Thursday, August 14, 2014

Gluten-free brunch at South City Kitchen in Midtown

South City Kitchen has been offering wonderful gluten-free dishes for a few years now and my favorite dish there is shrimp and grits.  Until recently, we'd only been to the location in Vinings, but we recently enjoyed brunch at the Midtown location.  Since we had reservations (recommended if you don't want to wait) and were driving in from the burbs, we got there before they opened.  While hanging out at the patio of the closed bar next door, we watched a huge stream of people arrived at SCK where they formed a line at the door.  When the door opened, we all filed in and the staff got busy getting everyone seated.  There is a huge patio with misters to keep things cool out there, but it was a little warm for us so we opted for an inside table.

Even though our server was 'triple seated' in a four minute time span, he handled his section quickly and efficiently.  He went over the day's specials and took our drink order.  Since the gluten-friendly menu (regardless of what they call the menu - it lists items that don't start with gluten ingredients which are prepared as safely as possible in a mixed use kitchen) noted that the Pure Knead bun is served with the pulled pork sandwich, I asked the server if the Benedict dishes used the gluten-free bun in lieu of the English muffin and was told no.



We ordered the pimento cheese dip which came with house-made bread and butter pickles (shown above) which I could have eaten a pound of (!) and celery sticks instead of crackers.  The dip was quite tasty - even to my husband who really wouldn't care if he never had pimento cheese again.



For our entrees, my husband had the amazing pulled BBQ sandwich with slaw (photo above) and a huge kale salad.  He loved everything on his plate.  I've had their pulled pork before and know it's seriously fabulous!  I chose the  “MC” MUFFIN BENEDICT  (photo below) which includes Benton's aged ham, American cheese, chive hollandaise and Red Mule grits.  Because I don't really love hollandaise sauce, I ordered it on the side.



When our meals arrived, I couldn't actually see that there was some type of bread on my plate under the over-hard poached eggs and ham, but my husband could.  We had the server check to see if it was a Pure Knead bun (which is what it looked like) and found out that it was.  What a lovely surprise!  The entire meal was delectable - even the hollandaise sauce!

Honestly, I could have been plenty happy with the dish without the bun, for which there is a small up charge.  We were not going straight home so I couldn't take any food home for later.  I pretty much ate everything I ordered except a few bites of egg my husband quickly scarfed down.  He was also impressed by the chive hollandaise sauce.

By the time I knew I could have the banana pudding (without cookies, I think) and some other ice cream type desserts, it was too late.  I was overly full, but didn't mind at all as I enjoyed every last bite of my meal.  The food is seriously delicious at South City Kitchen (part of Fifth Group) and the 'gluten-friendly' options available for lunch, dinner and brunch do not disappoint one bit!  
          

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