Boston, what do you have against brunch?

There is a dearth of brunch places in Boston. In NYC, brunch is HUGE. Entire weekends are planned around brunch. There are restaurants that specialize in brunch. There are hundreds of awesome prix fixe deals where you can get a cocktail, a coffee, and Eggs Benedict for under $15.

Brunch is my favorite meal. Like Christmas, it doesn't happen every day -- only on weekends. That's what makes it extra special. Brunch also combines three of my all-time favorite things: sleeping late, midday drinking, and breakfast food. Brunch is about freedom. It's about choices. You feel like a burger and I'm in the mood for french toast? No problem -- at brunch, we can both get what we want! Isn't freedom delicious?

And yet in Boston, home of the Freedom Trail, it is downright difficult to find a good brunch place. In Allston, there are breakfast spots (like Herrell's, which serves breakfast all day) but only one place that serves an real brunch and has a brunch menu. This, sadly, is Big City and the brunch is sub-par and geared toward extremely hungover frat boys. They have a horrifying egg-and-bacon-pizza that will raise your cholesterol just by looking at it.

You'd think in bourgeois Brookline, brunch places would be as common as baby strollers and cute dogs. I mean, brunch is obviously an upper-middle class invention. But shockingly, Zaftigs is really the only option -- and because it has no competition, the wait to get a table for brunch is often over an hour. And the food isn't even all that good.

There is a brunch niche that needs to be filled, Boston. I shouldn't have to go into a bar to get a Bloody Mary on a Sunday afternoon.