HenHouse Brunch - Spartanburg, SC

After my trip to the DC area, because I was already on the east coast, I decided to travel to Greenville, South Carolina to visit a friend.  My friend has a friend in neighboring town, Spartanburg, who has a breakfast/brunch place called HenHouse Brunch.  He had not visited the place yet, but he decided to use my visit as an excuse to get up there.  I am a huge fan of brunch, so I had no problem with this. Located in downtown Spartanburg, it is in a small place across the street from the police station and at the corner of a pedestrian walkway.  The dining area is small and might seat 25 people, but it's rustic and homy.  Service is via counter service.  There is a small counter (with a small kitchen behind it) where orders are taken.  Orders are brought to the table when they have been prepared.  They have some pretty good coffee, but I also had a glass of their Cucumber-Mint Limeade.  Cucumber, Mint, and Lime, do not intuitively fit together, bu it did work.  All of the flavors were obviously there and they actually worked together well.  It had the vegetal flavor of cucumber that worked well with the mint, and the mint and lime moderated each other so the cucumber could be tasted well.

There is always an aim, when I go to brunch, to get both something sweet and savory.  For the sweet, we had to get a Frankenberry Muffin, a sweet, fritter-like muffin with icing, and made with Frankenberry Cereal.  I actually expected it to be sweeter than it was, though I was not disappointed that it was not more sweet.  While the icing and the Frankenberries were sweet, it tasted as if it were made with a savory muffin recipe and was actually also a little salty.

The savory side of the menu seemed to have a lot of very fresh and seasonal stuff.  There was an item called The Hipster which included Eggs, many vegetables, Farmers Cheese, and House Harissa.  It sounded very good, but there was something that potentially sounded better.  They had a Killer Croque Monsieur on the menu with Ham, Swiss, and Mornay Sauce (a cheese sauce using Gruyere) on a Brioche Bun.  I asked if the Croque Monsieur could be made into a Croque Madame, which would just require adding a Fried Egg.  There were eggs on other parts of the menu, so I figured that it wouldn't be difficult to do, and the chef affirmed that he could do it.  It was very good and I was glad I was able to have it.  The sandwich came with soup and my friend recommended I get the Peeky Toe Crab Soup because that is the local specialty, but they had unfortunately run out.  I ordered the Broccoli and White Cheddar Soup instead which, while not the Peeky Toe Crab Soup, was still very good.  It was rich, cheesy, and had a lot of broccoli.  I enjoyed my brunch here.  It had some very good food in a small, but family friendly space.