Boston Brunchers at ICO Bar

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to dine once again with the Boston Brunchers for their 1 year anniversary at the Island Creek Oyster Bar in the Fenway neighborhood. Once again, the brunch was outstanding, the company fabulous, and the swag unreal!

A little background; The Boston Brunchers are a group of hungry eaters, bloggers, and tweeters who have monthly meet-ups at various brunch spots around Boston and the great Boston area. The group is typically given a sampling of a brunch menu at that specific restaurant, and later some members of the group may choose to review the experience. This benefits both the restaurant and the brunch eaters of Boston because everyone knows exactly what to expect at each restaurant.

Onto the dirty details! The ICO Bar generously hosted 40, that's right, 40 brunchers on Sunday and provided a delicious meal for all! We started with a choice of three available cocktails, followed by some house made pastries, and lastly finished off with a choice of brunch entree. The menu was as follows:

Drinks:
Bloody Mary- regular, extra spicy, or house
Red Beer- ICOB pilsner with homemade sangria
McCarthy's Crossing- Pear Brandy, Spiced Honey, Rose Vermouth, Bubbles, and Lemon

Pastries- blueberry muffins, doughnut muffins, cinnamon rolls, croissants, citrus scones, and raspberry coffee cakes

Main Course:
House Smoked Salmon with bagel, chive cream cheese, pea greens
Cinnamon French Toast with caramelized apples and toasted walnuts
House-made Baked Beans with slab bacon and a fried egg
Ethel's Lobster Roll with kettle chips, Cole slaw and on a rosemary roll

With a menu like this, it was certainly hard to choose what to eat. Thankfully, everyone that I ate with loved to share! My cocktail choice was the McCarthy's Crossing as it had sounded super unique, and I LOVED it! I am typically not a brandy lover, but the flavors of the drink melded so well together that I couldn't even tell that there was brandy in the drink. I tried both the citrus scone and cinnamon roll during the pastry round, and while I loved both, I happened to really like the citrus scone as it was refreshing yet sweet. Lastly, for the main course, I split my dish with Taryn, and we shared both the baked bean dish and the lobster roll. Both were outstanding! I only wish the baked bean dish had an additional egg so that there was more yolk to mix into the beans! Overall though, I would most certainly go back to ICO Bar. The food was great, service terrific, and restaurant decoration amazing!

Thank you to Boston Brunchers, ICO Bar, and all involved for hosting such a wonderful meal for so many to share! Thank you to the sponsors of our SWAG bags which included many wonderful and fun gadgets, books, and foods! To see the full list, check out the Boston Brunchers website.