Sabrina's Cafe

Italian Market, Philadelphia-- Sabrina's is a wonderful place to grab brunch. A small cozy BYOB cafe with an eclectic waitstaff, it's a neighborhood favorite-- which means it's always bustling with activity. On a normal weekend around 11am-12pm, the wait can be well over an hour. If you do decide you want to go, I would definitely call ahead. You'll still have to wait a little, but you'll get a table much quicker. One nice thing about the wait is that they usually have coffee and sometimes pastries out. It was great to sip on some free coffee while waiting for our table, especially when it was a little chilly outside.

We've been here a couple times, and we've gotten to try a bunch of their dishes. Beware though... you must come with an empty stomach, because the portions are huge. I can never finish my plate. The menu has a lot of variety, and their Brunch specials are very unique. Here are some noteworthy ones:

The Stuffed French Toast is heavenly and definitely a must-try dish. Their fruit toppings change often, but it always comes with French toast challah (holla!) bread filled with sweet cream cheese and topped with syrup and powdered sugar. When we had it, the toppings were strawberries and blueberries. It is also really rich and pretty big, so I would recommend sharing it with the table (we split it 3 ways as a brunch-itizer and it was still a lot of food).

The Skinny Omelet is actually very good and also very big (seemed like they used 5 eggs!). It is an egg white omelet stuffed with roasted cremini mushrooms, red onions, fresh spinach, parsnips, sun dried tomatoes and feta cheese. All of their egg dishes come with homefries tossed with caramelized onions (mmm) and Le Bus bread. I think it's definitely more economical to go with an omelet from their specials list since you get more toppings. Howeva, you can also create your own omelet and choose from 3 toppings (with additional toppings for $1). This pleased Louie since he is a MAN and is "all about meat" (the Skinny is the only omelet for brunch specials).

We also got to taste the Mexican Special, which had pepper jack eggs with grilled jalapeno chicken, chorizo, turkey bacon, red beans, corn, green onions and roasted peppers served in corn tortillas and topped with salsa verde and a roasted tomato-cilantro sour cream. It was, no surprise here, another big dish and quite yummy.

Overall grade:

A- (Steph) - Great brunch food, huge portions, friendly servers, not just your average cafe. The price is also pretty fair (~$10-12/plate for specials). The only thing is the wait can sometimes be really long, but it is definitely worth it.

B+ (Louie) - Mad emos, whippicles, and artistic people up in this joint. Once again, I luh the huge portions they give you here. Their service was also pretty fast.