What’s Big and Goes Down Easy
Coast at the Canary Kicks Off a New Orleans Jazz Brunch
If a Cajun-Creole brunch doesn’t get you jazzed on its own, Coast at the Canary (31 W. Carrillo St., 879-9100, canarysantabarbara.com) wants to help—they’ve got actual jazz at their recently ramped up Big Easy Brunch, the venerable Ulysses band known for its wonderful running gig at the James Joyce. Not that Chef Brian Parks’s creations aren’t enough to please, with everything from shrimp jambalaya and apple beignets to more creative touches like a hash featuring not the usual beef or pork but rather scrumptious trout he smokes in-house. (Parks’s mother is from Alabama, by the way, so he gets his Southern cooking chops naturally.) For $24, you get an appetizer, entrée, and a run at the dessert bar (two words: coconut cake), so you won’t need to eat much for the rest of your Sunday. Unless the band gets you dancing—or the Bloody Marys or Sazeracs (it’s happy hour pricing all Sunday)—and that’s certainly possible. If New Orleans ain’t your cup of café brûlot, there’s still the regular menu, too, with typically fine fare like eggs with serrano ham and Manchego cheese or lemon ricotta pancakes with raspberries and crème fraîche.
