If you're looking for a morning or mid-day meal, it turns out that your options can be a little limited, especially at some of the hotels at the northern end of Jekyll Island. After doing some research though, we found the Grand Dining Room as a late breakfast option, piled in the car and headed towards that end of the island.
Located in the Jekyll Island Cub Hotel in the Historic District, you're immediately bombarded with beautiful old buildings and well kept flora when you arrive on the grounds. The Grand Dining Room is located just off the lobby, and is itself a sight to behold -plentiful ionic columns are strewn throughout the large room, with other accoutrements of the oldest of schools (at least in North America) of class.
Being that it was breakfast time, their dress code was not in force (bring your sports jacket at dinner, gentlemen!). We weren't fancily dressed, but we were certainly at a more respectable level than the guy in his trunks and muscle shirt, giving us an air of superiority that seemed fitting to have in a place like that.
Our hostess got us seated and poured us some of the stanky Jekyll Island water and coffee for those who chose to get caffeinated. Luckily the orange juice I ordered tasted to be of the Tropicana variety and not mixed with the local "water". We thought the breakfast buffet was going to end in 15 minutes at 10am, as per what their website said, so we stuck with the menu items, which looked very enticing. The Huevos Jekyll called to me, with a short rib hash, two eggs and toast, but items like the croissant breakfast sandwich and others also sounded great. I ordered my eggs sunnyside up for maximum runny yolk potential and rye bread for a different twist on my toast and since this was my first time in the south, I opted for a cup of their stone milled grits as well.
It wasn't too long before we got our food, which of course came out on trays with warming covers, which were placed on a nearby cart before having the covers removed and having our food served to us. Our table was soon covered in the plates of our mains, sides toast and condiments. I also appreciated the tiny individual-sized bottles of jam (no packets of Kraft here!) and the pads of butter shaped like roses. My looked great, with a fresh salsa on top of the bright eggs, and tasted just as good. The beef was moist and flavourful, and the salsa had a nice citrusy zing to it that helped cut through the richness of the rest of the dish. The eggs were cooked perfectly, with the yolks making for a great sauce for the hash below.
The rye bread was an interesting first for me, as I've never had it on its own, just in the likes of Reubens or other deli meat sandwiches that have a lot of other big flavours going on. It had a unique bite to it that was certainly more than that of any sourdough I've had before, and was nice when dipped into my hot mess of hash.
Despite how good my hash was, the cup of simple stone milled grits might have been the star of the show. They were a vibrant yellow, and quite smooth as well with just a little bit of texture from the bits of....grits that didn't get ground down as much as the rest. They were very, very rich and buttery and although I'd hate to think of how much butter went into them, they were still worth it.
Service was very friendly and professional, just as you would expect in a place like the Grand Dining Room. "Grand" is in its name for heaven's sake, the standard is set high right out of the gate.
Although it looked like the buffet stayed open until 11am and not the advertised 10am, we were all more than happy with what we had to eat, and it was fitting we had our best meal on Jekyll Island at this Grand location. read more