Cheryl’s on the 12th: Brunch in Portland

During our trip to Portland, we stopped by Cheryl’s on the 12th for brunch on our last day. We did make reservations for it as it was Easter long weekend and brunch is a popular activity to do with your mom and grandma during Easter.

Interior

The interior of Cheryl’s was bright and they actually had a lot of decorations up for Easter. It kinda felt like visiting your grandma’s place. Things were colourful.

We were seated as a table of 4. The chairs are made of a wicker material so not the cushiest seats, but it’s fine. They have some weird outdoor booths that will shield you from the rain, but looking at them from the outside, I would feel claustrophobic eating in there. It looks like something people would hotbox in lol.

Food

We order some ice coffees and teas, which are all normal. Note that all prices in this review are in USD.

Beignets (complimentary)

Our server gives us complimentary beignets to start off, which is like a deep-fried bread/pastry. It is warm and feels fresh out of the oven. It is fluffy on the inside and sweet on the outside – very yummy! You can order additional ones for $2-6.

Portuguese fried rice ($15)

The strange thing is, their most popular item is the Portuguese fried rice. Who would have thought fried rice would be so popular in the mornings? This Portuguese fried rice uses linguica sausage over bacon and egg-fried rice with green onion and slices of avocado.

I’ve never had Portuguese fried rice before, but upon tasting it, it just tastes like a simple good egg fried rice. The sausages give it some more meaty flavour, and generally, everything compliments each other. It doesn’t taste too different from other Asian fried rice I’ve had. So although it was a good fried rice, I wasn’t sure why it was such a popular menu item.

French toast with sausage ($12+$3)

One of my friends order the french toast, which uses challah bread. You can add bananas, pecans, blueberries, lemon curd, whipped cream, bacon, ham or sausage for additional costs.

The French toast tastes pretty good – exactly what you would expect from a classic French toast. Appearance-wise, it was a little lacking but maybe that’s because our friend didn’t order a lot of toppings for it.

Croque madame ($17)

My boyfriend orders the croque madame, which is a croque monsieur with egg. A croque monsieur is like a grilled breakfast sandwich with ham and cheese (they use gruyere at Cheryl’s). It is served with mornay sauce and a side of either cheesy hash browns or roasted red potatoes. My boyfriend chooses the cheesy hashbrowns, which is like a big lump of shredded potatoes with some corn flakes on top?

The sandwich is cheesy and very savoury, easy to eat as well. The hash browns are interesting because of the addition of the cornflakes – I feel like they added that for some texture? Otherwise it looks quite soft/mushy. The hash browns are very cheesy so if you like cheese you will like this side.

Tenderloin benedict ($21)

My friend orders the tenderloin eggs benny, which uses sliced beef tenderloin, 2 poached eggs and hollandaise sauce on English muffins. For his sides, he chose the red roasted potatoes. I didn’t eat much of this dish but it was very hearty indeed because of the beef so if you are a meat-lover, you should probably choose this dish.

3 Egg omelet – chorizo & green chili ($15)

For my dish, I chose the omelet with chorizo, cheddar and jack cheese, ranchero sauce and green chili. The omelet is huge! It also had some kick to it because of the green chili so you may notice some spiciness creeping up on you if you order this.

For my side, I chose the red roasted potatoes, which tasted ok but not the best I’ve had. For bread, I chose whole wheat to eat with my omelet and some butter.

I couldn’t finish this dish because of the sheer size (really large portions).

Final thoughts

Loewe’s rating: ⭐⭐

We had a decent brunch at Cheryl’s on the 12th. They serve up classic breakfast eats and everything went as expected, but nothing really jumped out to me. I’m not sure if it’s because Vancouver has a much more active brunch scene, but I wasn’t very impressed by the dishes. I especially felt like the appearance of each dish could have looked better, but there’s always charm in having that rustic, like-your-grandma-made-it appearance too. But for USD to CAD prices, I was expecting the dishes to look and taste better – at least the portions were big! The only item that surprised me were the beignets in the beginning.

I likely would not return to Cheryl’s for brunch service since everything was just average to me. Service was great and atmosphere was bustling, but compared to local Vancouver spots, I don’t think it is competitive at its price point.

Sincerely, Loewe