I admire Le Petit Dejeuner for striving to deliver something a bit different: potato rosti instead of home fries, apple-slaw instead of fruit or salad, organic sausage terrine instead of bangers; the kitchen at Le Petit Dejeuner thinks outside the pan. Unfortunately it doesn’t really work.
Once you get passed the exposed-brick, plastic-upholstered booth-seating, happy tunes (Beatles and the like) fast’n friendly service, and the obvious popularity proven by the line of bated-breath brunchers waiting for 10:00, PD’s relaxed atmosphere and popularity alone could not make up for where the experience fell short - flavour and value.
Where to begin. The Eggs Benny with sautéed bell peppers and onions was extremely disappointing. The hollandaise was bland and far too sparingly poured. The accompanying rosti was innovated but again bland, and the apple-slaw, while tasty, was not nearly tasty enough to compensate for the rest of the lacklustre meal. Perhaps the weirdest part of the meal (and the worst call on my part) was the side of breakfast meat - the organic sausage terrine. Having never particularly thought to eat hamburger or meatloaf for breakfast (okay that's a lie), I would not order this again.
Not only was the food mediocre but the value was worse. The side of bacon (three scrawny pieces) cost a bank-breaking $4.00. That’s more than a dollar-a-piece. The $4.00 terrine (read: burger/meatloaf) was also small and overpriced. The nail in the coffin was the syrup. Pouring table syrup on bacon and bangers is a sacred element of brunch, but PD doesn’t have table syrup and uses this as an excuse to charge $1.50 for the absolute most miniscule portion of "organic" syrup.
While Petit Dejeuner gets points for trying and possibly even for creativity, the menu really doesn’t work and the value is hard to justify. I’m all about paying a bit more for a creative meal, but it’s got to taste good too.
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