Food
The Brown Lantern is not your typical brunch establishment.
A bar in downtown Anacortes that has been in business since Prohibition (and looks like it), it definitely isn’t a frilly-curtains-and-placemats sort of place. The room has a classic pub ambience—lots of dark wood, sports paraphernalia on the walls and ceiling, painting of a naked lady behind the bar and an inflatable shark wearing a sombrero (doesn’t every bar need one of these?).
There are television screens in a few spots, and if a big game is going on you may hear shrieks and bellows from various corners of the room, but it’s not overwhelmingly a sports bar, and you can ignore the TVs if you like. During the rest of the week they have trivia and game nights and live music, and it can be hard to find a seat when the place is hopping. But then there’s Sunday morning.
Despite living in Skagit County for nearly 15 years, my husband and I only recently started going to the Brown Lantern (what can I say, we’re slow). But one Sunday after a rather wet hike in the Anacortes Forestlands, we felt the need of a burger and a beer and wandered in. It wasn’t too busy, with a few locals at the bar. We sat in the window looking across Commercial Avenue and immediately felt right at home.
When the Sunday Brunch menu was put in front of us, we were amazed. The regular lunch menu looked promising, but we hadn’t realized that the pub also serves breakfast on Sundays, beginning at 10am, and their selection is exciting: a burrito stuffed with bacon and tater tots ($9), huevos rancheros ($9), a breakfast burger ($9.50), and—what caught my eye immediately—breakfast mac and cheese ($10). I didn’t order it that visit, but I have since rectified that. Several times.
So, what’s in breakfast mac and cheese, you ask? Macaroni noodles, of course, and cheese sauce, which some days is quite soupy and other days more stiff (I like it when it needs to be eaten with a soup spoon). It has spinach, tomato and onions, so you can say you ate vegetables, pieces of bacon, and two fried eggs right on top.
When you cut up the eggs and stir everything together in a big gloppy pile with a splash of Tabasco it becomes a transcendent experience. If you’re feeling at all fragile from your Saturday night, it has the effect of soothing and uplifting. If you’re just hungry, it will definitely take care of that. Don’t get it if you’re only a bit peckish, though, because if you’re like me you will eat too much of it and need to go take a long nap. Well, you may want to do that anyway. Especially if you have a beer with it.
The pub has a good range of beers on tap, including several Georgetown Brewery selections, and a decently stocked bar. We haven’t tried ordering anything too adventurous, but the bartenders know their way around the basics. Their Bloody Mary is well built, and they offer mimosas by the pint. Cocktail prices are very reasonable, making it a great place for a little hair of the dog on a Sunday morning. Getting a beer with breakfast will not raise any eyebrows here, I promise.
All of the food we’ve had at the Brown Lantern has been good. I really enjoy their Reuben ($11, served with horseradish sauce), and the lamb burger ($15) is surprisingly perky, with its topping of feta and mango chutney. Sweet potato fries are excellent, crinkle cut and sprinkled with cheese and parsley. Their biscuits and gravy ($6) are hot with pepper and they don’t stint on the rich sausage gravy, and the regular Lantern breakfast ($8) is a very reasonably sized assortment of toast, tater tots, eggs and bacon.
Unfortunately, a recent visit with friends involved some severely undercooked bacon, but my friend assured me that the tater tots were of very high quality. All of it is good, but I personally just have trouble ordering anything except the mac and cheese. And maybe, someday, that tater tot burrito.
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