Brown Dog Eatery

Brown Dog Eatery: 2701 E Oakland Park Blvd, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306

The Restaurant:

The Brown Dog Eatery is the newest restaurant from the Be Nice Restaurant Group.  They own six other restaurant concepts from full service restaurants to limited service deli and lunch places.  This location is on Oakland Park Blvd just east of the Coral Ridge Mall on the north side of the street.  Plenty of parking is available in front of the restaurant for your convenience, but make sure you pay the meter so you don’t get a ticket.  I was pretty amazed with the staff when we arrived while it was raining and they would walk people to their cars with umbrellas and open the door for you.

The restaurant is small, but still has a good number of tables and half booths for patrons to sit at.  The bar is located right inside the front door and has seating for approximately seven or eight people and offers full bar service.  Maximum capacity is 112 at the restaurant, and they even have some outdoor tables for enjoying the beautiful Ft. Lauderdale weather.  Our waiter had a great personality and was extremely efficient.

So we invited our friend Ken along and decided to check this place out for Sunday Brunch.

The Food:

Brown Dog offers brunch on the weekends and has a completely separate menu for that.  Regular dinner doesn’t start until 5pm on the weekend but is available for both lunch and dinner all week long.

Ken and Jerry both decided to start off with a Bloody Mary.  They use a mix that was created for the Top Hat Deli restaurant which is supposed to be a little spicier than normal mixes, but neither Ken nor Jerry thought it packed much punch.  However this did not take away from the fact that it was a very good drink and had good flavor.  The accoutrement on top of the drink though made it a bit hard to sip unless you use the straw.  I opted for something simpler in the mimosa.

Once again Jerry and Ken decided to opt for the same dish (copy cats if you ask me).  So first up is the Blueberry Pie Pancakes.  But this is not what you would normally think of for pancakes.  They layer several crepes and fill them with blueberry pie filling, topped with whipped cream and granola.  They serve it in a small little skillet, so be careful as it might be hot from just coming out of the oven.  Jerry devoured his and said that the flavor was amazing with the fresh blueberries, as did Ken.

I had a hard time deciding between the Breakfast Hot Pocket, which changes daily (today was bacon, eggs, and cheese); and the Morning Joe Hash.  After discussing at the table and with our waiter I decided to opt for the Morning Joe Hash.  This was one of the best dishes I have had in a long time.  Brown Dog chops up coffee rubbed steak, leaks, and hash browns together.  This is then topped with two eggs (any style you want) and chimichurri hollandaise sauce.  I opted for scrambled eggs and had them add some cheddar cheese which made this dish even better.

Updated 7/13/2018 -Dinner

We mentioned that we wanted to go back for dinner, so we grabbed two friends and headed there after work on Thursday night.  At first I thought the place was going to busy as many restaurants are as you get closer to the weekend and the parking lot had a good number of cars in it.  However when we actually walked inside, it was not overly crowded and we had a table right away.  Our friends Chris and Ken decided to have Maker’s Martinis and they absolutely loved them.  Jerry had a Funky Buddha Floridian and I opted for a simple iced tea.

No appetizers were ordered so we went right to the main meal.  Chris opted for the seared scallops which had a very nice brown sear to it.  Accompanied with cauliflower puree, a white truffel accent, and your choice of side; which Chris chose the mixed roasted vegetables.  The scallops were perfectly cooked and the accents helped add to the experience.

Up next was Ken’s dish of the Cast Iron Bistro Steak which was dry rubbed and seasoned, a petite loin, Italian style salsa verde, and choice of side.  He chose the seasoned Top Hat french fries.  Ken ended up with so much food that he had to take half of it home with him.  The chimichurri sauce added to the flavor of the perfectly cooked steak.

Jerry who loves soups and stews, ended up going with the Cioppino.  This amazing dish was full of mussels, shrimp, scallops, blue crab claws, and the daily fish all in a tomato-fennel stew.  This amazing dish is accompanied by sourdough toast points.  Chris was a little upset that the scallops in Jerry’s dish were bigger than his.  They had used Giant Sea Scallops for this dish and Jerry said that the flave was very good.  He did not waste any time with the seafood and brought home the leftover stew broth to have another day.

I decided to do something different and opted for the Lump Crab Cakes.  I was disappointed though that they no longer serve the crinkle cut fries as those are my favorite style.  They have instead changed over to their Top Hat Deli Restaurant brand’s seasoned fries which are not very good at all.  I very much would have appreciated them updating their menu to reflect what they are actually serving and also would have preferred the crinkle cut fries.  The crabcakes on the other hand were full of crab meat and had a nice bread filling.  The 5 grain mustard sauce was a nice accent to ensure that they cakes were not too dry.

All in all, we truly enjoyed our meals and had a wonderful evening out.

Pricing: $$-$$$ for brunch depending on drinks,  $$-$$$ lunch or dinner depending on what you order and if you have drinks