Great Maple is a popular brunch spot in San Diego that has been on my to-try list for quite a while.
We finally had a chance to check it out recently. The place was packed when we arrived, with a wait time of about 40 minutes. We actually made reservations ahead of time on Opentable, but we still had to wait 30 minutes before finally being seated.
Bacon Maple Donuts
We started off with warm, fresh bacon maple donuts. These were one of the main reasons I had wanted to try out this restaurant. The donuts tasted great. Warm, fluffy, covered in a sweet maple glaze and studded with bacon. There are three donuts to an order, which was a little too much for just the two of us, so we ended up boxing the last one.
Smoked Bacon Scramble Melt
I chose a bacon, avocado, tomato scramble melt, topped with mozzarella cheese and basil. Accompanying the melt was a slice of grilled olive oil and fig cake, potato scallion cake and fresh fruit.
While I enjoyed the softness of the scramble and the abundance of fresh avocados, I did feel like the melt was a little bland and could have used something to boost the flavor profile.
Andouille Sausage Popover
Great Maple’s version of eggs benedict, popovers are de-crowned and served with poached eggs, hollandaise sauce, potatoes and fruit. The version Mr. K choice also came with sausage, fried rock shrimp, mustard greens and smoked paprika. This was a hearty plate that both of us really enjoyed.
Halfway through our meal, two servers came out with a long wood board with sticky buns. They were walking around with the visual display to see if anyone was interested in ordering one of the last ones of the day. It was fun to watch, though we did not order one.
Overall, we enjoyed the food here and the large selection of brunch offerings. I don’t really enjoy long waits though so I’m not sure if I’ll be back anytime soon. I was also a little annoyed that we had to wait so long even though we had a reservation. When we checked in, we were told that it would be “just a few minutes” but we waited 30 minutes. We also watched about half a dozen couples seated before us. One nice touch though is that they do provide water and coffee to people waiting outside.
Great Maple
1451 Washington St, San Diego, CA 92103
https://thegreatmaple.com/
This is on my list to try to. That sucks that you still had to wait even with an rsvp. I think it’s funny how they brought around the sticky buns. It’s very dim sum-ish cart if you know what I mean 🙂
haha, I didn’t think about that, but it is very dim-sum like