Restaurant Blooms in Brooklyn: Yellow Magnolia Cafe

Fall at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Museums have long been savvy about keeping their visitors for the day: high quality restaurants and gift shops keep peckish guests from leaving in search of sustenance.

House tacos with mushrooms

It has taken the Brooklyn Botanic Garden awhile to get up to speed. The seasonal cafe had some decent fare, but in cold weather there was nowhere to eat, so you had to leave the premises. Now, the Yellow Magnolia Cafe nourishes visitors with a sit-down, vegetable focuses menu.

Yellow Magnolia even takes reservations. The outdoor canteen, open in warm weather has some of the same food, and both places have a children's menu.

Eggs with a hot sauce dropper

At a recent brunch, I had the house tacos, which came with either fish or hen of the woods mushrooms. The mushrooms were a great option, served on homemade charred blue corn tortillas with shredded vegetables.

Everyone else at the table had the scrambled eggs, served with greens, potatoes and either avocado, sausage or bacon. These are no bargain, at $17, but they were delicious and it was nice that vegetarians could have something instead of just paying for meat and no having it. [Members get 10% off at the cafe]

I should note that our guests, both of them meat eaters, opted for the avocado.

The eggs came with individual dropper bottles of hot sauce. My tacos, oddly, didn't come with hot sauce, though I didn't need it; there was a flavorful cilantro sauce.

For brunch, note that there are no Bloody Mary's. Our out of town guests made do with mimosas, and the coffee is excellent.

Also, the kitchen ran out of biscuits. Be sure to go early, and order biscuits as soon as you sit down.