You Deserve Ice Cream for Brunch

BY TAMARA PALMER

I was invited to have brunch at Crossroads Kitchen in Los Angeles to try the vegan spot’s new breakfast sandwich, which uses the Silicon Valley-created Impossible Foods plant-based faux meat that I’ve been covering for a few years.

But after checking out the menu at this celeb haunt (James Franco ate there the next day, at least), I quickly became obsessed with the knowledge that we could begin and end this meal with ice cream. And you should follow the lead, starting with apple rye fritters that come with a dipping sauce of quickly melting sage ice cream and salted caramel.

Next, it’s time for the Impossible breakfast sandwich, which every other table seemed to order as well, so the word must be getting out. You can get it on an English muffin or bagel but we were steered towards the English muffin. The Impossible Foods sausage, which has a very realistic meat taste, is topped with a fried chickpea panisse and impressive American cheese (impressive because vegan cheese has been known to be a travesty at times).

The star of Crossroads brunch, though, is the banana split sundae with vanilla bean ice cream (made with coconut milk), banana custard, malted hot fudge, peanut pretzel praline and a maraschino cherry. Peanut pretzel praline should be a packaged good that can be bought anywhere. If there’s a better vegan sundae in California, I hope it meets my face soon.

Ice cream for brunch: Let’s make it a regular thing.