Le Brunch Express — Restaurant in Envigado

My partner and I were impressed with this little spot. We ordered the canasta de pandeyuca con huevos, the açaí bowl, and the arepa trio. My partner is Colombian so he’s obsessed with trying different forms of arepas, but we were not very impressed by the dish. I have to say the eggs were cooked perfectly but the flavors were missing something and two of the arepas were extremely hard. My rule of thumb at a new restaurant is always go with what is most popular or recommended to start, so I wish we would have ordered the French toast or waffles instead because there didn’t seem to be much fanfare for the arepas and now we know why.

The açaí bowl was also more like a smoothie bowl. To be fair I haven’t had a lot of açaí bowls so I can’t be a fair judge. The only other one I had was like a proper bowl with solid açaí berries and other fruits and nuts. The flavor was good but I would have preferred something a little less liquid.

The canasta was, however, fantastic.

I ordered a cold brew which was good. My partner ordered a frozen smoothie which was also really good - not too sweet.

The service was excellent and I liked though the restaurant was small it had a cute, very Instagram aesthetic. They were playing heavy electronic dance / techno music at 9 am but it wasn’t crazy loud and after a while we tuned it out.

So in summary it’s a good breakfast spot but stick with the most popular items and you’ll...

The "Express" part of the name is ironic since it was it was epically slow even on Colombian time. We managed to grab the waiter to order after having sat there for about 10 minutes... poor guy, he was the only service staff and the place was totally full (not that hard since there's barely room...watching my elbows is not a comfy breakfast vibe, personally.) Just ordered a bagel and an English muffin with our coffees. 45 minutes later we asked if there had been some issue. Another 15 minutes later, when others who came after us were now eating, we politely asked how much longer. An hour and twenty minutes after ordering, when I got my bagel, my friend just said forget about his food because he couldn't wait anymore. We paid for what we got and left. Was the order forgotten and put in late? Some kind of gringo prejudice? Food dropped in kitchen? Who knows. All I know is that it wasn't worth the wait, and there's 20 great restaurants on that block to try...

If I could leave 0 stars I would. We were attracted initially by the 100’s of 5 star reviews and the pictures. After further research, most of the reviews are fake/forced. We ordered the waffles and the shakshuka. The shakshuka isn’t really shakshuka lol. The waffles were basically eggo’s that were hard like a rock and completely tasteless. The portions were also extremely small. When it came down to asking for the check, the waiter brings it to me and says only cash and transfer (transfer is only for Colombian residents). He didn’t want to take any cards, so I had to get up and walk about 30 minutes to find an ATM, and walk back. The food was horrible, the waiter was nice initially then treated us like idiots for not having a Colombian bank account as tourists. This place and it’s reviews are the true definition of too good to be true....