Penn Commons Brunch

As much as I love living in Navy Yard, I sometimes miss our old neighborhood in Mount Vernon Triangle. It was walking distance to so many things, and I kind of relished the subtle chaos of the area. Luckily, it’s an easy metro ride or short drive from our new apartment to our old haunts, and we go fairly often.
We had a lot of errands to run the weekend before our trip home and needed solid sustenance to fuel our day. We weren’t looking for anything fancy, the only requisite was that they served eggs. We decided on Penn Commons, a place we’ve been to several times but never for a full meal.
I feel like I’m really dropping the ball on brunch lately. I used to be all about the bottomless drinks, but now all I can think about is how little I’ll get done afterward. Don’t tell me I’m acting my age. I will vehemently deny it.
Penn Commons brunch offers a three-course prix fix option for $19, a heck of a deal if you’re hungry. You can add bottomless mimosas or bloody Marys for an extra $13, but as I mentioned we’ve become lame and had only coffee.
Tom went with the three-course option, because his metabolism is ridiculous, while I opted for one measly course. Luckily for me, his appetizer and dessert were enough to share.
We chose to start with a duo of spreads, pimento cheese and roasted bell pepper with feta, along with grilled country bread.

I loved the presentation of this in these precious little jars, and because we were starving we licked each container clean. Both spreads were good, but nothing to rave about. We preferred the pimento, because pimento is delicious, but it lacked much oomph.
For my entrée, I was predictable and ordered the short rib hash.

I found the look of this dish to be slightly off-putting. Everything under the eggs was the same color so it was difficult to differentiate what I was eating – potato, pepper or beef. That said, the flavor was delicious and the short rib was cooked very well. The potatoes were a tad to mushy for my taste, and the egg whites a tad too chewy, but overall it was a satisfying order.
Tom went with the other dish I was eyeing, a breakfast quesadilla with chorizo. Had it not been for the chorizo (I’m just not a fan), I would have been all over this.

I did have a bite and it was very tasty, if a little bit greasy. I have a feeling this would be a great hangover meal.
Because our entrees were rather on the heavy side, we opted to take Tom’s dessert to go. We did get a slight lecture from our server for sharing his three-course meal; you’re not supposed to do that. But a slight reprimand was worth getting a solid deal on a lot of food. Sometimes you have to bend the rules a bit. And, honestly, it’s not all that often that a person really needs three courses all to themselves for brunch.
We chose the Nutella cream puffs, which we ate at home after dinner that night, and I suppose I was too excited about them to take a picture. They were good, because Nutella.
This place seems like a good brunch spot for large groups looking to party, or really hungry patrons looking to fill up for little cash. The food is good, not exceptional, but the dining room is large and there are a lot of TVs for sports watching so you could do a lot worse.