Orange

Orange recently opened a restaurant near our house at the Grand/Milwaukee/Halsted intersection. We'd first tried Orange at their Lakeview location 3.5 years ago about a week after I moved to Chicago.

Orange is a brunch spot and you can BYOB. You can also head 2 doors down to the Butterfly Social Club to pick up mimosas and bloody marys and other morning drinks while you wait and bring them into the restaurant.

I tried a bellini from there. It kind of sucked as I am a bellini connoisseur. Something was giving it a somewhat bitter taste. The Husband had a mojito which was pretty good.

We had about a half hour wait. Luckily it was nice outside. In the winter it will be cold. As much as I love food I don't think I like any food enough to stand outside in January for it.

Orange makes their own orange juice (hence the name). They also make lots of other juices and you can place an order of up to three combinations of juices. The Husband had a watermelon pineapple juice.

To be honest I'm not a huge brunch fan. I don't like too many sweet things like pancakes and french toast. And too many eggs hurts my stomach.

I ordered Omelet #11.5 which was stuffed with chopped bacon, sweet leeks, and creamy brie cheese and topped with avocado mousse. It was good but too heavy on the leeks and too light on the bacon and brie. The avocado mousse on top was fantastic.

The Husband ordered the Pancake Flight. This week's theme for the flight was muffins. One was cranberry, one was something like maple pecan, one was lemon poppyseed, and I think the last was blueberry. These pancakes were excellently done. I really can't rave about them enough (except I don't really like pancakes).

We also had a side of turkey apple sausage which was amazing. We both voted it was the best sausage we've ever had. A little bit of a sweet taste and not really greasy.

The Husband liked this place so much that he's ready to go back this weekend. So if you're the type that's into brunch I would recommend this wholeheartedly.