Vegan Practically

Who doesn’t love brunch out with friends? It just screams “leisurely weekend activity” to me. Sadly, a lot of vegans feel sidelined in the breakfast/brunch out department because these meals seem to focus so heavily on animal products. Sometimes at traditional breakfast diners you will find nothing but toast as a vegan option.

There are different perspectives among vegans about whether to dine at restaurants that cater to omnivores. While my preference is to choose fully plant-based restaurants, my local favourite of which is PMK (which, incidentally, has brunch), my second choice goes to omnivore restaurants that have proper plant-based menus. I think it’s important to support these places to keep the plant-based menus alive. We’re a long way from everyone becoming plant-based, and it’s great to have options that enable socializing in mixed company.

Beertown (a Canadian chain) is one such restaurant, and they have recently introduced a plant-based brunch menu that is just so good.

I went there yesterday with some friends. You can get brunch or lunch when you go on weekends. I like that you can get oat milk with your coffee or tea too. Two of us ordered the Santa Barbara Venedict and one ordered the Gold Coast Plant-Based Burger. A fourth ordered from the regular menu, so I won’t comment on that. The Venedict is a vegan take on eggs Benedict, of course, with the fluffiest scrambled plant-based eggs in place of the regular poached eggs and a chipotle aioli in place of the hollandaise. You can get it with a salad or their delicious smashed breakfast potatoes. I went with the smashed potatoes, aioli on the side. So good.

I ordered the plant-based apple crumble for dessert, with others promising to eat their share. Because we go there so much the manager comped our crumble.

He also threw in a plant-based brownie with fudge sauce and vegan ice cream.

That was good of him because in the end the brownie was better. Not that the crumble wasn’t okay, but to me dessert needs to be amazing or I don’t feel it’s worth eating. My friends apparently agree. Between the four of us we left some crumble in the dish. But nothing of the brownie survived.

Do you have a favourite plant-based brunch place? If not, do you make your own brunch at home?