Le Monde, Upper West Side, New York City

Your typical French bistro, just across Seinfeld's cafe. The outdoor tables were very picturesque, but it was too hot to drink coffee and munch home fries and bagels without the A.C. on. Diego wasn't there, but my friend Catherine took care of the eggs Benedict. They were ok; not terrible, but not particularly delicious.
The third bruncher ordered fruit, yogurt and granola. This seems to be the health-conscious response to brunch... I don't particularly agree with this trend. Remember, brunch is about relaxing and feeling the experience; if you are going to be worrying about counting calories,
don't do it!
I ordered bagel with smoked salmon; although very New Yorker, not very French. Nothing was particularly memorable, except for the shortage of salmon... With only two slices, I ended up having 3/4 of lox and bagel, and 1/4 of just bagel.
I'm probably not going back again.... They have a nice Parisian-style outdoor setting (small white tables and wicker chairs) which could be considered as an appropriate background for the perfect brunch, but the food was not on pair with it.

Lord Hobo, Cambridge, MA

This is a bar that mostly specializes in different types of beer.
Since its opening, in the fall of 2009, it has gained rave reviews in
every food and lifestyle magazine around Boston. Although the velvet
curtains, red walls and dark wooden tables were not very inviting on a
sunny summer day, we went thinking that such a well-praised bar should
have at least great brunch cocktails.
And we were right. Diego said this was the best bloody Mary he ever
tried. The secret? It was made with bacon-infused vodka, and had a
crispy strip of bacon (almost chip-like) inside. Even better, it was a
large and delicious drink, for only $7.
The food. We had eggs Benedict and a Grafton cheddar cheese omelet.
The Benedict came with spinach and speck rather than ham, a great
substitution. One of the eggs was cooked to perfection. The other was
a bit watery but still delicious.
The omelet was the way I like it, with a tortilla texture, although I
understand it may have been too dry for other palates. Because the
cheese was not very abundant, the dryness was even more prominent.
Both plates came with home fries. Very typical, oven-baked and with a lot of paprika.
So, was this the perfect brunch? Certainly cocktail-wise. All the
brunchers seemed to think so, as nearly every one of them ordered
alcohol to accompany the food. Lord Hobo's hype was confirmed. The
food... was good, but not memorable. We will be back, most certainly
for drinks and cocktails at night. And we might even stop by for a
bacon bloody Mary on our way to another brunch spot while we continue
our quest for the perfect brunch.

Dear readers,

Welcome to our new blog! We are Diego and Analia, and we are in the quest for the perfect brunch.
So, what is the
perfect brunch? We may have some criteria to be discussed later.
Let’s start simpler; what’s brunch? Brunch is a state of mind….
Whether is bacon and sunny side eggs in a Missouri diner, lox and
Bloody Mary at a posh New York eatery, or coffee and orange juice at
your neighborhood cafe, brunch is about the experience, not just about
the food or the place. If you feel like you are having brunch, then
you definitely are.
And we have felt it almost every weekend for the past five years, when
we decided to start this quest. We've had brunch in nearly the entire
east coast and some places on the west coast. We've had the several
European versions of brunch (smorgasbord in Sweden, pain au chocolat
in France, to name a few), the Chinese one (dim sum) and plenty of
Latin American incursions. This blog constitutes an effort to keep
record of our brunch experience, rather than to document our first
steps into it. We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoy having
brunch!