Magnolia's Contemporary Southern Bistro

I really enjoy going out for breakfast.  Magnolia’s had 3 items on the menu that I wanted to try, so I made it a mission to get there to try them.  From the outside, it doesn’t exactly have a lot of street appeal, which made the inside a nice surprise, I was expecting a dive, what I found was a cheery space painted a soft yellow.  

 

Magnolia’s is made up of two small dining rooms, you walk into the first which contains six tables that seat four and one that seats two.  The second dining room is smaller.  It has a very long table in the window that seats 8, a four top and a 2 top, so it’s a pretty intimate space.  The tables are covered in white table cloths with a long piece of white paper on top.  Each table also had 3 freshly cut purple carnations.  Nice.  Around the tables are black metal and plastic chairs, the kind that you can rent for weddings.  These worry me; I’ve seen many a disaster involving these types of chairs and let’s say… Kansas City’s hefty set… whereby someone sits down only to have the chair collapse under their weight.  The music stops, everyone is quiet.  People try to help the person up as murmuring ensues.  Once the person is back up, the music starts again and everyone politely pretends like nothing ever happened.  Ok, right now, some of you are angry at me, but a few of you are smiling, why, because you’ve been at those same weddings, graduations, birthdays, etc., and you know exactly what I’m talking about.  Oh well, I’m sure those chairs will be switched out over time.

 

We were greeted and seated right away and our server brought a carafe of water to leave on the table as we browsed the menu.  There are only 4 options under the “Breakfast Plate” section of the menu:  “Biscuits and Gravy”, “Nutter Butter French Toast”, “Sweet Potato Pancakes”,” Bacon and Eggs”.  These items are served on Saturdays and Sundays only.  We ordered the Nutter Butter French Toast with cracked pepper bacon and Sweet Potato Pancakes with turkey sausage links.  The French Toast sounded very intriguing to me, it is made with “Farm to Market Bread Company’s” Challah Bread, (at least according to a tweet I read).  I know firsthand that Magnolia’s does use Farm to Market Bread Company’s bread because they received a shipment through the front door while we were there.  The biscuits however were being carried in by a woman from a house across the street, still on the baking sheet.  They truly were homemade!  They looked great; I’ll have to try those the next time.   

                                           



Nutter Butter French Toast



Anyway, back to the French Toast, you receive two pieces of bread, cut in half, and completely covered in finely crushed Nutter Butter Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies.  On top of that was a generous helping of house made 

Cap'n Crunch French Toast;
image by Amber Thomas

whipped cream with a little bit of coffee in it.  Wow, very rich.  This is the most innovative French Toast creation that I have seen since trying “The Blue Moon Café’s” Cap’n Crunch French Toast in Baltimore.  The cracked pepper bacon was a good complement to the toast, it added a little heat to all of that sweet.   



Sweet Potato Pancakes



The Sweet Potato Pancakes were really very good.  These tasted almost like eating pumpkin pie because of the spices used, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.  I could eat these for dessert.  They looked burned, but weren’t.  They were also very small, but after I started eating them, I was glad.  They were so rich I couldn’t possibly have eaten much more.   

I’m not fond of the coffee here.  I’m pretty sure that it is brewed in one of those machines that you put the little plastic container in that gives you one cup at a time.  Neither of us liked the coffee, but luckily our favorite coffee house, The "Filling Station” is just across the way and we could always go there afterward. 

 

Magnolia’s is not really a breakfast spot.  They don’t open until 10 am.  Too late for breakfast, too early for lunch and their breakfast plates are only served on weekends.  So, I don’t think that it will be a regular on my breakfast rotation.  However, I am coming back to try dinner some evening.  They don’t have a liquor license, but you can bring your own wine or beer.  There is a $10 corkage fee per bottle of wine and a $1 fee per two bottles of beer.   There is a patio behind the building with a small stage; the waiter told us that they hoped to begin having live music on weekends.  It might be fun to hang out here some evening.

I have just a couple of complaints.  One, It was hot inside; it would have been more comfortable if it had been cooler.  Maybe the air conditioner was acting up because there was a floor fan blowing air around.  Two, I don’t think the ventilation system is working well because when we left, we smelled like we had been cooking over hot grease all day.  Really.  Both of these issues are easily remedied and definitely not a reason to not try this place.  All-in-all, we had fun, just like we always do.  I wish that you could have been there with us.