Brunch at Luna Grill and Diner-Shirlington

From Another Cook in the Kitchen

Luna's Grill and Diner--located on Shirlington's main drag, Campbell Ave.--might be hard to distinguish from the plethora of dining opportunities surrounding it, but one thing certainly set it apart from the crowd this morning: a breakfast menu!

It's usually hard to avoid dumbing down your weekday breakfast. The convenience of Starbucks' coffee+oatmeal special beacons! However today was special as I actually had a friend in the area for a change. Unlike my friends that work in D.C., getting people to come down to Shirlington for a lunch is a bit hard. So when I heard my friend had a dentist appointment in my neighborhood, I jumped at the chance to go to the earliest work lunch break I'll likely ever take.

Another D.C. restaurant knock off (Shirlington is home to a Capital City Grill and a Busboys & Poets) the Shirlington Luna is the restaurant's second location, the other a little off the beaten path on the north end of Dupont Circle. (And last I went to the D.C. location, both the OJ and the mimosas were $3 on Sunday. Total no brainer regardless of portions!) The inside is nicely decorated with a rural cityscape mural and celestial paintings, in keeping with the restaurant's name.

Since the D.C. metro area is actually having a mild summer for a change, we decided to eat our meal outside, which is great for people watching in Shirlington, and the sidewalk is polkadotted with water bowls for your dog if you chose to bring one along.

The Luna a.m. menu is actually available all day (pancakes stop at 6 p.m.) until the restaurant's close. There are a few special items deemed brunch instead of breakfast, different takes on eggs benedict, that are only available until 3.

To start off, we ordered our drinks (sadly no mimosas on a workday). I was pleasantly surprised to find a place that serves orange juice with pulp. While not so swamped with bits of orange that it's difficult to consume or would turn off you non-pulp lovers (read: blasphemers), it's just enough to remind you that, oh yeah, this stuff is made of oranges! My friend ordered coffee, which she said was nothing special, but it was refilled readily.

Now for a little blaspheming of my own: Father, I have a confession. It's been 18 years since my last egg. Ok, so maybe that's a little bit of a lie, but ever since my second grade teacher explained to us how chickens were made for our incubation project, I couldn't bring myself to eat the things on a consistent basis. I'd have nightmarish fears of cracking open a chicken-filled egg that somehow made it past inspection (which is actually a delicacy in China and also the nastiest Wikipedia entry I've ever found). The only thing that actually kept my egg consumption up was Easter. I just couldn't stop myself after finding all the dyed eggs scattered throughout the house from eating a few. But even then, I was through with yolks and the sickly green color they turn when they're boiled long before eating.

That little sidebar brings me to today, when our waitress told me that my two eggs any style with homefries or grits where actually not available hardboiled, since the process takes too long. She suggested that I try them hard poached, which I'd never really heard of. As far as I knew, if you ordered poached eggs, you were a hardcore egg lover. So I'm sure the notion hardpoached eggs is the equivalent of getting your steak medium well. But I'm the equivalent of a vegetarian in eggland, so I threw a little caution to the wind.

From Another Cook in the Kitchen

To my delight though, when my eggs came they were essentially just like they are hardboiled without having to deal with that pesky shell. So perhaps I will finally poach an egg (perhaps even blog about it) and turn into an egg person one day.

In addition to the eggs and hash browns, which were sadly undercooked for my taste but had decent flavor, the dish came with generously portioned toast triangles with butter and strawberry jelly.

My cohort ordered an egg sandwich--scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese and ham on a toasted bagel, substituting bacon for the ham. Her eggs completely dwarfed the bagel, but she reported it was delicious.

From Another Cook in the Kitchen

Her meal also included a cup-sized serving of fresh fruit, which I also ordered off the sides menu. And while most restaurants let their fruit slide, Luna's spread was a perfect blend of melons, apples, grapes, pineapple and strawberries. And not those BS megastrawberries you'll find at the grocery store these days. These were really strawberries, with real flavor.

Our total bill came to about $11 each, so not bad for a large step up from IHOP. The only unfairly priced item would likely be the coffee, which came in at more than $2.

Overall, the restaurant was a pleasant experience, and a great way to spend a morning outside of the office. And if you can stand the longer afternoon, I encourage everyone to take a brunch break instead of a lunch break every once in a while.

Luna's menu is available at its Web site, www.lunagrillanddiner.com/html/breaktast.html

And pictures of the food are to come.

In my next few entries, I'll explore the food of Savannah, Georgia, bake a key lime pie and perhaps even poach an egg.