Olivia

During my April 2016 visit to Austin, five of us met up for Saturday brunch at Olivia, a restaurant which had been named one of  Bon Appetit’s ten best new restaurants in 2009.  We had a very hard time finding a parking place in their small parking lot because this restaurant seemed very popular for brunch.  Eventually we found a spot and were only a bit late for our reservation.

We started with these drinks…

Three of us got a Bloody Mary, which was made with Austin’s own Tito’s Vodka and spicy tomato juice.  My sister had the Mimosa, made with Cava (Spanish sparkling wine) and fresh-squeezed juice.  And my daughter got the Sangria.  All of our drinks were good.

 

Now for our food, starting with my sister’s choice…

2 FARM EGGS ANY STYLE (She chose scrambled) house-made bacon, frites  

Nothing particularly special about this except that it came with a huge amount of french fries.
Her daughter chose this…
OLIVIA BENEDICT with red wine-braised beef, poached farm eggs, hollandaise, on a buttermilk biscuit
She said this very good!
My daughter and I shared two entrees.  The first of these was the…
SOUTH AUSTIN OMELETTE with house-made chorizo, and served with salsa fresca, avocado, crema, and toast
You probably can’t tell from the picture, but the omelette was very small.  While my daughter liked it, I thought it was boring unless you put the salsa on it, then it was better.
Our other shared entree was the…
FRENCH TOAST brioche, served with apples and vanilla syrup 
I was surprised when the apples turned out to be a few slices of uncooked apple on top of the french toast.  I guess I was expecting them to be cooked.  We liked the french toast though, especially with the vanilla syrup.
And that just leaves my other niece who joined us for this brunch.  She enjoyed her choice of the…
THANKS A LOX house-cured salmon, toast, red onion, capers, and cream cheese 
Since this restaurant closed in October of last year and has now been converted to a Lucy’s Fried Chicken (same owner as before), it’s probably pointless to rate our brunch but just for the heck of it I will anyway.  Our rating for Olivia based on this brunch experience would have been 4 stars, the same as that given to it by Trip Advisor reviewers.  Yelp reviewers though rated it slightly lower, giving it 3 1/2 stars.