La Grande Orange
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.