By Lori Fredrich Senior Food Writer, Dining Editor, Podcast Host Published Oct 09, 2015 at 9:06 AM

For the ninth straight year, October is Dining Month on OnMilwaukee, presented by the restaurants of Potawatomi Hotel & Casino. All month, we're stuffed with restaurant reviews, dining guides, delectable features, chef profiles and unique articles on everything food, as well as voting for your "Best of Dining 2015."

Merriment Social
240 E Pittsburgh Ave.
(414) 645-0240
merrimentsocial.com

Looking for something a bit different for brunch? Try Merriment Social. The fun, casual atmosphere is the perfect spot to sit back and relax with friends while trying great, creative house-made fare. Among the many unique aspects of the restaurant are the hot and cold carts (reminiscent of dim sum) that are rolled through the restaurant, offering up tasty sweet rolls, muffins and other treats (priced $4-5 each). And if you’re looking for an alternative to the usual Bloody Mary, try out one of their other breakfast cocktails, including creative punch options (which serve two).

Brunch hours: Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Atmosphere: Bright modern industrial-chic space with plenty of seating and light, thanks to the wall of garage doors on the south side of the restaurant.

Brunch Drinks

Mimosa:  In lieu of a traditional mimosa, Merriment offers up King of the Monsters, a "beer-mosa" featuring O-Gii Wit bier, ginger liquer and orange juice ($10)

Bloody Mary:  The Dirty Dave Hungover ($10) is a nice blend of fresh tomato flavor with plenty of salt and spice. Garnishes include cheese gougeres, sausage, house pickles and a cheese curd.

Other options: Great beer list, a changing list of brunch punch ($21-23, serves two) and unique cocktails like the Preferred Nomenclature ($10) featuring cold brew coffee, Irish liquor, Kahlua and cinnamon whiskey.

Food highlights: The hot dim-sum cart will fulfill all your morning sweet-tooth needs with items like the rum sticky bun with housemade cream cheese icing (amazing) and gooey pudding cake with beer jam (yum). During our stay, the cold cart also rolled out some winners like the peach cardomom fritter, which was pure fried dough delight.

In terms of entrees, you can’t go wrong with the seasonal omelette (ours was filled with brussels sprouts, fontina and trumpet mushrooms and topped with fresh heirloom tomatoes and creme fraiche).

Or try the Merriment Benedict with slow roasted pork belly, poached egg and parmigiano hollandaise, served atop a house english muffin. The breakfast sandwich was also a hit – featuring breakfast sausage, fried egg and house-made maple cream cheese layered on the restaurant’s delicious Japanese milk bun.

Despite being hard to eat (all that delicious cream cheese makes the sandwich ingredients slide around quite a bit), the flavors were fantastic, and we’ll be going back for it again soon – though I’d be likely to try eating it open face, knife and fork style. All entrees come with breakfast potatoes (currently diced potatoes with fried onions, which did tend to err on the soggy side. Chef Andrew Miller has indicated that improvements to the potatoes are forthcoming).

Service: Waitstaff was friendly, knowledgeable and attentive, keeping our coffee cups full and exhibiting exceptional responsiveness to our questions and feedback.

Lori Fredrich Senior Food Writer, Dining Editor, Podcast Host

Lori is an avid cook whose accrual of condiments and spices is rivaled only by her cookbook collection. Her passion for the culinary industry was birthed while balancing A&W root beer mugs as a teenage carhop, fed by insatiable curiosity and fueled by the people whose stories entwine with each and every dish. She’s had the privilege of chronicling these tales via numerous media, including OnMilwaukee and in her book “Milwaukee Food.” Her work has garnered journalism awards from entities including the Milwaukee Press Club. 

When she’s not eating, photographing food, writing or recording the FoodCrush podcast, you’ll find Lori seeking out adventures with her husband Paul, traveling, cooking, reading, learning, snuggling with her cats and looking for ways to make a difference.