It’s become quite challenging for us here to find new and delicious brunch places for the Brunch Klub‘s weekly tradition of Sunday Brunch. You know what’s harder? Finding a new and delicious brunch place on SATURDAYS. But, because Houston is home to a million and one restaurants, finding a new one is do-able—with a lot of Googling (er, Binging) and Yelping. So that’s what I did.

I stumbled upon Brasserie Max & Julie‘s Weekend Brunch in the Montrose hood. Suffering through a rainy, muggy morning I figured out parking—there’s no lot, so prayers for better luck than I had—I walked into a tiny, fancy French resto with a not-so-tiny, fancy French menu. Thankfully I had my French-speaking friend for consultation, but anyone who’s been to Le Madeline is familiar with breakfast/pastries. But, still. Every brunch should have an educational, enlightening experience so I thought I’d share mine through a French vocabulary lesson. Bon appetit!

Bonjour. Hello; Good morning. 

A greeting for when you walk up to the small dining room. We were actually welcomed in English, but nevertheless. The first greeter actually turned to a person behind her to speak in Spanish, so it was a multicultural event.

La pluie. Rain. 🙁 

As in the miserable crying Houston was doing Saturday.

Mimosa. Delicious orange juice and bubbly Champagne.

Not a French word—but a French bubbly! Brasserie’s are $6.50 a glass or $30 a pitcher, which was annoying as we looked across the street at the CVS where we could get a whole bottle of André and a carton of OJ for the $6.50 that one glass costs.

A la carte. On the menu.

Meaning: not a preset meal, rather you pick and choose what you will eat. There was a good mix of crepes and bacon, etc. Probably would add up, so I opted not for that.

Croque Madame et Croque Monsieur. Ham and cheese sandwich with an egg, and ham and cheese sandwich, respectively. 

I got the egg one and it came with fries and a salad. It was also super hard to eat.* It was saliva-inducingly delicious, with stinky cheese and chewy ham. It was a lot of food for $10.50.

*Do not try to eat it with your hands, as I learned the hard way.

Mauvaise attitude. Bad attitude.

Which, our server clearly had as he so rudely and accusingly memorized our IDs after carding us. I’m 23. I get carded everywhere. Why did he make me feel like I was doing something wrong here?

Barvarder. To gossip.

A pastime we enjoyed while we imbibed.

Lentement. Slowly.

As in the pace in which our brunch went. Slow service, but pleasant conversation.

La paiement. The payment process. 

As in, the relatively painless and swift process of offering money for your meal. Again, we experienced some grief from our server when we asked for separate checks. Half of our table had been servers and dealt with things like this. It is a. not that difficult to split a check and b. customary to ask your table how they would like the check before automatically placing it on their table.

Adieu. Farewell.

Synonyms: Peace out, brb rolling to my car bc so full, later gators, ps I want more mimosas.

La somme. Nap.

Which I did. Very shortly after brunch, for like 3 hours.

In summery, great food that was worth the grief we got from our server. Definitely a cute place for a small group of cultural friends. Merci, Brasserie!