Le Garage Visited 5/7/2011 3.5 Forks

Le Garage 85 Liberty Ship Way, Ste 109, Sausalito, CA 94965

While my friend's wedding was in Sonoma, a bunch of us decided to check out Sausalito for brunch on Saturday.  I had always wanted to go there and a good friend of mine was renting a house out there, so it made sense to meet up there.  Before I left for SF I had done a quick search of brunch places in Sausalito and this place kept coming up.  It sounded like it was right on the water and had a fancy brunch menu so it seemed like the perfect fit.  


Getting there is a bit difficult.  While there is a main downtown drag, this place is in a ship yard away from all the main action.  The parking was weird in that even though there is tons of parking, it's all private, so you are forced to do valet ($3), which was annoying.  But the location of this place was perfect.  It was literally right on the water and surprise, surprise, inside an old garage.  It's a great open air restaurant and really gives you that California feel.   Another great perk was that despite being a group of 8, we were seated immediately since another large group in front of us weren't all there.  So it pays off to all car pool together!


The menu looked promising with classic brunch items such as french toast, eggs benedict, croque madams/monsieur and fancy omelets.  We ordered hand cut fries for the table and I had to get the eggs benedict ($14).  Sadly they don't have a liquor menu, so they don't have bloody mary's or other fun brunch cocktails but you can get mimosas and some beers.  Having fun cocktails is kind of half the fun on a day like this.  The fries came out first and they were were kind of skinny for hand cut fries but they came with a great side of aoli (does anyone restaurant not serve aoli these days?) but they just needed to be thicker and crisper.  Our main dishes came out shortly later and they were just ok.  The benedict did not come out on an english muffin but thick french cut bread and they were kind of small in size.  The hard french bread just wasn't an adequate substitute for a soft english muffin.  The egg was nicely poached but there was just something off about it.  I did enjoy the potatoes as they were roasted just right but I would have preferred more benedict and less potatoes.  Dan's croque madam looked good but a bit bready and Aarti didn't seem to love her Oeuf  a la coque, she mentioned that the thick bread with heavy butter was extremely dense.  I was glad that everyone else seemed to like their food, but I just wish that the food matched the great ambiance.  But I was glad that we were all able to all sit together in a restaurant by the water on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  Total $23/pp.