eat.sweet

Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Stout Reduction, accompanied by a glass of stout of course. @ The Dirty Truth

The Dirty Truth
29 Main St
Northampton, MA 01063
Brunch is only on weekends and starts at 11 am

The Dirty Truth, a renowned beer bar (40 taps or something?) that serves great food, just started offering brunch. Since I like brunch, boyfriend likes beer (an understatement), and we both like this bar at night, we had to go.

It is so hard to get brunch or breakfast in the Valley where I live. There aren’t too many places, they are always packed, and parking and traffic on Saturday mornings sucks. *cough*And usually I can’t get up, get dressed, and get there before breakfast ends*cough*. When we walked into the bar a little after 11, it was nearly empty. Good for us, probably not so good for business. You know what else was a nice side effect of having brunch in a place that is usually a beer bar? No kids and no strollers!

The menu looked great, and the dishes were definitely different from other breakfast places in the area. I think the entree prices ranged from $8-$14. I chose the French Toast with Brie, Apples, and Walnuts. Three slices of 1 inch-thick cinnamon raisin french toast, scattered with granny smith apple slices and walnuts, and topped with a wedge of oozy melty brie cheese. The cinnamon vanilla smells coming from my plate made me dizzy. When I got it, I hurried up to cut up the cheese and distribute it over the bread. The bread was awesome. Sweet and dense, the batter wasn’t too egg-y. It also came with a little carafe of real maple syrup and I barely used any of it because the bread was so good and I wanted to be able to taste everything else. The sweet spongy bread, tart apples, bitter walnuts, and grassy, lightly salty cheese.

I opted for a side of sausage, but I could’ve gone without it. I had enough food as it was (I could only finish 2 pieces of bread), plus the salty sausage was a little bit “loud” compared to the flavors of the bread, fruit, and cheese. The sausage itself was good though and had a good texture. I don’t like it when link sausages have noticeable chunks of fat/blubber in them, or when the casing is really tough; their sausage didn’t have either of those faults.

Brian got the cheddar & kielbasa omelette and gave it a thumbs up. I didn’t taste it because I was too excited about my meal. There are 3 or 4 omelette flavors and they all come with french fries and a baby greens salad.

A few other dishes that I remembered from the menu:
– egg-in-a-nest, except using cornbread, and served on top of a bowl of chili
– ham, onion, and gruyere frittata
– sirloin steak and eggs
– breakfast sandwich with egg, spinach, goat cheese (or was it feta?) and tomato tapenade
– hummus, olives, pretzel, fries, and a few other snack things that are on their dinner menu

According to the bartender, the Belgian style beers make good “breakfast beers.” Brian had a couple of those, and I had a mimosa. $6 is a pretty good price for a mimosa! The genius part about starting brunch at 11am is that you can drink beer and say that it’s almost noon, so it’s not exactly like you’re a lush who rolls out of bed and to have a beer with your breakfast. You’re classy! It’s the new martini lunch!