Olea Mediterranean Taverna Visited 5/31/10 3.75 Forks

Olea Mediterranean Taverna 171 Lafayette Avenue(between Adelphi St & Clermont Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11238

I have run out of decent brunch choices in Park Slope and have decided to branch out to Ft. Greene, which is an area that I really love. Olea is in the really cute part of Ft. Greene, lots of tree-lined streets and brownstones. The restaurant is adorable with a right mix of Mediterranean tiles and exposed brick and wooden beams. There are a few outdoor seats, but the majority of the seats are indoors.

The brunch menu is really interesting, it had egg/brunch stuff but with a Turkish/Greek flair to all of it. There were so many choices and I had a really hard time deciding. I had the green eggs and lamb (scrambled with fresh cilantro, tomato and red onion, served with merguez lamb sausage and pita $13), Aarti had the Turkish breakfast (eggs scrambled with cilantro, tomato and red onion, fattoush, eggplant salad, herbed yogurt and grilled pita bread for $10), Will had the Savory Parmesan French Toast poached eggs, peas and pea shoots, scallions, and avgolemono sauce ($12) with a side of eggplant salad and Dan got the French style scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and brie ($10.50).

The food came out relatively quickly although they did violate one of my biggest pet peeves in that the table next to us, which was seated after us, got their food before us. But our food came out right afterwards. My meal was pretty good, although the lamb in sausage form is not as good as when it's sliced up in a more traditional meat-like cut. The grilled pita was really good and I tried it with Aarti's yogurt, which tasted like what it was supposed to: plain yogurt with cucumber and herbs. The eggplant salad that Will got was a bit of a disappointment in that it was a bit too sweet (tasted like mint jelly) for all of us. But the best thing I tasted was dan's salmon brie scramble. It was so perfectly cooked and it made me want more. I was really happy that there was a cute place not too far that had different take on brunch because Lord knows there aren't that many good options in my direct 'hood. It looks like they have a pretty good dinner tapas menu and $1.50 happy hour oysters...I would definitely check that out.