#BadBrunches Be Like

In August, the world got a book-length manifesto on modern class warfare called The Trouble With Brunch. Gawker's Adrian Chen—a former WW intern famous for appearing in a tutu and an embarrassing Portland-related T-shirt to win over sources inside Anonymous—has been hollering "fuck brunch!" since 2010, but last month The New York Times joined in, publishing a brunch-themed lecture on the virtues of serious work, raising children, putting on a nice skirt instead of yoga pants and cooling it with the pre-noon mimosas.

Sure, there is something Unmerican about the idea of gathering for a leisurely meal with friends when you could be tending to a patch of ornamental vegetation, watching sporting events and their attendant advertisements, or just working. But I still like brunch. As a concept, at least, since most brunch food is pretty boring.

Starting last month, Smallwares brings Portland a new baddest—bad in the Jacksonian sense—brunch. Here's how it compares and contrasts with those #BasicBrunches.

#BasicBrunches: Here's a fruit cup. I cut up some fruit and put it in a cup.

#BadBrunches: A fruit salad that fully realizes chef Johanna Ware's vision for her Beaumont Village restaurant's playful, inventive "inauthentic Asian" fare. Pineapple, banana, mango and little clementine slices are marinated overnight in a thick gravy of mildly sweet coconut milk and kaffir lime, then get a generous sprinkle of candied cornflakes. It's an ideal way to begin a meal of shared plates.

#BasicBrunches: Bacon, fried it in its own fat.

#BadBrunches: House-smoked and cured Sichuan bacon: flat, crisp-edged slices of belly coated in an earthy, mouth-numbing Sichuan spice. It has an intoxicating blend of heat and fat and just may be the tastiest of all the little piggy plates in Porklandia…. Spice in the form of pink peppercorn didn't do much for a muffin appearing on the pastry menu, nor did discordant dried chilies do much for the Thai iced tea, so it's sadly no panacea for the basicness of brunch staples.

#BasicBrunches: Ladies and gentlemen, Deerhoof! We'll also have a little Marnie Stern and the Decemberists' underambitious early material.

#BadBrunches: Jay Z on B-L-A-D-E-S. Missy 's encouragement toward freak-forwardness.

#BasicBrunches: We cut some oats with steel and boiled them, then put candied pecans on top.

#BadBrunches: If you've done dim sum you've encountered congee, the bright white rice porridge boiled until the grains have been all but atomized and topped with a few slices of green onion or boiled egg. Well, this one builds that frame into a supercharged umami jet with egg, spicy Chinese sausage and little bits of savory granola.

#BasicBrunches: Here's a Monte Cristo. It's French.

#BadBrunches: The Monte Cristo is a good design to begin with, but this one has a hard, salty aged Benton's ham, rich Swiss cheese, and a salty-sweet raspberry kimchee jelly on the side. Challah back, and front, is the bread, and gives a nice buttery warmth.

#BasicBrunches: Waffles!

#BadBrunches: Actually, this is maybe where things go too far—the curry waffle itself is pleasant but gets soggy in the center thanks to an unpleasant black garlic maple syrup that resembles sugared soy sauce. The yogurtlike squash whip is fun, but ends up turning the whole thing into a brownish mess.

#BasicBrunches: Soup for breakfast?

#BadBrunches: If you like early-morning  pho or bun bo Hue, wait until you get a bowl of Smallwares' beef meatball ramen. It opens your sinuses with horseradish then fills them up with uber-beefy broth, a drop of freshening lemon and a soft-fried egg. Fuck brunch? Sorry, dawg, I'm ridin' with this ramen #BrunchLife. 

EAT: Smallwares, 4605 NE Fremont St., 971-229-0995, smallwarespdx.com. Brunch 11 am-3 pm Saturday and Sunday.

WWeek 2015