The special menu (you can’t actually order breakfast food for dinner right now, though some dishes may be added to the dinner menu in the near future) included eggs Benedict with the cafe’s signature English muffins, lemon-ricotta pancakes and huevos rancheros.

I had the egg-white omelet with turkey, tomatoes and avocado, which I found nice and light, though there was a bit too much parsley. The eggs Benedict I tasted had great flavor, with the sourness of the sourdough English muffins a great touch. My favorite dessert of the myriad the restaurant gave us to sample was the cucumber sorbet – it was refreshing.

The cafe is adding a pizza parlor in a space adjacent to its patio. As of last week, the space was used as storage for some of Santa Monica’s furniture, but the restaurant says the pizza will be ready to go some time this fall. Pizza will be served from the get-go at the Santa Monica location, and they’ll also be selling packaged English muffins there, too.

Deviled eggs, with basil!

Cinnamon roll. They serve these in place of biscuits.

Malted buttermilk waffles

Key lime pie

Pizza space

English muffin. They gave these to us to take home. No, they do not come presliced.

More photos on Flickr (on right).

[UPDATE: LGO's Pasadena location doesn't actually serve breakfast; it's brunch. The restaurant opens at 10:30 a.m. on weekends and 11:00 a.m. on weekdays. The new Santa Monica location will open at 6:30 a.m. every day for breakfast.]

[UPDATE #2: I neglected to mention the names of the other bloggers at the brinner - e*starla, LAist's Lindsay William-Ross, Caroline on Crack and EaterLA's Yolanda Evans.]