Having covered a fair number of gigs at Counter Culture, I was very pleased to be invited to review their Sunday brunch along with members of the CCSalt club. I’ve never done a food review at the place even though I visit them at least once a month for some gig or the other. I was especially looking forward to the wood fire pizzas from their newly constructed oven.
The Sunday brunch offered three variants of pizza which included the spinach and jalapeno, chicken sausages and chicken salami. We started off with the spinach and jalapeno pizza which was done really well. The crust was even, the toppings went well with the sauce and we cleaned up an entire pizza in less than ten minutes. We tried the chicken sausage pizza later on which was good, but the vegetarian one was better. Wood fire pizzas are one of my favourite and I wasn’t disappointed by what I ate. Definitely more scope for experimentation with the toppings.
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| Spinach Pizza |
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| Chicken Sausage Pizza |
From the live barbecue, we indulged ourselves in pork ribs, chicken wings and fish. The pork ribs were simply perfect with the honey taste coming through every morsel of fat. My friend and I had to force ourselves not to spend the rest of the meal eating only pork. The grilled fish wrapped in leaves was excellent with a perfect blend of spice and the nice herbal flavour of the leaves coming through. I wish I could share the same enthusiasm when it came to the chicken, but I had to ignore it. The chicken was slightly overdone and had a lot of carbon on the outside which made it annoying to eat. But the pork and fish were just too awesome for us to care about the chicken.
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| Pork Ribs and Chicken |
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| Grilled Fish |
There were a variety of skewers for the vegetarians including baby corn, mozzarella cheese, fruits and mushrooms. While the mushrooms skewers weren’t particularly appetizing, the baby corn and mozzarella cheese skewers were very nice and refreshing thanks to all the vegetables. There were also a variety of burgers including vegetarian, chicken and beef. I had a beef burger which was alright.
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| Mozarella Skewers |
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| Baby Corn Skewers |
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| Beef Burger |
A big part of the brunch was the unlimited cocktails which included pinacoladas, mojitos, mai tais and more. I overindulged myself on pinacoladas and beer (not at the same time). The cocktails tasted very nice and were made cold to help us beat the heat. I’m guessing after pizzas, we loved the cocktails the most. There was beer for the less ambitious. The brunch also offers mocktails for those who don’t drink alcohol. My friend had one and she said it was refreshing, but nothing unique. She soon joined us on the dark side of cocktails and finished a mojito.
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| Mai tai |
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| Good old KF Draught beer |
The main course was fairly limited with options of chicken lasagna (which wasn't memorable), a three bean salad (which I didn't taste), a potato sausage salad (which was average) and a few other salads. I was a little disappointed with the main course which could have been better in terms of choice. While I understand most people would focus on the barbecue and the pizzas, the main course shouldn't be ignored. While I would have no hesitation in bringing my friends who ate non veg here, the options for vegetarians seemed somewhat limited in comparison. The chocolate brownie for dessert was yummy though.
The overall ambience of the brunch was nice with people chilling out under umbrellas, people playing foosball, kids running around and more. The music was predominantly Jamaican which was nice considering my biggest fear was that at some point a dude with a Macbook would show up and start playing EDM. Despite the heat, the place was almost full and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
Counter Culture definitely has something good going with their brunch and the CCSalt Club membership program. A little more focus on the main course and a vast improvement on the choices for vegetarians, this could become something really cool. Keeping up with their initial theme of promoting art and music, they could probably look at an open mic sort of thing. Otherwise, great pork ribs and grilled fish, tasty pizzas and yummy cocktails were the highlights of the brunch. The long drive to Whitefield was definitely worth the effort.
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