Bow Down Before La Grange's Blessed Benedict

Photos by Andrea Grimes

I started with this little number during La Grange brunch last Saturday.

​Brunch is filled with marvelous B's. Let the alliteration begin -- bacon, biscuits, Benedict, baked goods, and naturally, the king of all B's: booze and its highest incarnation, the Bloody Mary. Brunch is the only meal of the day where no one looks sideways at you when you're on your second vodka drink before 11 a.m. And if you're really doing brunch right, you get to spend it with the person you woke up next to. Although I wouldn't recommend trying to bring your cat to the restaurant. Still, next place in town that allows me to tote Whiskey along gets my firstborn.

That is, if I can ever convince a man to sleep with me again after he reads that paragraph. Because cat ladies are sad and unfulfilled because they own furry animals they care for! Except for I am totally a cat lady and as happy as a larking larky lark thanks to La Grange's Texas Eggs Benedict, spicy-ass Bloody Marys (seems uncouth to refer to them as "BM's" in this context) and live brunch-time entertainment. Brunch at La Grange is a new affair, but you'd never know it -- seems like, based on the healthy crowd, swift service and bottomless Mimosa option, they've been doing it for decades.

The man o' the hour and I stumbled into the Deep Ellum "swankytonk" a little after 11 a.m. Saturday, and our attentive and enthusiastic waitress Nicki was quick with the giant glasses of ice water (the better to hold down last night's residual upchuck with) and menus filled with Texas takes on brunch classics. I opened with a Bloody Mary, which was delivered with verve and also a pickled green bean, olives and a lime, which approaches, if not achieves, Austin's Rio Rita Bloody Mary-levels of awesomeness. Bloody Marys should be a liquored-up salad in a glass -- toss in a celery stick and a pickled okra and you're there, La Grange.

La Grange's Texas Eggs Benedict, bow before thee.

​The bar's Texas Eggs Benedict, poached proof of a higher power, were firm but not overcooked and sat perched atop crisp muffins and bacon, drizzled appropriately with a buttery Hollandaise sauce. They featured something I still think about when I need a solid cheering up: sauteed jalapenos. Man o' the hour had the biscuits and gravy, and the nibble I had made me want to go home immediately and get all back up in his biscuits and gravy, that is how good they were. The gravy was a deep, brown-flecked gray and thick with the taste of smoky breakfast meats. I ordered another Bloody Mary in hopes of holding myself together. And let me tell you what happened next.

I think we're going to need a bigger liver.

​They brought me another Bloody Mary. But this time it was bigger than the first Bloody Mary I had ordered! Sweet Lord Almightygod, I don't know if there is some kind of Alice in Wonderland business going on at La Grange, but if the seasoned-salt-spiced Bloody Marys keep getting bigger every time I order them, I am never -- and I mean never -- going home, and you can put that in your pipe and smoke it, TABC.

La Grange serves brunch on weekends starting around 11, featuring an excellent menu of, besides the sex biscuits and Texas Eggs Benedict: pancakes, egg sliders and a big, big burrito. There's entertainment too. Last Saturday, we listened to the sweet twang of Southbound Lane before watching the USA get smeared with Ghanan soccer hate-jelly on a giant projection screen. Made a Deep Ellum day of it, too: It was damned near 4 p.m. before I could tear myself away, additional Bloody Marys and Lone Stars notwithstanding.