B. Smith’s Sunday Brunch: I’m still stuffed!

The first time I ever walked into B. Smith’s DC restaurant, I was still working at US PIRG and living the life of a poor non-profit worker. I had heard of B. Smith, and only just learned she had a restaurant here so I wandered over. I had plenty of money saved up, so I didn’t believe the cost would be a problem and after checking the menu, it wasn’t. I walked over there one day after work, I didn’t know if I was going to eat there or not, I figured I’d decide when I got there. Well I headed in, you go past the bar area first, and when I entered the doorway, every man and woman (all black) at the bar, dressed in their post-work or happy hour finest, turned around and looked at me, and the immediate impression I got was “Are you lost? Uno’s Pizzeria is upstairs…” The bartender tried to direct me past the bar area to the maitre d’ but by that point I was no longer interested.

I’ve been back since, but it isn’t in my high rotation list of DC restaurants, very few “mover and shaker happy hour” type places are except for the ones patronized by the DC and Hill elite, those places are just fun to people watch. When Justin suggested it for brunch this morning. I checked out the menu online and it sounded like a good deal, $30 per person for a buffet style brunch with unlimited champagne or mimosas, lots of different types of dishes, made to order omelettes and waffles. Most restaurants in the DC area, you could easily pay $30 and get just the one entree plus cocktails.

Well the food was delicious, the service wonderful, the crowd… well to put it mildly, my people don’t always know how to act around a buffet, no matter how well you dress them up. And some of them were not dressed very well. The a la carte was set up without any direction, so people were sort of stepping over each other in the initial rush, and no one was saying excuse me or please or pardon me or any other niceties that would have defused some attitude from the patrons. Still there were standard breakfast offerings as well as collard greens (not as good as mine or my mother’s), cheese grits, jambalaya, gumbo, fried chicken, roast beef, turkey, mac & cheese, catfish — I didn’t have room for everything, in fact about all I’ve been able to manage the rest of today was water or ginger ale. But it was worth it.

I spoke with my brother on my way out this morning and he may be discharged on Tuesday, but he would still need to go back for outpatient surgery on his hand next week. Even so, I hope he has a lot of friends that realize exactly how much help he’s going to need when he’s back home. He doesn’t want to go stay with my parents in Greenville, not that I can blame him, but I told him to really evaluate what he wanted against what he needed. I’m just glad he’s getting out of the hospital and going home. As Justin said, they’re no place to get well.