The final Brunch Series event of the semester, and final Gourmet Club event of the year, was held in the early hours of Friday, April 15th at the infamous Selma Café. Though a few of the key “brunch” ingredients were missing—oh who am I kidding? The only thing missing was the booze—a small band of like-minded brunch loyalists arrived as early as 6:50am for a breakfast phenomenon that has become an integral part of not only the foodie scene in the Ann Arbor area but also the local small/medium scale farming community. (For more information, check out http://www.selmacafe.org/.) Just barely beating the 8:00am breakfast-rush, the Gourmet Club members sat down to a small menu of delicious options, hand-crafted by the two guest chefs that labored in a an otherwise totally residential kitchen. This week’s featured chefs were Scott MacInnis (now of Tranche de VieChefs) and Mr. Thad Gilles of Logan Restaurant.
The chef’s menu was simple and just knock-your-socks-off-delicious.
- The Croque-à-Cheval was decadent, with a heavenly interpretation of hollandaise sauce over a perfectly poached egg (an amazing endeavor as a guess in someone else’s home kitchen.) The toast was a dense wheat sourdough… Is that even possible? And somehow they locally sourced the perfect ham for that subtle-yet-important position between the toast and egg. By “perfect” we mean deliciously balanced, and not at all overly-salty. It would have been great to ask the chef where it came from, but they were so busy in the kitchen that there was no time for chit chat. Note-to-self: Next week, show up at 6:30am so that I can pick the guest chef’s brains.
- The second option, the Southern Italian Breakfast, was actually not themed from the South of Italy, but instead an American Southern comfort food meets Italian inspiration dish. Wildly decadent, the wilted greens lay atop a modest portion of cheesy grits. The cheese appeared to be a parmesan or romano. It’s a good thing the portion of grits was so carefully distributed, or they might have overpowered the BEST WILTED GREENS I’ve ever had. Literally, I would slapped my own mother for another serving of the greens. The plate was completed with a perfectly medium fried egg that broke with just the right amount of yolk—bacon optional.
- Though no one in our troupe tried the peach bread pudding option, it looked equally impressive.
Needless to say, those RGC members that were able to make it to the early breakfast all agree: we’ll be making an effort to hit each Friday morning Selma Café event until we leave town. It’s rare when a foodie snob from San Francisco can say, “The hype is totally legit.” And now as we approach our graduation date, we MBAs can assert with no hesitation, “Selma Café is not only a great initiative, it is flawless execution.”