With their classic flavors, hearty meals and heartwarming desserts, this beautiful brunch location will be your new comfort restaurant and hearty hangover cure. Nestled in the heart of downtown Riverside, The Beignet Spot offers a wide variety of items to fill you up and keep you smiling throughout the day.
With its homey brick walls, wide glass windows and sturdy oak tables bathed in the comforting light of the afternoon sun, The Beignet Spot provides a comforting modern environment. The observation glass provides a complete look into the kitchen, allowing customers to see the process of making various dishes and beignets in industry-sized batches.
The ambiance is perfect for a quick lunch date with a friend, a Mother’s Day brunch or even just a post-party hangout location to fill your stomach. Breakfast sandwiches, loaded fries and chicken sandwiches are just some of the wide variety of options available at the Beignet Spot to satisfy your cravings.
Food:
B-Spot Sammy: 3/5
Priced at $10.99, this sandwich — made with scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese, bacon, arugula and tomato jam — gives you a your bang for your buck with the high quality ingredients and perfectly cooked fillings. The perfectly buttered, soft brioche buns complements the crisp crunch of the arugula, which provided a much needed freshness to the carbs and fat in the sandwich. The scrambled eggs were fluffy, yet had the perfect bite, making them some of the best I have had in Riverside. The bacon provided some much needed salt and the tomato jam added the perfect amount of acidity to the sandwich without being too overpowering.
My biggest criticism of the sandwich was the lack of salt and more notably the reduced quantity of its amazing fillings. As I was eating this delectable sandwich, I couldn’t help but notice the significant lack of salt in all of its components. Though the sandwich can stand on its own without the seasoning, it loses a great deal of depth and flavor without it. Furthermore, the beautiful brioche buns that speak for the quality of the sandwich also seemed far too big. This was mostly due to the lack of fillings, making me at times feel like I was eating more bread than sandwich. But all in all, this is a great breakfast sandwich that leaves you wishing for more.
Jerk Fried Chicken Sandwich: 4/5
A chicken sandwich for the ages, at only $10.99. With the Beignet Spot’s classic brioche buns, B-spot sauce, pickles, jerk aioli and juicy slab of jerk fried chicken. It’s juicy, crispy, crunchy and exquisitely seasoned. The chicken cutlet is the highlight of the sandwich, having been perfectly cooked and seasoned in classic Jamaican fashion. The taste of cloves and pepper that give jerk chicken its iconic taste are immediately recognizable and present in the sandwich. The coleslaw and pickles balanced the fattiness of the chicken with its freshness and snappy texture, adding a bit of tanginess to the mix.
The only disappointment would have to be the B-spot sauce and jerk aioli. If you had told me that there was a simple mayo-based sauce to add a little bit of moisture to the sandwich, I would have believed you. Though the sauce did provide some much needed liquidity to an otherwise very cumbersome sandwich, I could not tell you what it tasted like. Otherwise, it’s a wonderful chicken sandwich.
Beignet Flight (Banana Foster, Berry Berry, and Peach Cobbler):
The Beignet Flight covered three flavors. Each flavor came with two beignets, and the overall price of the order was $13.95.
Banana Foster: 4/5
If banana bread and beignets had a child, this would be it. Sweet, warm, cinnamon-y goodness spread over warm, soft, pillowy beignets made for a ridiculously comforting dessert. The banana flavor was entirely due to the fresh bananas that were incorporated into the banana’s foster syrup giving it an all natural, entirely non-artificial taste. The fresh bananas added a bit of bite to the dessert that was otherwise encapsulated by the fluffiness of the beignets. The whipped cream added some lightness, making the dessert less heavy.
Berry Berry: 4/5
When you think of classic berry flavoring — not artificial berry flavoring, but really berry flavored desserts made with gooseberries, blueberries and blackberries — this is it. Sweet, tart, acidic and wonderfully light, the berry topping of the berry beignets adds freshness and excitement to the all around stable nature of the beignets. However, as is with many of the trade-offs of being classic, the berry topping doesn’t quite reinvent the wheel. Aside from the usual berry notes, there were no standout flavors or unique twists that you would expect from a house berry sauce. If you are looking for a solid beignet topping, and are not looking to take too many risks, look no further than the Berry Berry beignet.
Peach Cobbler: 4/5
With wonderful textures and comforting spices, this treat is everything you would expect to find in the peach cobbler beignet. The soft, yet delicate texture of the cooked peaches covered in the cinnamon-y syrup created a wonderful blend of soft dough and tender peach that is perfect for cold weather. Like with the banana foster beignet, the whipped cream cuts the heaviness of the dessert making it manageable for one person to eat. Much like with Berry Berry however, I found myself craving slightly more in terms of the intensity of the spices and the power of the peaches. Obviously the tartness and sweetness of the peaches will depend highly on the season but in regards to the syrup I found myself craving more. All in all, a lovely dessert that puts a smile on your face and makes you reminisce for fall.
Classic 8 Pack Beignet: 5/5
It is no surprise that the beignet in its simple glory, at $7.95, would be the best of the lot. The fluffy, crispy, soft, cloudlike bits of heaven were the perfect example of what a beignet should be. Unlike a plain doughnut that relies on a tender yet doughy texture all around to check all the boxes, a beignet must be crispy on the outside, soft and pillowy on the inside and lightly sweetened. It’s essential that the cloud of powdered sugar that adorns them does not come off as too overpowering. The combination of all these elements creates the perfectly light, buttery, soft and comforting dessert that we all know and love. The Beignet Spot knocks it out of the park, and creates the perfect homage to this pastry that we all know and love.
