Lucerne Inn Brunch

We drove to The Lucerne Inn with all of the excitement and fanfare of troubadours entering the kingdom of reportedly beautiful and easy women. This was going to be very exciting. We even went in the middle of a blizzard! Actually, more of a dusting but it was the first of the year so it seemed like a blizzard. Our expectations were further extended when the hostess proved to be an exceptionally beautiful girl with an exceptional smile. For a couple men on the backside of midlife crisis, that was a welcome omen. 

The coffee was very good. They had donuts that looked like they were from a Nissen box, some fruit and cheese for the poor deluded souls who joined the Vegan cult, some strange looking dip and crackers. They had bagels and a couple types of salmon that looked good, but is not my idea of breakfast. That was the gist of the first display. 

The second display had home fries, sausage links, baked beans, scrambled eggs, corned beef hash, eggs benedict, and the like. Then there was a basket of waffles and some toppings, some ham and what looked like leftover prime rib. On the far side of that display were a number of lunch style casseroles and rice. Then on a separate round table were desserts like carrot cake, pumpkin pie, apple pie, etc. 

 Twice I asked for ham and was given prime rib. I didn’t argue because the prime rib looked very good, and it was. The ham looked very good, too. The hostess walked through the room and poor Steve, David and I played the “I’m not staring as I stare game.” I think we all suck at that game. They claim I am the worst at it, and I agree. 

 After such anticipation and promise, we were quite disappointed. The beans seemed from a can, so did the hash. The sausage links appeared to be the cheap frozen type. The scrambled eggs, home fries and eggs benedict were what you might expect to find at a high school cafeteria. The waffles were hard and crunchy. The prime rib was very good. I tried a lunch item claiming to be crabmeat stuffed cod. I say claiming to be because you certainly couldn’t verify it by the flavor. It was not bad, but it wasn’t exactly good. 

We ordered a bloody marry each and found them to be quite good! We sat and ate, concluding that if the dessert table is fantastic, we could upgrade this from commonplace to commonplace with good desserts. It was our last hope at feeling we were getting the special experience we were counting on. The apple pie and pumpkin pie I tried tasted like the fare you would purchase at the Shaw’s deli. That is not horrible, but it is not what I was expecting for my twenty plus dollars. 

Inspecting the other desserts at the table, the carrot cake looked mass produced, as did everything else I saw. Now, forgive me if I am a bit old-fashioned, but for over twenty dollars a plate, I am expecting fresh popovers, hot biscuits, home-cooked beans, waffles that are not crispy and hurt your teeth, better than cafeteria eggs, sausage, home fries, hash and eggs benedict. I am expecting desserts hot, fresh and made on the premises. I was expecting special and I did not find it. I found commonplace. It wasn’t horrible, but for that money I could have had a much better breakfast elsewhere.