The Best Thing I Ate All Week: Cereal Milk French Toast From Archer

A good idea: Incorporating dessert into your brunch order.

A better idea: Making that dessert the cereal milk French toast at Archer.

In this increasingly polarized world, do you really want to be picking a side between sweet and savoury? Why can’t we meet in the middle: see the joy of ordering both a vaguely-responsible egg-inclusive dish and an indulgent, basically-a-birthday-cake fried bread dish smothered in fresh berries and Froot Loops?

Exploring the new brunch menu at Archer with a colleague (fine, she’s also a friend! I’ll say it!) last week, we were brave enough to look beyond the rim of our own individual plates (her: a chicken-katsu sandwich, $22; me, a solid veggie Bennie, $19, with a side of smoked sablefish) to see things from a sweeter perspective.

The cereal milk French toast ($20) was a sight to behold. The thick-cut brioche had been soaked in sweet cereal milk custard (as promised) and fried until it was gold. Strawberry compote and a Frosted Flake and Froot Loop crumble added an unnecessary but obviously more-than-welcome decadence. We sliced it up like it was a damn Whoville roast beast and tucked in, pulled instantly into a sophisticated sugar rush, delighted to be eating something so nostalgic in such a sophisticated space.

They say you can’t have it all — but on one table, we truly did.

Brunch at Archer
Daily, from 11:00 until 2:00.
1152 Alberni St., Vancouver