Jam

A few of my friends that live on the north side of town occasionally get together for breakfast on Saturdays. One of these people, who lives in my neighborhood, suggested Jam, which is in our neighborhood but then became busy so I decided to make plans. Jam is a cash only BYOB establishment that doesn't take reservations but it has been lauded from many points so I decided that it might be a good idea to get there a little early to make sure that we wouldn't be standing for an hour before being seated. Amazingly it only took about 25 minutes to be seated from when I put my name in. Jam is a long narrow restaurant with a modern look with a bar on one side and a row of two tops that can be pushed together for larger parties. The seats are clear plastic with gray tops. The walls are white with gray trim and there are lights on the ceiling and walls. The lights on the wall had a glass design that cast a very ornate shadow on the wall. We were waited on very quickly after we were seated. After we received our drinks and made our orders, we received the only Amuse Bouche that I have received at a breakfast place. It was graham cracker with a fire-browned and house-made marshmallow and topped with a dollop of chocolate. It was a big surprise and very good. What's not to like about a smore? It was a great start and foreshadowing for the rest of the meal.
There were many things on the menu that really looked good and it was kind of difficult to decide what I was going to order so I ended up ordering multiple items. When we ordered, a few people ordered pastries but instead of bringing those people an individual pastry, they brought the table a selection of pastries. They brought a scone, a caramel sweet roll, and a muffin with whipped cream and berry preserves. I only had a small part of the scone but it was really good. It was nice and sweet and the outside had a nice crustiness to it. Everything looked really good but I had other things that I actually ordered that I wanted to eat.
The first thing that arrived for me was a Scotch Egg with a Tarragon Waffle and a Blueberry Compote. A Scotch Egg is normally a hard boiled egg that has been wrapped in sausage, breaded, and fried. In this case, while the egg was sausage wrapped, breaded and fried, it was a soft boiled egg. It didn't really matter though because it was really good. The sausage was slightly spicy, the arugula which garnished the dish was buttery and slightly peppery and the spicy waffle went well with everything. While there was a spiciness to everything, it actually went well with the blueberry compote. In the past, the Scotch eggs that I have had have been served with mustard. I think that mustard would have still worked in this case but the blueberry compote worked at least as well.
When I ordered, I decided that I wanted to try something sweet as well as something savory. I was very happy with the savory side, it was time to see how the sweet was. My other dish was a small order of Malted Custard French Toast with Macerated Cherries and Lime Leaf Whipped Cream with Pink Peppercorns. This was amazing and actually bigger than I expected. There was no maple syrup brought for the dish but there was no reason for any. The toast was both very fluffy and moist and the malted custard provided a sweetness to it. The macerated cherries were nice and tart and if there was more, I might have spread it across an entire pice of toast. The whipped cream was very surprising. I saw that there was something in the whipped cream but didn't remember what it was. The ground pink peppercorns looked like sprinkles that you might see on a sugar cookie and I didn't remember that there was anything else in it so it was a very big surprise with the peppery tartness. While the individual parts tasted really good, together, it was something else.

Breakfast was great. The service was fantastic and all of my friends were happy with the dishes that they ordered. Not only did things taste good, they looked equally good. I will definitely be back here and have no problem recommending it to any of my friends.