Dish

Eggs, yes. Pastries, no.
When DaCapo’s grew from a Heights bakery to a River Oaksarea eatery, it opened with a surprisingly short menu. But now that the place has expanded to serve brunch, it’s offering a far more extensive lineup. The restaurant’s trademark thin, elongated menu opens into a roster of fancy hot cereals, diverse treatments of eggs, seafood appetizers and even hefty entrees such as glazed salmon, rotisserie chicken and New York strip steak. On paper, the spread has the requisite air of indulgence and borderline celebration that goes with the concept of brunch. On the plate, things are a bit more hit and miss.

Fortunately, hits include egg dishes, a staple of any brunch. The menu presumes to call its poached eggs out of the ordinary, and these certainly are (including the $13.95 price). They rest on translucent slices of smoked salmon and risotto cakes, and they’re sprinkled with tendrils of sun-dried tomato and tentative dabs of hollandaise; get all the elements in one forkful and you’ll smile. The only improvements would be a more generous hand with the tomato and even a single piece of sturdy bread. This dish engendered in me a pedestrian desire — though it may represent an affront to surroundings fit for an Architectural Digest spread — for something to sop up the running yolks.

There’s little sense of lack with the savory Tuscan frittata ($9.95), a cousin to the omelet. The fillings are plentiful — spinach, feta cheese, mushrooms and sharp Italian ham — but they’re all bunched up in the middle. As a result, the frittata’s outer regions consist of unadorned egg, cooked significantly harder than the almost runny interior. Both frittata and poached eggs are graced by an array of beautiful fruit (mangos, kiwis, blackberries, grapes) and julienne potatoes cooked in pungent sesame oil.

Unfortunately, misses also include some brunch staples. Pastries, for one, which is a special disappointment given that their source is DaCapo’s own bakery. They’re heaped in a basket on the counter, and customers remove whatever they like at $1.50 an item. My party selected a cinammon bun and a chocolate croissant; the first proved rubbery, the second chewy, but not flaky. Perhaps both had been sitting around for a while.

And the mimosas may be a welcome $.99, but they suffer from acrid juice that must be made from concentrate. Seeing fresh orange juice on the menu for $3 made me toy with the idea of ordering the real thing and asking for a mimosa to be made from it. Instead, I opted for ginger-spiked lemonade, which turned out to be unavailable.

Consolation came in the form it so often does, dessert, and DaCapo’s brunch array matches its usual magnificence. For richness to the point of decadence, the pumpkin cheesecake is the answer.

— Kathy Biehl

DaCapo’s on the Parkway, 3411 Allen Parkway, 942-9141.