Danlu Introduces Taiwanese Brunch to University City
New dishes, new cocktails, and a Lombardi trophy ice sculpture to kick things off.
Photo by Eric Ashleigh
Patrick Feury‘s new UCity restaurant, Danlu, is pretty good. Since it opened a couple months ago, the kitchen has been turning out a combination of Taiwanese an Chinese comfort food, done in an Americanized fusion style which, rather than feeling dated, somehow comes off as surprising and current. There are Chinese bun sandwiches full of pork belly or spicy lamb with pickled jalapenos; excellent he fen with roasted duck and duck sausage; and hamachi tartare over seaweed salad with a Meyer lemon vinaigrette. The cocktails are solid, the space is large and glossy, there’s already a “Market Hour” happy hour with $5 vodka-spiked boba tea and bar snacks.
And now, starting this weekend, there will be brunch.
Two interesting things about Danlu’s brunch right off the bat: First, Feury is going to be celebrating the first brunch service (and all the recent Super Bowl festivities) with some ice sculptures of the Eagles logo and the Lombardi trophy. Which is kinda cool because while ice sculptures used to be the absolute hallmark of a fine dining experience (back when the other hallmarks were spats and top hats), ice carving is not something that’s in the repertoire of most modern chefs.
Second (and more important going forward), Danlu is going to be accepting brunch reservations. And like the ice sculpting, that’s just something that a lot of restaurants don’t do. So keep it in mind if you happen to find yourself in UCity on a Sunday with no plans and no desire to stand in line waiting for breakfast.
Okay, so with that out of the way, let’s get to the details. Brunch will run Sundays only, between noon and 3pm. There’s a special cocktail menu which features everything from a “Snuffler Manmosa” (Snuffler IPA and grapefruit juice) which sounds gross, to a Danlu Bloody Mary that’s got all the basics, plus sriracha, Taiwanese chile flakes, salt, pepper, mushroom soy and lime, and sounds much more appetizing on a Sunday morning.
The food menu is short and tight, but wastes no space. At the moment, it looks something like this:
