Tonic Mt. Pleasant - Upstairs

Tonic happens to be located incredibly close to my apartment, so I return again and again. As much as I like good food, I like being lazy even more. Would I rather eat good food than frequent Tonic? Yes. Would I rather cook my own food than frequent Tonic? Eh, that's a tough one. And so here I am, again, wondering why exactly I'm here again. The location. Right.

Brunching upstairs at Tonic feels like being the last man on Earth. Where is everyone? It's disconcerting, this emptiness, so much so that even when presented with something perfectly acceptable (the coffee is fine, for example), you second guess it. As in, what does everyone else know that I don't? Then again, everyone else is waiting in line outside The Diner, not too far away. Which calls this whole equation into question, since The Diner is pretty good, but obviously not wait outside in line good.

More to the point, Tonic's brunch suffers from the usual DC dining black eye: outlandishly incompetent and downright befuddled service. I'm not sure you can factually refer to whatever shenanigans are going on at Tonic as "service," but in true DC fashion the entire staff appears to belabor under an insufferable rush that doesn't actually exist. That is, you get the service of a stupendously busy restaurant at a restaurant that isn't actually busy. I like to call this The DC Touch. And so, you take your seat in a vastly empty dining room (at our most recent visit, 3 of the 20 or so tables were occupied). And you sit. And then you sit some more. And then some woman who may or may not be your waitress wanders over, visibly startled to find you seated there. And then you exchange glances. And then, moments later, it dawns on her that you're there for brunch. And then she disappears. And then you sit there some more, wondering if you should complain, but not having the foggiest idea who you might complain to. There's no order. The usual dining tropes are absent (as is the ambiance, but that's another story), the norms of the restaurant experience having been ditched in favor of some ad hoc approximation of same. It's like dining at a 3 year old's tea party, except you're paying.

Eventually, twenty to thirty minutes later, you get some coffee. One cup and that's it. Remember: this is brunch. This isn't some dive bar where the dusty pot in the corner hasn't been used in six years and might actually be inoperable. One measly cut of coffee. Saturday brunch. Inexcusable.

And the food? Well, the food actually ain't bad, if a tad overpriced. The Eggs Mediterranean was satisfying, fresh and looked rather attractive sitting there on the plate (I forgot my camera). I probably took my life in my hands ordering hollandaise sauce in a bar, but that's my problem, not Tonic's. My companion ate some sort of dirigible-like breakfast burrito which went a long way towards explaining why the West gets a bad rap in developing areas of the world. I think she liked it, but what tastes bad under a ginormous dollop of sour cream?

Tonic's food is totally acceptable. What's missing is the atmosphere, and the understanding that brunch is an experience as much (if not more) than it is a meal. Brunch is a social event and often a decadent one at that. Brunch is all about the scene and the conversation and the company. At Tonic, brunch is all about sitting in an atmosphere-less, mostly empty room, trying to stifle the encroaching edges of ennui.