For the month of April, the Restaurant Spotlight will be focusing on brunch at restaurants in the City of Falls Church. This week, we explore Dogwood Tavern’s Saturday brunch.
Diners at Dogwood Tavern who visit early on Saturdays and Sundays could order from the restaurant’s full lunch menu, but they’d be missing out on the well-crafted array of brunch dishes and drinks the restaurant serves each weekend.
While Sundays seem to be the prime brunch days in the City of Falls Church, Dogwood Tavern offers the rare Saturday brunch. It’s a slightly more modest affair than the Sunday brunch, though, because on Sundays you can pay $14.50 to get your fill of unlimited made-to-order Belgian waffles and omelets. The two breakfast dishes are served on Saturdays, but at a per-plate cost instead.
It may not be an unlimited portion, but a three-egg omelet served with strips of bacon, some fresh fruit, and home fries, is no small order of food. It’s also made with your choice of fillings – from a list that includes a handful of cheese (applied with a heavy hand) and vegetables like spinach, mushrooms, and green peppers.
But the omelets and waffles aren’t the only DIY brunch offerings here. With an order of the Bloody Mary ($7), you’re given a glass of ice, a shot of vodka, and a crack at the ingredients bar. You could start with a standard vodka, or choose a horseradish-, pepper-, or bacon-infused variety (the pork-flavored one, it comes as no surprise, is a house favorite). From there, you head to the bar to craft your own brunch beverage. You could pour from pitchers of V8 juice or basic tomato juice, or pick the pleasant house mix. For some heat, you can choose from abundant little bottles of hot sauces. Pickle slices and seasoned olives are just two of the many brined treats you can drop into your glass. And you can plant a tall celery stalk in your glass to top off your creation.
On the sweeter side of brunch drinking there is, of course, a mimosa ($5.50), combining champagne with slightly pulpy orange juice. But the menu goes beyond these two brunch beverage basics. Dogwood also serves two drinks made with black raspberry liqueur, as well as a screwdriver and a Bellini ($6). The Bellini, a blend of orange juice, champagne, and peach schnapps, is served in a glass with a maraschino cherry – fittingly, as the sweet cocktail drinks like a dessert.
Drinks and dishes alike on the Dogwood brunch menu are reasonably priced. Of the dozen brunch entrées here, only two break the $10 mark (one, an eggs benedict with crab cakes and the other, a platter of eggs and Angus beef flat-iron steak). For just $7.50, you could enjoy a plate with two eggs any way, toast, home fries, and bacon (another egg is just a dollar more).
Three of the brunch entrées are eggs benedict dishes. The Southside Eggs Benedict ($10) tops the menu, serving two poached eggs drizzled in mild hollandaise sauce and sprinkled with scallions. They both rest atop a piece of savory Virginia ham and a toasted English muffin half, and are joined on the plate by home fries and fresh fruit (a giant pineapple slice on a recent visit).
Two of the dishes – if you’d like to double up on the portmanteaus – are Tex-Mex creations. The Breakfast Burrito ($9.50) packs scrambled eggs, tomato, peppers, onions, bacon pieces, and cheese into a soft grill-scored flour tortilla for a warm and hearty filling. The Eggadilla ($9) has similar ingredients, but the tortilla is flattened, fried, and sliced, with the seasoned scrambled eggs and gooey cheese making a big impact. Both dishes are served with a side of sour cream and salsa.
Affordable prices and satisfying eats are hallmarks of the Dogwood Tavern brunch menu, and it makes for a casual, comfortable experience – an ideal way to spend a weekend afternoon.
Dogwood Tavern is located at 132 W. Broad St., Falls Church. For more information, call 703-237-8333 or visit dogwoodtavern.com. Brunch hours are Saturday – Sunday: 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
