debacle on 18th street: bad brunch saga #1

Brunch is a magical meal. For one, it doesn't demand you set your alarm clock. Two, it saves you from eating both breakfast and lunch, hence saving you cold hard cash. Abracadabra!

Also, brunch has prescriptive benefits. Hungover? Brunch will cure it. Heartbroken? Brunch can fix that too. Tired, stomach ache, depressed, bored, headache, anorexic, whatever it is -- Brunch. Will. Fix. It. Unless, of course, you stumble upon a bad brunch. A bad brunch will ruin your day, just as it did mine roughly two weeks ago. It was a brunch so horrendous that I couldn't bring myself to blog it until now.

The Venue: Reef
Time I'll Never Get Back: 2.5-3 hours
Money I'd Have Rather Spent On F*ing Zima: $15.00

This story is so heartbreaking because Reef has so much promise. It's located pretty conveniently for those of us in the Mt. Pleasant/Adams Morgan neighborhoods. Additionally, Reef boasts a lovely heated roof deck and a pretty solid menu. Alas, however, none of that can be properly enjoyed when: 1) The hostess-cum-waitress makes you wait an hour while you stare longingly at the two empty tables in the corner; 2) Said hostess/waitress makes you wait another 30 minutes to order...your drinks; 3) Said hostess/waitress spills your drink on you; 4) They're mysteriously out of breakfast burritos; 5) The poached eggs come, well, not poached, but half-hard-boiled, half-soft-boiled and fully gnarly; and 6) You feel the need to projectile vomit directly after you finish the dish you didn't even want in the first place.

Now, prior to this experience, I'd only been to Reef two other times, both at night, er, early morning, and the only ordering I'd ever done was at the bar, which turned out fine. Although, come to think of it, besides either forgetting to add vodka and/or soda, there's really nothing you can do to muck up a vodka-soda (seriously, a toddler could do it). But childhood alcoholism aside, the point is, I thought Reef's brunch would be solid, especially considering the list of potential pluses. Alas, however, Reef sucked some major ass (sorry, but now is not a time for eloquence, my friends). Simply put, that sh*t just wasn't tight.

I'm hoping that maybe we just hit Reef on a bad morning. But fluke or not (and, please, let me know your opinion if you have one), brunch is sacrosanct to me. A restaurant gets one chance and one chance only to impress me at brunch time. So, if it chooses to desecrate upon my most sacred of meals, it's a sin pretty much impossible for me to absolve. And to drive this point home, I really did mean it when I indicated I'd rather spend $15 on Zima than another meal at Reef. Like this baby who showed up in a Google image search for "Zima."*

*Wow. I managed to get two zingers in connecting children and alcohol. It's a good day.