Puritan & Co. with the Boston Brunchers

Why is brunch so good? Is it because of the squishy, oily potatoes? The acceptability of drinking booze at 11a.m.? Or maybe, it’s just trendy. Yes, yes, and yes. But the real reason that brunch is so good, at least in my opinion, is because:

1. It usually comes after a few too many sugary, headache inducing, grown up beverages.

2. Cooking anything when your head is throbbing “Loony Tunes” style is hardly enjoyable.

“Brunch” means that amazing, greasy, heaps of food are placed before me and all I have to do is say “extra bacon, please.”

But you probably saw this coming. It’s pretty rare that I post brunch-worthy recipes, aside from my grandma’s Fluffy Apple Pancake. See, when Sunday morning rolls around, I hardly want to whip up something blog-worthy. Peanut butter toast is delicious, but more of a Monday-Friday kinda meal. 11a.m. on a Sunday deserves much, much better.

Enter, the Boston Brunchers, a group of Boston-based bloggers who get together every so often for brunch. The restaurants that host us love us because it means lots of meaty media coverage for them. And we love it because we get to chat about girly things and take pictures of our food with no one to judge us but our Instagram followers (who are secretly jealous, anyway).

Oh, and if there’s one thing better than brunch, it’s free brunch. Our hosts treat us to delicious food that we’re more than happy to write about.

It was a cloudy Sunday morning when I arrived at Puritan & Co. in Cambridge’s Inman Square. The restaurant was huge and flooded with natural light. A table in the center of it all displayed heaps of fresh, drool-worthy pastries, which I would later eat…literally all of. We’re talking Dulce de Leche & Coconut Danishes, Preserved Lemon Corn Muffins, Ham & Cheese Pinwheels, and that’s not even the half of it. You’d be hard put to find a restaurant that does everything right, but if these pastries were foreshadowing the rest of the afternoon, I was in luck.

We sat in a paisley-patterned enclave under hipster Edison bulbs and mulled over what to order. Once we decided, and our main courses arrived, everyone whipped out there phones and cameras. Once the photo opp was over, the Brunchers fell silent, as we took our taste buds to their happy place.

I ordered the Wagu Steak & Eggs, because when else would I ever eat steak and eggs? Right then and right there, that’s when. The steak was so tender and juicy, with a perfect amount of char on the outside. As for the eggs, I’ve never seen yolks so orange in my life, and that’s coming from a girl who buys the fancy stuff at the super market. It was served with the staple brunch side – greasy (but not toooo greasy) potatoes. I was in heaven.

We sat there, leisurely sipping mimosas and coffee, chatting about blogging and exchanging restaurant recommendations. Eventually, the chef came over and we all turned into a bunch of giggly schoolgirls. “The eggs were perfectly cooked!” “This is the best corned beef hash I’ve ever tasted!” “Well, I work the egg station,” he laughed.

All in all, it was an unforgettable experience. It’s really such a treat when restaurants put so much care into each and every thing they make, especially during brunch, which Anthony Bourdain claims is when chefs toss all the old food they couldn’t use into some eggs and slap on a hefty price tag. In other words, I can’t wait to join the Boston Brunchers again.

And no, there is no recipe here. As I said earlier, brunch is almost always better when someone brings it to you. If it’s truly just a recipe you want, I urge you re-visit the Fluffy Apple Pancake.