The Bruce Restaurant

J. & A.'s Family Restaurant

Burger King (Main St. W., Hamilton)

Second Cup (Westdale)

Louies Westside Grill

Bakers Corner (Freelton)

Golden Griddle (Hamilton)

Toby's Good Eats

Sip and Bite

Ancaster Old Mill

On the topic of ratings

As you will have noticed, I have so far meticulously avoided a ratings system for the restaurants, as it is all too common these days all over the internet. You can find ratings of just about everything. But mostly those are not fair and objective ratings. They are mere personal opinions. If I wanted to introduce a rating system for the breakfast places, I would have to establish a set of objective criteria and pay multiple visits to each place - far too much work. Also, there is crowding in the middle, and fairly distinguishing all the subtle nuances would not be easy. So it's going to stay this way: No ratings.

I have decided, however, to give out a 'badge of honour' to those places that not only presented a well-balanced and flavourful breakfast, but on top of that also messed with my senses to the point where I experienced uncontrollable cravings for some component of the meal and considered throwing over board my 'one visit only' policy.

So you might as well take it as a warning when a place is labeled '***ADDICTIVE***'. Avoid it altogether or be prepare to come back. So far only 3 out of 73 places have earned this label. I have had more than 3 good breakfasts, but these 3 stood out because of the painful and torturous cravings for their food that I experienced for days after. Even now it's overcoming me as I write this...

Twice Around Diner

Buckys

In the past I tried two of the three breakfast places that I could find in Ayr. None of them really served a traditional breakfast, although both came up with concoctions that were elevated by the taste of fresh eggs. Somehow I always imagined that the real, long established traditional breakfast restaurant in town must be this third place, called “Buckys” (20 Northumberland Street, Ayr, North Dumfries, Ontario - not sure about the phone number, none is posted and on 411.ca, “Bucky's of Ayre” is listed as a bakery retailer at 24 Northumberland St., which is the wrong address with Tel. 519-632-8270). Outside, Buckys proclaims to serve “Coffee, All day breakfast, Light lunch.” A table for two is on display in the shop window, there are community advertisements, and there is a sheet of paper with the opening hours on the door. All the spots where you would normally expect to find a number indicating an opening or closing time are occupied by question marks, except for a 7:00am on Saturday morning and a snarky comment for Sunday morning. Well, that's a good start! Today is a Thursday, and whatever the todays question mark stood for, it was smaller than 8:30am.

Upon entry, I find a place that is cozy in a run-down kind of way, two customers at a table and a couple of guys lined up on bar chairs. One guy is waiting for take-out at the front counter. The guy running the show is barricaded behind a dysfunct looking display cooler. When he spots me he casually says “Hi, Jim!” I assume he mistook me for some regular who usually comes in at this time and try to get my bearings. Should I climb up into the display window to sit at the table there? Should I claim a spot at the bar? Do I first have to order my food where the guy is still waiting for his take-out to be prepared? The guy behind the counter operates a microwave to ready the take-out and continues the conversation with fragments “How is your day going? - Well, that's good. - What are you up to? - Oh, really?” Who is he taking to? He occasionally glances at me, and nobody else in the shop appears to be reacting to him. He must have realized the mix-up by now, or at least be alerted by the fact that I'm not answering and he is effectively taking to himself! “Feel free to throw in a few words here or there, Jim” he continues on, now directly looking at me. I have moved around and currently stand by the side of the bar, trying to make sense of the menu scribbled on a white board. “Oh, sure,” I modestly deflect his request. “Well, at least sit down then, don't stand around like that,” he motions me towards a chair by the bar while clearing the remnants of a previous customer. He fetches me a “Sun” and grumbles “Here, read the paper until I have time to deal with you.” I notice that all bar patrons are doing likewise and join in by flipping around the paper.

The menu is almost too straightforward. Coffee or tea come to $1.50 each, there are some bagels, a non-descript “Sandwich” and an even less-descript “Breakfast.” Breakfast comes to $4.50, but you can add bacon or sausage for $0.50. Taxes are included. There are also a “small special” and a “medium special”. Well, then, the breakfast must be what I am looking for. Now the guy is looking straight at me to take my order. I have his attention, but as he warns me I better hurry up, because another customer is entering through the front door. “I would like to eat breakfast” He nods encouragingly. “I'll take some coffee, and then eggs over easy, (nod), bacon (nod), home fries and toast. (nod)” - “No home fries,” he responds, still nodding. I am once again startled. Today is shaping up to be my most unusual breakfast yet. He points to two microwaves stacked on top of each other. “No griddle here. This is where I do my cooking. No home fries. - Would you like brown, white or rye toast?” Slightly confused, I order brown toast and watch him pour my coffee. How is he going to make my “two eggs over easy”?

As I am flipping through the paper I can see him prepare my breakfast from the corner of my eyes and listen to him picking randomly on the other customers. Political correctness is not his thing, but it is all light-hearted and if someone doesn't like a comment they just ignore it and he lets it rest. One customer gets picked on for not saying anything, the other for not having been there as usual early in the morning to tell him to be careful with the knifes. I wonder whether they get called by their real names or he made those up as well. My eggs are going into a plastic contraption with two bowl-shaped halves, that appears to have been designed to cook eggs in the microwave. I guess you could say 'poach' eggs. We'll see about the over-easy... There is also a toaster and two rice cookers, a sink and a coffee maker. That's it for equipment. Somehow it looks like a bachelor's kitchen. Funny place.

My food is nearing completion. A glass jar with jam and a spoon in it is placed in front of me. A huge peanut butter jar as well. “Don't empty the whole jar of peanut butter! - Same for the ketchup!” I carefully lift the jar to judge its weight. “It's full,” he confirms in a (jokingly) threatening voice. He mumbles something about 'eating irons' while handing me a knife and a fork. The toast gets buttered and placed on the plate. The eggs are inspected for done-ness and sent back to the microwave for more cooking. 4 strips of bacon are peeled off a layer in a large package and go into the other microwave. Voila! All done! He places the plate in front of me and launches a verbal attack at another customer. The poor guy has just come in the door, but presumably later than usual and now squeezes himself into a spot at the bar next to me. “What do you want to eat?” The new customer, an older guy, just silently points at my plate. Breakfast, duh! Clearly, the host is the only chatterbox around here. “Ah, you want his food. You know what, I'll distract him and you grab the plate...”

The bacon is actually not bad. I wouldn't have known it was microwaved, if I hadn't seen it being done right in front of me. Usually I use the home fries to sop up the yolk of my eggs over-easy. Well, in this case that is not necessary. The yolks are hard as rocks, although the egg whites are a bit on the softer side. I thought so that you couldn't make eggs over easy in a microwave. Maybe the guy thought I was trying to crack a joke when I said 'over-easy'. Or he figured his eggs would qualify as 'inverted over-easy.' Together with the bacon they are not bad though. I overhear him negotiating with another customer about what eggs to prepare and the two counteroffers are 'poached' and 'Benedict'. I am now stuck with an egg-white-y knife and no implement to scoop the peanut butter with. When I point this out to him he hands me a clean knife, not without commenting that it would have made for a nice conversation topic, what the stuff is in the peanut butter.

I finish the toast, the refilled coffee and the newspaper and look him straight in the eye again. He looks straight back at me, as if he has no idea what I want now, but is eager to find out. “I'm done.” “Already? You don't want anything else?” He almost sounds insulted. “Well, what else do you have?” I try to smoothen this over. “Well, you should have a bagel, and a muffin, ...” But he knows himself that this is just banter and it's time to name a price for my food. I had noticed with previous customers that it is not so easy to get that out of him. (“Well, today is Thursday and you were early, you made me rush, that makes it more expensive,...”) He looks straight at me as he says “$4.50, including tax.” How did that derive from the menu? No idea. But it sounds reasonable. I give him $5.50. I am still not a fan of microwave cooking, but he is such a nice guy. I like him. He really tries to be good to his customers in his own peculiar way and he seems to have a big heart. He thanks me and digs into his cash register for a loonie. I wave that off, and he thanks me again. Quietly, I hope he uses it to start saving for a griddle.

Coffee Culture (Ancaster)

Recently, I noticed a new coffee shop (“Coffee Culture Cafe & Eatery) along Wilson Street when picking up our favorite Indian take-out in Ancaster. All I could catch while driving by is that they open at 6:30am, so they must be serving something resembling breakfast and this morning was an opportune time to give them a try. Turns out that they are actually a chain that got started in Woodstock (Ontario) in 2006. As one can read up on their website (http://www.coffeeculture.ca/), they are trying to give the feeling of European style coffee houses. The Ancaster location (402 Wilson St. East, Ancaster, Ontario, Tel. 905-646-1008) is one of the newest additions to their fast-grown chain.

They open at 6:30am every morning (it looks like all their franchises do), and at around seven in the morning I am far from being the first guest. A nearby Tim Hortons is their competition, but if nothing else they have a novelty bonus. In fact, they are not even officially open. A banner on the outside announces the Grand Opening ceremony for tomorrow afternoon (with free coffee for everybody - take note if you read this in time...) The inside reminds me a little bit of Starbucks or Second Cup, the type of slightly more upscale coffee places that they are probably trying to compete with. Of course, they have their own distinct corporate design, but all the elements are there: the shelves with merchandise, the display cases for baked goods, urn-based coffee machines and espresso machines in the back, modern but supposedly comfortable furniture in the seating area. Add to that some sandwich-making equipment and a big plasma TV in the back.

I quickly find the selection of breakfast items on the menu board, ranging from bagels to a Bacon & Egg Melt for $4.49. Hold it right there. Egg, bacon & cheddar cheese on grilled ciabatta sounds good to me. The girl behind the counter impresses me by countering my order with the question whether I would like fried or scrambled egg in my sandwich. This sort of implies that they are making it from scratch. I choose 'fried'. And I definitely agree with her that I need coffee with this. The menu promises that I can add a medium coffee to my breakfast order for and additional $0.99 (normally a medium coffee goes for $1.49). Good with me. She takes my money, hands me the coffee and assures me that she will bring out the food when it's ready. I sit back at one of the tables and take in the place. Yeah, as I said, like most of the other upscale-ish coffee chains. Not quite as novel as they claim, but still nice. Maybe their sandwich and breakfast offerings beat those other chains. Better chance to win over the breakfast and lunch crowds, other than drive-through customers. Although there was a customer right in front of me who left his contractor pickup truck across the middle of the parking lot to run inside for a take-out bagel and coffee. So maybe they are competing with Tim Hortons as well. They can claim to be All-Canadian, which gives them a leg up over Starbucks. They already seem to have a following of regulars, judging but the way people enter-and-greet the place. Really impressive for the day before the official opening. There is still construction going on in the back and all around the outside of the house.

There comes my food. At first glance it looks strikingly undecorated. A pristine white square plate has a white paper napkin and a uniformly light brown folded-over piece of ciabatta on it. Upon closer inspection of the ciabatta, some of the egg, bacon and cheese filling is oozing out, but that is the only dot of color on the plate. Overall, the concoction tastes quite good, although I have to admit that I am now missing the fresh-egg-taste that had elevated earlier sandwich or wrap experiences. Maybe this was because in those cases the flavor was enhanced by the addition of crisp fresh vegetables, or due to the source of the egg or because here it now is 'hard-fried' instead of the softer-fried versions before. Overall, it's good food. The coffee is good as well, by the way, and it is a cool new place to hang out.

Joey's Seafood Restaurant (Motel California)

My car needs an oil change. I live in Canada. Therefore, I call up Canadian Tire. In case this is read by anybody not living in Canada, Canadian Tire is not a tire store (although they do also sell tires). For our American friends, it is sort of like a cross of Walmart with Home Depot, Napa Auto Parts, Chevron and your friendly neighborhood garage. They do everything. If you pay cash, you get a rebate, but not in Canadian Dollars. They even have their own currency, and most people living in Canada have a few bills of Canadian Tire Money floating around their wallets. Whatever you may think about the trustworthiness of a car repair shop that sells toilet brushes, garden swings and Halloween candy, they are perfectly good for oil changes. I go there all the time. Takes about half an hour if you have an appointment. This morning, just enough time to go out and find some breakfast nearby within walking distance.

Across Wilson street from the Canadian Tire plaza near the Wilson street exit of the 403, there is a big empty parking lot. A big sign declares that the building behind the parking lot is known as “Motel California” (cue: a certain song by the Eagles). In the middle of the parking lot there is a building that announces itself to the world as “Joey's Seafood Restaurant.” (Joey's Restaurants, 1075 Hwy 2, Ancaster, Ontario, Tel. 905-648-4500, http://www.joeys.ca/) A banner at a nearby fence promises “Breakfast Specials.” Well then. The open sign is not lit, but I see movement inside, and some lights are on. So I enter “Joey's” through the unlocked front door. The bar and kitchen are lit, but the dining room is in the dark. At the table closest to the door, an old man with his back towards me is reading the newspaper in sparse light. He is the only living soul in here besides me. A line from the song flashes through my head “...you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” What is he doing here half in the dark? How long has he been in this place? It's a bit ghostly.

“Hi,” I announce my presence, “are you open?” For some reason I am assuming that he must work here. What if he really is a customer, bound by a spell preventing him from leaving? He slowly turns around and asks in a hoarse voice: “What time is it?” I glance on my watch, “quarter to ten.” - “Then we're closed.” - “Uh, but it says something about breakfast outside.” - “Yeah, after we open. Mondays through Wednesdays we open at 10am.” Today is Tuesday. I feel the urge to share the reason for my visit: “I just dropped off my car at Canadian Tire and figured I find myself some breakfast.” He slowly gets up from his table and newspaper, glances at the rain clouds outside and mumbles something about not wanting to send me back out in this cold, wet weather.

“You can grab a table. Want some coffee while you're waiting?” He is coming to life and the place stops feeling spooky. He shuffles to the far end of the dining room to fetch me a mug full of freshly brewed coffee. For all tables in the vicinity I quickly calculate the odds that the menus on them are breakfast menus, as opposed to dinner menus. The only promising candidate is the second table in, right next to the table with the “Reserved” sign and the old mans newspaper. I have just settled down and grabbed one of the menus when the old man arrives with my coffee mug. I thank him, but have to defer his inquiry about my food order. “I'm not ready in the kitchen yet anyways, still have to heat up the griddle.” He disappears to rummage around the kitchen for a bit and then settles in again with his newspaper. “What's wrong with your car?” - “Oh, nothing. Just needs an oil change.” - “Yeah, they're good for an oil change.”

Not much happens during the next few minutes while I study the menu, so there is some time for a detour. As I will find out later from Joey's website (http://www.joeys.ca/), they started in 1985 in Calgary, but have since grown steadily all across the country and boast of being the largest seafood chain in Canada. And they definitely don't offer breakfast. Hmmmm... This location is listed on the website, so nothing fishy here. But the “Today's Specials” board as well as the breakfast menu (Although, where are the breakfast specials?) are remarkably devoid of seafood. They are also both devoid of the little fat fish logo and don't say “Joey's” on them. I guess the different franchises are allowed some slack. Given that this is a hotel restaurant it is perfectly reasonable to expect breakfast, even if it starts at 10am Mon-Wed and 8am Thu-Sun.

The old man comes over to take my order, which consists of two eggs over-easy with three slices of bacon, home fries and brown toast, then he walks off to the kitchen. My dish is listed at $5.99, but the menu warns that after 3pm each order of breakfast carries an extra charge of $1.49. So this is sort of the special, you can say. Coffee ("OR tea") goes for $1.99, b. t. w. The waitress arrives a few minutes later and starts readying the dining room. Soon my food comes out of the kitchen. The main plate with the cooked items is accompanied by a smaller plate with toast and a bowl with two portions of jam and two portions of marmalade. The waitress also brings me a coffee refill, but has to pass on the peanut butter. That's o. k., the jam will do. Shortly after the food the old man comes out of the kitchen and settles back in with his newspaper. It is new close to opening time. The food actually is not bad. The large, meaty bacon strips are crispy and the eggs run yellow. The deep-fried fries look a bit pale, but nothing a little salt and pepper couldn't fix. I enjoy my meal, some reading and another coffee refill.

Kel's Diner

I'm getting the hang of having breakfast in Paris. Well, Paris, Ontario. For today I located one more promising looking joint. Kel's Diner is located on 74 Scott Avenue, Paris, Ontario (“across from Mary Maxim”, Tel. 519-442-6511; Website http://kelsfamilyrestaurants.com/) and opens at 7am every day except Fridays, when they already open at 6am. There appears to be another location in Brantford, but that one is closed on Mondays, so Paris seems to be the more happening place. Even the correct name is not entirely clear to me, because in the restaurant it says everywhere “Kel's Family Restaurant”, except for the door tot the kitchen, which is labeled “Kel's Kitchen” (even though this might be reminiscent of the TV program “Hells Kitchen”, hope there is no connection...). But then in other places, it says “Kel's Diner”.

“Go ahead, anywhere you like, hun,” goes the welcome greeting by the waitress as I enter the restaurant. The place maybe seats around 50 people, mostly at tables for four. Several tables are already taken by groups of regulars. I find myself a table and start pondering which one is correct: 'Hun' or 'hon'. 'Hon' for 'honey', but going by the pronunciation 'hun' would be closer. Later, the dictionary will tell me that in addition to referring to that ancient nomadic tribe, 'Hun' can be used as 'offensive terms for a person of German descent.' Luckily I only figure this out afterwards, otherwise I might have stormed out of the restaurant in protest against this personal insult since I am indeed of German descent. “Would you like coffee, Hun?” There she goes again...

She brings coffee and the menu. While I look through the options, I overhear her concluding the conversation with another customer with “See you, Hun.” At least I'm not alone with this nickname. At around nine thirty, the regulars are wrapping up and leave. I order my food. I have decided on two eggs over easy with bacon, home fries and rye toast. The dining room has clean lines and solid colors. In a play on their location in Paris, Ontario, there is a very large photograph of the foot section of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France. The special is posted as “French Connection”, of course including French toast. There are also pictures of bell peppers and red cherries. I don't have a lot of time to take in the scene, because the food service is blazing fast. No one else ordered at same time as me and the cook was right on it! The waitress gladly adds 2 portions of peanut butter to the 1 portion of 'fruit spread' when I ask for a trade.

The plate sports a little dish of baked beans on the side. I recognize some sort of BBQ sauce flavor. The bacon is of good (i. e. average) quality, and has certainly spent its time on the griddle but is only moderately crispy. May I wager a guess that it did not hold up the order because it was ready. The same can be suspected of the fries. The slices of potatoes have been fried, some to the point of being overdone, so surely did not hold up my order either. The two freshly fried eggs therefore must have been the only limiting factor on my order speed, and over easy doesn't take that long. So that made for very speedy service, but only average quality. In between cleaning tables, the waitress checks in on me “How is the coffee holding up?” She stopped calling me 'Hun.'

I take my time sipping my coffee and reading, so eventually the waitress and her colleague disappear behind a dividing wall to do sort cutlery and chat. When I am finally ready to leave and track them down, they quickly emerge, apologizing “We talked about how we know our customers by what they eat, not by their name.” The food only cost me $3.99 today, plus $1.69 for the coffee. So overall a pretty good deal. I am leaving in a good mood. The waitress calls after me: “Have a good day, Hun!”

Cafe de Paris

Kobbler's Kitchen

Tim Hortons (Ottawa Street)

Deli at the Square (inside Jackson Square)

Angel's Diner

Dutch Mill Country Market

Langdon Hall

Your Place

Bow Valley Grill (The Fairmont Banff Springs)

The alarm clock goes off. It is pitch dark outside. I am tired. I want to continue sleeping. It is 5:30am. Unnecessarily and ridiculously early. If I just have breakfast at The Banff Centre, I can turn over to sleep for at least another hour and still make it for my 8:15am meeting. Yesterday however, their lunch and dinner was so mediocre that I don't trust them with breakfast either. Furthermore, I don't want breakfast from big pots standing forever around a buffet, I want freshly prepared stuff served to me individually. Flashback to the night before. The plan for this morning was to go to Bruno's for breakfast, starting at 8am and skipping the first talk at the meeting. For that to be a valid option, Bruno's better be good. They better be the best. While some reviews on the internet seem to suggest that, there are also a lot of really bad reviews for the place. Most notably they claim extremely slow service. Indeed, when I walked by shortly after 8 yesterday morning they did not look very busy. Not worth the risk.

So, rather than going to bed straight last night I did a bit of research. Frommer's online guide has very blunt advice for anybody trying to find edibles in Banff: Go to Safeway for groceries and prepare your own food since Banff is an overpriced tourist trap. Well, thanks for the advice, but you're not being helpful... There are other options, such at Melissa's opening at 7am to mixed reviews, but the one option that sticks out as most extravagant is the Bow Valley Grill at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel (The Fairmont, Banff Springs, 405 Spray Avenue, Banff, Alberta, Tel. 1-866-540-4406 or 403-762-2211, Email banffsprings@fairmont.com, Website http://www.fairmont.com/banffsprings/), which opens at 6:30am for breakfast. The idea of marveling at sunrise over breakfast is very attractive.

The Bow Valley Grill is the only joint in the hotel to be open for breakfast, and it is praised highly in their website: “Join us for breakfast and enjoy the sunrise over the Fairholme Mountain Range. Our breakfast buffet includes a spectacular array of fresh fruits, omelets made to order, yogurts, freshly baked breads and more. Or enjoy all of your traditional favourites from our a la carte menu.” (http://www.fairmont.com/EN_FA/Property/BSH/GuestServices/Restaurants/BowValleyGrill.htm) The breakfast buffet sets you back $27, but they also have a more expensive brunch buffet later on during the weekend. Since I am going on a Tuesday, this is not a consideration. Uh, one more thing from the website: “Dress Code: Resort casual (no ripped jeans or exercise wear)”. Out of bed I roll!

I have to make my way down the mountain in the dark, partially because it is quite a walk to the hotel (I am estimating about half an hour) and partially because enjoying sunrise over breakfast is part of the plan. Luckily, the path is mostly lit, so it is easy to hit the stairs. The only exception to that is the stretch along the cemetery. Its a bit tricky not to slip or fall over one of the roots (and I am not exactly wearing hiking boots either...), but I understand that not lighting the path adjacent to the cemetery may have to do with respect for the dead. After all, I don't want to have to sleep all the time with the lights on either. Fortunately, I walked this way during daylight yesterday, so at least I know what I am doing and where I am going. As I am crossing town, a very dim light at the horizon foreshadows from behind which mountain the sun will rise. I cross the Bow river and start walking towards the hotel. The Fairmont is spectacularly lit.

The dawn intensifies on the horizon, and I start rushing to make it to table by sunrise. The exterior and interior architecture of the hotel is spectacular, but I have no time for this. At the entrance to the restaurant I am held up by a sign telling me to wait to be seated and a stern attendant enforcing it. She notes my last name and wants to know my room number. I don't stay in the hotel, but she remains friendly and points me to a couch where I should wait for somebody to guide me to the table. It is quarter to seven now and outside it is getting lighter by the second. Will I make it to table by sunrise? I share my excitement with an older couple also waiting for service. They synchronously give me an odd look. They stayed at the hotel, but have to catch an early shuttle. That's why they're up already at this ungodly hour. They have never had breakfast down here during their stay and they don't sound like they particularly care about the sunrise.

Finally, an accurately uniformed woman approaches me and addresses me by my last name. Inevitably I check for any leftover name tags from my meeting, but I have been as prudent as ever taking them off in public. Apparently, there is a little piece of paper holding all relevant information about me that is being handed from server to server that will accompany me during my breakfast experience. I get a tour of the extensive number of buffet stations stretching along one side of a large, beautifully decorated and splendidly lit room. The window front is at the far side, but I am refused a seat anywhere near or even halfway to the windows, because “those are tables of 4, and this is the closest I can get you.” Due to the lighting in the room and various big columns I can see very little of the sunrise.

Can I trade being addressed by name for a window seat? Apparently not. This place is turning over a large volume of tourists who don't particularly care about sunrises. They should remove that bit from their website! On the other hand, I should be grateful for what I got. At least I get a little glimpse of the light outside. According to the story told to us by the shuttle driver on the way here on Sunday, when they first built the hotel they built it the wrong way around, so the kitchen had the beautiful view and the dining room faced the stables. Luckily the old hotel burned down at some point or something and they got to build it right the second time around. The waitress arrives at my table right away and magically already knows me by name, although she is struggling a bit to pronounce it. She tells me to go off and get started on the buffet. The idea of taking a look at the menu does not resonate with her at all. It's all the same stuff and in the end the same price, she argues. The second let-down within minutes! It is a mass-feeding place for tourists after all.

An Asian tour group is filing in and I better get a head start on the buffet! And the buffet is good. For $27 one gets many stations with a very good selection of different foods. They are ready for a wide variety of cultural preferences, including cold cuts, hot items, raw eggs and other ingredients apparently for some kind of Asian-style breakfast. My first plate is accumulating bison sausage, pork sausage, Canadian back bacon, and cubed fries. I can't locate regular bacon and I only find scrambled eggs and poached eggs, so I am a bit out of my regular comfort zone. If they have everything, there's gotta be a way to track down eggs over-easy. Finally I decide to bug the guy at the omelet station. Sure enough, he is a nice guy and happily cracks two fresh eggs into his pan. He doesn't know my last name - that would have been creepy - but makes pleasant chit-chat. He also doesn't understand why anybody would make a big deal about the sunrise. He nicks one yolk and offers to re-do my eggs, but I decline because I would feel bad about tossing out two perfectly good eggs over such a small glitch. Somehow two eggs over easy with one yolk in an accident are a local specialty in Banff (see yesterday's entry), and one should not say 'No!' when invited to try local specialties.

Back at my table, I have a bit of a hard time flagging down some coffee and orange juice, but eventually I succeed. It does not take me long at all to empty my first plate. The bison sausage is absolutely delicious (glad I didn't find the bacon), although the pork sausage is not as spectacular. Eggs are great and the potatoes an acceptable accompaniment. The eggs in a sense are quite remarkable, the yolks being bright orange. Not yellow, I'm talking Orange with a capital 'O'. I am sure they meant to be looking like they came from happy chicken, but maybe this went a little bit to far. Knowing somebody in the chicken industry many years ago, I know that the color of the egg yolks can be controlled by adding carotene to the diet of the chicken, giving you funky patterns around the time when the amount of additive gets changed. Blame it on the mountains, but who knows what these chicken were eating!

Upon my return to the buffet I discover regular bacon (taking 2 strips), farmer sausage (taking 1), frittata (not taken), hash (not taken), mushrooms in cream sauce (taking a spoonful) and rosti (taking a spoonful) at a different station. Farmer sausage? After seeing bison sausage, chicken sausage and pork sausage, the thought of eating farmer sausage seems a bit odd. What kind of meat would go in there? Let's see what a poached egg tastes like around here. I also discover hard-boiled and raw eggs, but neither one strike my fancy right now. The bacon is good, but not very crispy (after sitting on the buffet - here is where a la carte comes in handy!). Mushrooms are delicious. The poached egg is a bit of a disappointment. They had much better poached eggs at the Village Green in Westdale. I guess here they had to make it hard-boiled and let it sit in the water for a long time afterwards for the purpose of the buffet.

I am up for a third round. This time I will get some toasted bread and spreads to round off the meal. I am getting full already, but for the price I want to get stuffed! The toaster for the bread is easy to find. It is starting to accumulate a line-up. While I pick out some slices of rye bread, I watch as the people in front of me keep putting their slices back and back again into the toaster, with marginal effect on the bread. It is one of those contraptions where you put your slice onto a conveyor belt, it gets slowly moved past a series of heating elements, hopefully slow enough that by the time it falls off the conveyor at the back of the oven and slides back to the front at the bottom it is nicely browned. Not so here. They are fiddling with the knobs, but not much changes. Six is the magic number (of passes needed for each slice). When my slices are on their fourth passage, some courageous customer lining up behind me accidentally tweaks the right knob (we can't reproduce which one it was) and they come out nice and tan. The woman behind me has to smile past the fact that I at one point accidentally grabbed her slices instead of mine to put them back on for the next round, but she does not want to start over with new slices either. I loudly compare this whole buffet idea to the state of airline travel in Canada, where everybody has to figure out how to check themselves in at a computer terminal. Good luck finding a human being able to help!

When my toast is finally done I zip by the cold cuts in relief and find the peanut butter in small packages in the display of jams at the far end of Buffet Row. But where is the butter? Well, turns out is was between the cold cuts and the toaster. The toaster now has a serious line, as the Asian tour group has discovered the bread basket. When I return to my table, my cutlery is missing and my waitress has gone missing with it. After quite a while I am successful at hunting down another waitress. She would much rather take care of her own tables, but eventually finds me another knife so I can start preparing my toast. Luckily I can't complain about a lack of coffee refills. My waitress left a thermos with coffee on the table for self-service. The Fairmont started as a railroad hotel, but maybe they are now run by an airline... Eventually my waitress comes by with the bill, but then takes a while again to pick up and process my credit card. When I leave the hotel, sun is now up and I have officially missed the sunrise.

Overall it was a good meal. And I ate a lot. Since it is only 7:30 and it took me less than half an hour to get here, I figure I have plenty of time for a little digestive stroll. I wanted to walk back by the river anyway, and might as well go the other way along the water first to take a look at Bow Falls. It is a beautiful little hike, it feels very peaceful so early in the morning. Reaching the point where one has the full view of the falls is quite impressive indeed. It must have been outright spectacular before they built the big parking lot. Since there is hardly anybody else around this early, it is easy to snatch a spot with the modern infrastructure out of view in the back, to imagine this was total wilderness! Note to self: Next time, come here for the sunrise at the falls. Even now the sky is impressive, the sunrise would be utmost spectacular. Then afterwards, it will be worth going up to The Fairmont to have breakfast. It is almost eight when I leave Bow Falls and I will be late for the meeting again...

Coyotes Deli & Grill

Today I am stuck in Banff, a little village in the Rocky Mountains. Nice place to be stuck in. But I swear, I'm just here for the meeting. I didn't pick the place, although it is admittedly convenient. Even though meals at the Banff Centre are provided, I want to use the opportunity of the two mornings here to find some good breakfast places. There is not even the illusion that I will be able to sample all options, unless I try for a 6 breakfasts in 2 days kind of ordeal, and even then I may not get all places. Also, don't forget what the shuttle driver gave us on the way last night: Apart from the story that Banff takes its name from the Scottish region of Banffshire, there is also the claim that BANFF is simply an acronym for “Be Aware: Nothing For Free.” I. e. it is an overpriced tourist trap. My budget is limited. Nevertheless, trying one or two places sounds like a reasonable proposition.

You have probably already caught on to the reasoning behind having this blog be about breakfast rather than about dinner. Apart from the deep truth in the old German saying that you should “eat breakfast for yourself, share lunch with your friends and leave dinner to your enemies” (i. e. how much food to eat at each meal throughout the day), it is also far cheaper to eat out for breakfast than to eat out for dinner. If this was a dinner blog, I would be solidly broke by now! Breakfast in Banff, I think I can afford that. Now on to the question of which places to try. I asked the shuttle driver last night which place he would recommend for breakfast. While he had to admit that he just eats breakfast at home, from hearsay the best place would be Bruno's, he recommended. He seemed to be a really good and trustworthy fellow who had driven tour buses all over the world and provided a rather entertaining guided tour instead of just sourly driving us from the Calgary airport. Further witness to his trustworthiness was born by the first name stitched onto his jacket: Peter.

The first order of business after checking into my room last night was to find out the location and phone number of this place and call to see when they open. Turns out Bruno's is open for breakfast at 8am every morning. Not good. My meeting starts at 8:15am. Maybe I shouldn't miss the opening speech. Maybe on the second day I can better afford to be late. Thankfully, Banff Centre has wireless internet and I was able to mount a Google search for Banff Best Breakfast. Some hits indeed seemed to indicate that Bruno's was a good choice, but the other place that came up was Coyotes Southwestern Deli & Grill. (206 Caribou Street, Banff, Alberta, Canada, Tel. 403-762-3963, http://www.coyotesbanff.com/) Since they open at 7:30am this was much more viable, and I could go to sleep peacefully.

It is 7:25am and I am arriving in front of Coyotes to join the line-up. Line-up at 7:25am on a Monday morning? Yep, line-up. Not huge, but enough to have me concerned about making it for the opening speech. Doesn't matter: I am committed now. I am not leaving without a good breakfast. Especially since I will have to hike back up the mountain to Banff Centre afterwards. At 7:30ish the waitresses indeed unlock the front door, but continue to busy themselves with set-up. We flood inside and I manage to grab one of the front window tables. Strangely, nobody else went for it. I quickly find out why regulars would consider avoiding this prime location table: the floor is rather uneven and stabilizing the chair requires a bit of balance. But finally I find a satisfactory position. Eventually, the waitresses are ready to distribute the menus. I overhear the waitress explaining to another table the choice of drinks: aside from coffee and its variations she also mentions the possibilities of orange juice and freshly squeezed orange juice. Why don't they just have the option of freshly squeezed juice if they are so proud of their fresh food? (On their website, they emphasize the dominant role local and organic ingredients play in their food, fair trade coffee etc.) Maybe I will find out at bill time...

I receive the menu, order coffee and ask the waitress what the difference would be between the large and small sized freshly squeezed orange juices that she is offering me. She looks around for a prop and finally points in the air: “The large one is this big and the small one is this big.” Uh, I take the small one then. She disappears to leave me studying the menu. Why does Canadian back bacon count as a traditional European meat in their advertising? The waitresses are now busy preparing and serving drinks. They are stalling for time while the chef (or cook?) in the open kitchen next to the bar gets ready for cooking food. Eggs are cracked for use in omelets and scrambled eggs. Bread bags are opened for the multi-grain toast. Metal containers are shuffled about.

Gradually, the drinks arrive and the waitress is is now ready for my order. I take two eggs over-easy with local Canadian back bacon (only alternative was spicy chorizo sausage), roast potatoes and multi-grain toast (no alternative). The price of $10.00 does not include any beverages. They'll cost me extra, this is BANFF, remember? $2.50 for the coffee and $3.25 for the small freshly squeezed orange juice. I manage to get my order in slightly before a larger group, but I am still left to wait and look around while the kitchen slowly kicks into gear. The number of pedestrians outside is slowly increasing as this little touristy mountain town wakes up. A woman rushes around the corner with a heavy bag full of golf clubs. An Asian tour group assembles next door. More customers come in for breakfast. The head waitress takes phone calls and starts placing 'reserved' signs on tables. The place is cozy in the sense that the furniture is wood and several decorative wooden logs are exposed across he ceiling, but at the same time they are also ready for getting large amounts of tourists in and out.

Well, right now the getting the tourists out does not seem so urgent. I will miss the beginning of the meeting after all. The freshly squeezed orange juice was good, but, well, small. I like the coffee. A waitress comes by and I get a coffee refill. Eventually one of the first plates to come out of the kitchen about half an hour after opening this morning is my food. It looks good, I would say, somewhat above average, but not as spectacular as I had expected given the price. The two over-easy eggs are good, even though one of the yolks looks like it had a bit of an accident and is cooked slightly more than easy. The other yolk is in good runny yellow shape, however. The roast potatoes are nice. Still firm and clearly fresh this morning rather than leftovers. The bacon is Canadian back bacon rather than the usual fare, many places charge extra to give you this kind of bacon. And it is much better than most other back bacon I've had. Several delightfully juicy thin slices. An aspect of the meal that does deserve praise.

As I just finish the hot part of the meal, the waitress comes by with another coffee refill and wants to know how things are so far. I tell her that the food is good, but I need the bill because I will need to rush. She is right back with the bill, before I am even finished fishing for peanut butter in the little bowl of spreads that she brought with my meal. Well, not that much in a rush, but thank you. I still take my time finishing my toast and my coffee. A $20 bill has to do the job once a good tip is factored in, I assure the waitress that she does not have to bother with change. Not a five-star breakfast, but an enjoyable one nevertheless. I hike back up to the Banff Centre and take in the spectacular vistas of the surrounding mountains. Life is good.

William's Coffee Pub (Westdale)

Today I am circling McMaster University again in the search for breakfast. School has just started and campus has sunken into chaos, but there are some comparatively peaceful options in the vicinity. On Main Street West, across from McMaster Hospital, there is a branch of William's Coffee Pub (1309 Main Street West, Hamilton; Tel. 905-522-2636; http://williamscoffeepub.com/). Since they target students as their clientele, they are frequently found close to university campuses, but increasingly they pop up in other locations as well. They are open 7am (8am on weekends) until 11pm, and they are schizophrenic by nature. You can have breakfast here, or lunch, or a drink with friends, or just coffee and some baked goods. They are a pub, a coffee shop and a family restaurant all in one. For the first time I am typing this entry on location, and I don't feel odd or stick out. Imagine pulling out my laptop at Jim's Lunch!

The breakfast menu here is surprisingly diverse: breakfast sandwiches (wraps, bagels, bread), “warm beginnings” (waffles, quiche), healthy stuff (“Good Mornings”) and “Homestyle Breakfast” - I choose the latter. Now, once you picked your type of breakfast, the offerings are quickly limited to the one or two most popular options. For the traditional cooked breakfast, I'm locked in with scrambled eggs, 2 strips of bacon, roasted potatoes and toast for $4.99. Sort of like at IKEA, except more expensive and cozy. I add a large coffee to my order at the counter and pay a total of $7.20 after tax. Tip is not required, but what the h... People here are friendly. I am now declared to be Number Fifteen and presented with a big plastic stand-up sign to certify this designation. I am to take this sign to my table together with my mug full of coffee (refills are not included). The bus boy will know which food to match with which number.

When the food comes, the toast is paired with two portions of jam (or fruit spread, I'm not quick enough to check) which are gladly replaced with two portions of peanut butter at my request. So they do customize. Although I'm sure the over-easy thing for the eggs wouldn't have gone over well. I didn't try, so I will never know. A decorative thin slice of orange looks fresh from both sides and thus gets eaten. I should be praising their effort at making some flavorful roast potatoes, but somehow they are not my favorites. Maybe I'm just being picky. But by the looks, they certainly worked hard on making the potatoes special. The eggs and bacon are run-of-the-mill. The two regular-size bacon strips are crisp and of good flavor, but not extraordinary. The toast, however, is something else. I realize that they never gave me any choices on it, but the fresh multigrain bread, lightly toasted and nicely buttered is tasty and plentiful.

I look up from my food and see the bus boy who brought my food come in through the front door with a pizza box! Do they not trust their own food? Actually, they do. He was just collecting litter outside in the parking lot of the plaza to make sure the place looks tidy. As I sit here and type away, I notice that unlike during exam time this place only has very few recognizable students in it. Instead, it attracts a wide range of people, including some who would have been regulars at the Scottish Bakery or Jim's Lunch, if those places had been located around here. It is an odd hybrid of a place, but a likable one.

Nick's Truck Stop Restaurant

Along Highway 2, near the on-ramp onto the 401, there is an Esso station. Not that it really competes with all the rest stops and big truck stops along the 401, but it is there, and there is still plenty of business left. Also for the small restaurant next to it, which shares the parking lot and a bit of 18-wheeler and other traffic. “Nick's Truck Stop Restaurant” says the sign outside. A piece of paper points out that their phone number recently changed to 519-467-5100. They open at 6am daily, and I pull into the parking lot around seven this morning. It is a chilly morning that will turn into a warm late-Summer day, but for some odd reason I threw on a jacket when leaving the house, knowing perfectly well that I won't need it for most of the day. After entering the restaurant, I no longer question my judgment in bringing along the jacket. On the contrary, I wished I had brought along a sweater as well. It is freezing! Of course, a True Canadian would be wearing T-shirt, shorts and sandals...

Inside, Nick's Truck Stop stays true to its name. It is sober and functional, a truck stop. The most prominent decoration are a bunch of enameled metal plates advertising goods ranging from water melon seeds over candy bars (“Ruth's Home Run” for 5 cents apiece) to tractors. Handwritten signs on the tables advertise their breakfast special of 2 eggs, bacon, home fries and toast for $3.99 between 6am and 11am. After I find a table in the far corner, the waitress approaches to offer me coffee and wants to know whether she should bring me the menu. Even though my mind is pretty much made up, I decide to take a look at what I'm missing. About half a page of essentially greasy spoon offerings including various ways to super-size your meal (more meat, more eggs, more everything, etc.), that's what I'm missing. On the menu, the egg dishes all start with the number 3, but the equivalent of the special (with the extra egg) would come to $5.95 all day. Is one extra egg worth two dollars? I go with the special. 2 eggs over-easy. 2 strips of bacon. Brown toast. Home fries. $3.99.

My food arrives. Due to its orange color, a shriveled piece of cantaloupe dominates the optics of the plate. It doesn't really qualify as decoration anymore, because it looks so used. Nevertheless I don't dare to touch it, maybe they still need it... Generously, I have received three strips of bacon instead of the advertised two. They are not particularly large, however, and look strangely shriveled at one end, almost the color and texture of dried mushrooms. They can be described as crisp, but in an odd way. Their taste is a tad peculiar, maybe pushing the theme of greasy spoon a bit too far. The potato chunks have a similar flavor and have certainly been “home”fried more than once. The eggs are runny and inoffensive, so nothing to complain here. The waitress had gladly added two packets of peanut butter to the one portion of fruit spread, but that was the last I saw of her in my corner of the restaurant. I stretch my coffee cup to last while I eat the two slices of brown toast with the peanut butter.

I watch the gradual increase of traffic at the front of the restaurant and look at decorations and notices. Some pink sheets of paper draw my attention. In addition to their breakfast special advertised on the tables, they also have an early bird special. It is essentially the same price for the same food, but it only lasts until 10am and it includes “1 coffee”. The “1” is underlined, presumably to emphasize that there are no refills. When I am done with my food, the waitress shows up with my bill and a coffee pot, asking whether I would like a refill. Sure. I comment to her about the two different specials. Clumsily, she pretends that she hadn't seen the pink sheets on the wall advertising the early bird specials. When she realizes that the pretend didn't work, she simply says “Oh, on the pink sheet? They just put them up last week, basically the same as the breakfast special on your table.” Apparently she is hoping that I didn't notice the difference of the coffee being included in the early bird special, although she had just managed to quickly give me a refill, invalidating the terms of that. Admittedly, when I ordered, I had pointed at the breakfast special sign on the table, not at one of the pink sheets with the early bird special.

The waitress leaves and I inspect the bill. I did get charged $1.38 for the coffee and $3.99 for the breakfast special. Although, to their credit, they don't seem to be fussy about the peanut butter. Another odd feature of the bill is that it names the place as “Oxford Grill, 685737 Highway 2 in Woodstock, Ontario.” What happened to Nick's Truck Stop? Oh well, I better go. I am still sipping away on my coffee refill, but I don't want to be there when the waitress finds out about her tip, after the story with the two specials.

Subway (Westdale)

It is shortly after seven in the morning and I am passing through Westdale, hungry for breakfast. In the good old times, I would have gone for a frittata at My Dog Joe. But I am on a challenge to try as many breakfast places as humanly possible, so I stop one door short of My Dog Joe and enter the adjacent Subway store. (1018 King Street West, Hamilton, Tel. 905-308-9378) After my experience at the Pita-Pit, I am still pondering whether I should stop by My Dog Joe for coffee first (coke for breakfast was a bit odd, but that day at least I had a coffee and a muffin earlier), but then through the window I spot the coffee urn behind the counter at Subway. So they thought of it, and I'll see what they came up with. Subway of course is a big chain, and this is just a little store in a sleepy corner of the world (at least I am still sleepy right now...), but they have planned this through before hanging a sign on all their doors proclaiming breakfast starting at 7am every morning.

There are indeed several options for breakfast but unsurprisingly they are all based on a Subway sandwich. A 6” omelet sandwich with bacon and cheese goes for $3.99 (I don't feel like eating breakfast that's a foot long.), but I can “make it a meal” by adding hash browns (note plural! - $1.29 if purchased separate) & coffee (!! they did think of everything when they decided to offer breakfast, as opposed to their “tip-a-tip”ping competition down the road - $1.29 separate) for $5.97. The woman behind the counter interrupts her morning set-up routine (she fills dough into forms on a baking rack) to make my sandwich. She disappears into the back of the store and comes back with a yellow paper plate. She puts two smallish bacon strips (I could have had sausage) and two triangles of orange cheddar (I could have had white cheddar or Swiss cheese) on top of the plate and the plate on top of a sheet of paper. Now the whole assembly goes into the microwave and I realize that the paper plate wasn't a paper plate. It was the egg patty (a. k. a. omelet), that's why it had to be placed on a sheet of paper! At least it was of a decent size. The hash brown pieces come ready-made in a bag, but are taken out for a little bake in the oven.

While the microwave does its job, half a piece of whole wheat bread gets slit open and - as it is common in these kind of stores - I get to pick my ingredients in detail. I choose green bell peppers, green olives, onions and tomatoes. Once again it comes down to the awkward choice of a sauce to go with it. Mayonnaise on an omelet? Just put a little bit, o. k.? When I sit down at a table with the final product I am certainly grateful I picked the olives. They are the biggest source of flavor. Overall, it's an o. k. sandwich. Nothing to start craving in my opinion, but subway lovers would presumably beg to differ. The potato hash pieces are crispy, herbed and flavored. They are actually quite good for a fast food place. So is the “Java way” coffee. Glad I “made it a meal!”

Dynasi Restaurant

I am the only person in the house who is not 'going back to school' today. In order to ameliorate the predictable chaos, I took the day off and stood around the house all morning distributing smart aleck pieces of advice before dropping everyone off at their respective destinations more or less in time. Now I am free as a bird and decide to reward my efforts with a nice breakfast. I have faint memories of us stopping by a joint somewhere along Dundas Street (Highway 5) many years ago when on a whim I had decided to boycott the 403 freeway from Hamilton into Toronto for a bit. Let's see whether I can find this place back. I start driving East from Waterdown towards Toronto and take note of possible alternatives along the way, just in case this place no longer exists. There is no shortage of alternatives indeed and I add them to my list of future candidates. As I cross into Oakville, I am getting ready to turn back, but finally the landscape on my left starts looking familiar. Just past Neyagawa Boulevard, a moderately sized squat building in the middle of a massive parking lot. A big sign announcing “Dynasi Family Restaurant”. Here we go! See how good it still is...

The Dynasi Family Restaurant (399 Dundas Street West, Oakville, Tel. 905-257-8275) opens at 7am during the week and 8am on weekends. Today it is quite a bit later, but since they brag about their “Award-Winning All Day Breakfast” it doesn't really matter what time it is. There is a smattering of customers across two of the three sections, and I easily grab myself a window table. One of the waitresses approaches me with a menu and the offer of a drink. Coffee would be great! When she comes back, I have decided to go with Combo #2, the “Canadian Choice.” If I had chosen “3 eggs etc.”, it would have cost me $6.50. Combo #2 is the same food, but for $8.50 it also includes a coffee and a juice. Each of those would have cost $1.75 by itself, so I figure the combo is a good deal. The waitress agrees and extracts the details of my order: over-easy, bacon, rye, orange juice. “Real” home fries also come with this. In fact, according to the menu all food here is “real food, real good.”

I look around while I sip my coffee after downing my juice and admire the nicely decorated menu boards. Menu items and sketches are drawn in colored chalk on the blackboards. The group of waitresses and one woman in a white top (presumably a new manager) stand behind the bar and loudly discuss the music taste of some previous people based on the CD's stacked up on a shelf and complain about a broken tap. When my food is ready, my waitress breaks from the pack to deliver it to my table. She gladly brings out two portions of peanut butter to complement the portion of jam originally accompanying the three slices of rye bread. Indeed, I got three slices! Well, they are a bit smallish because they are from the end of the loaf. Probably from the front end of loaf rather than the back end, because they taste fresh. The discussion turns to the question of how to arrange the space in the shelves behind the counter, so that every waitress has a spot to keep her receipts. The food tastes good. It is solid fare, well-prepared, but more or less your usual greasy spoon. Crispy, flavorful bacon, close to runny eggs, good fries. Nothing out of this world.

Another waitress refills coffee at a neighboring table which she has been serving, looks over briefly in the direction of my empty cup and marches off without offering me a refill - is she trying to make sure my waitress gets a low tip? Meanwhile the waitresses discuss the possibility of a children's corner, where the kids can sit at a table away from their parents (sounds like trouble to me!), so my waitress is far too busy to come over for a coffee refill. Eventually I start waiving my cup in desperation, hoping that somebody will notice my distress. Although, the last thing I would need right now is another customer waiving back! Finally, the waitress from the neighboring table who had snubbed me earlier has mercy and brings over a coffee pot for a refill (“No problem”). The discussion turns from the kids corner onto blinds, apparently of less interest to my waitress than the children's table. She grabs a coffee pot and strolls over, an astonished look on her face when she finds my cup filled. I explain that her colleague had helped me out.

Its a nice family restaurant overall. The world would be a better place if all breakfasts were at least this good. But the world would also be a sadder place if this really was the best breakfast around. Award winning? I guess it depends on the competition, and if you live in the area, why not. I wonder what's gonna happen with that kids table...

David's Country Dining

David's Country Dining (+ gift shop + accommodations) is hard to overlook when driving on Highway 6, about halfway between Guelph and Fergus, right at the intersection with Wellington County Road 51. (Tel. 519-822-9000) Today, I pull into the parking lot shortly after eight in the morning, making me the first customer of the day. Big signs in the windows announce that they are closed on Mondays, but open at 8am all other days, including right now. I enter through what appears to be the front door, but did I really step into restaurant? I seem to find myself in a gift shop, or maybe a small hotel lobby. You've been to these whimsical tourist places, lots of puppets, books, pictures, cards; a woman with a friendly smile throning behind a counter ready to hand you your room key. If it wasn't for a set of stairs to my left, and for a set of stairs at the back of the room. They lead into separate rooms with dining tables. So this isn't just one restaurant, but two restaurants with a reception that doubles as a gift shop and is shared with a hotel.

I never find out about the purpose of the dining room at the back, because the woman grabs a menu and leads me into the front dining room. The room is at the corner of the house and has big windows covering two of the walls, so I can look out onto the streets. One wall is taken up by a bar replete with bottles of hard liquor and the wall backing onto the reception area is covered in paintings of clown faces, but not quite the kind that little kids would enjoy. The kids would love all the puppets, toys and keepsakes filling every nook not taken up by the large windows. But the piece of paper advertising the cheap beer, wine and liquor prices on one of the walls hints that this place maybe wasn't designed primarily with kids in mind. My table is set with a vase with (fake) flowers, a bowl with packets of (real and fake) sugar and a (real) set of salt and pepper shakers mimicking (fake) lighthouses from Moncton, New Brunswick. Each table has a different set of salt and pepper shakers. I can watch the traffic going by on Highway 6 and listen to the radio program being broadcast through speakers.

For now, the woman presents me with the menu, asking whether I would like some coffee to start and whether I need a few more minutes to look at the menu. I'm cutting the procedure short by deciding to take the first item on the menu, the breakfast special for $4.99. She draws my attention to the early bird special available for $3.49 on weekdays before 11am. You have probably heard the saying that “the early bird gets the worm.” Now, it may get a worm, but around here it doesn't get the fries. Otherwise the two specials are identical. I briefly ponder whether a side of fries is worth $1.50, but since they are not offered separately I cannot tell whether I am getting a good deal or ripped off. Never mind the early bird, I am hungry and I take the fries over the worm any time. So I order 2 eggs over-easy, bacon, home fries and rye toast. I could have had a long list of other options for the toast, including the usual suspects and a tea biscuit.

Coffee is served in a glass, the type with a short stem at the bottom and a handle on the side as it is often used to serve ice coffee. Luckily, this coffee is hot, or at least warm. It looks a bit thin in the glass, but I don't have a newspaper handy and the woman already took the menu with her, so I cannot report to you how it stands up to the newspaper test. (See blog entry “Espresso Cafe” for details of the test.) Since it is not the best ever coffee, the woman tries to bribe me with three chilled portions of 10% cream, but I resist and drink my coffee black. I enjoy the serene surroundings. They are obviously designed for heavy tourist traffic, but lay quiet for now. Business goes up and down, tells me the woman, but they have regulars on the weekend. This week is quiet, because school has already started in the district and people are juggling to adjust.

The food comes on two plates as your solid, no-frills greasy spoon, not entirely dissimilar to what I had yesterday. Except this place does not quite have the same pressure from regulars to keep the food quality up, so maybe it is a notch below. Quite decent bacon, with plenty of red although not quite as crispy. Eggs are good. Home fries come in thick slices, cooked through and roasted on the griddle but not burnt. Some very good flavors in these potatoes! Overall a pleasant threesome. Involuntarily, I am getting to try dark rye toast after all. It came with two portions of jam, gladly joined by two portions of peanut butter upon request. The dark rye tastes very good and goes excellent with the peanut butter, I splurge by using up both portions.

The woman has only me to tend to for most of the time, but instead of just disappearing she stays on top of things, providing a timely coffee refill and clearing my main plate when appropriate. She gets somewhat less attentive towards the end, when a talkative regular shows up and tells her an endless story. Still, she manages to offer me another refill (I decline), bring the bill ($4.99 special, $1.59 coffee), bring change and bring change again when I complain that it was not tip-friendly. $2 tip seems too much, but sure she would have been insulted if I had only left her only $0.56 instead. Service was pretty good, I would say. Although I have to admit that I don't know how they hold up when they are busy. The menu is headlined by the slogan “Real Food - Fair Prices” in a variation on the motto of a beer company from Hamilton. When you take the ratio of quality to price, they may not come out on top but certainly above average, so I give 'em that.

Jim's Lunch

You will notice a small place called Jim's Lunch while driving along Hwy 2 through Princeton, Ontario (on County Highway 2, near intersection with Main St. N, a. k. a. County Highway 3; Tel. 519-458-4444). Despite its name, I decided to probe into their ability to also deliver breakfast. A phone call assured me that they would be open at 8am. So today I made the plunge and arrived at the scene around quarter past eight in the morning. A reasonably sized parking lot is located in front of the building, judging by the size of the building one might even call it over-sized. This morning it is packed, and I snatch one of the last two parking spots. Even a police cruiser is there. Do they really only open at 8am or did the lady on the phone want to make sure the locals get a chance to claim their spots first? Sure they were doing good business.

The moment I turn into the parking lot I smell the fried bacon. A good start. No sign at the door to give away their official hours, but plenty of notices about community events. An open sign in the window assures me that I am allowed to enter. Upon entering the dining room, however, my hopes of scoring a meal are rapidly sinking. I count seven tables, all packed. The bar does not appear to have stools, so it looks like I am late to the party. I stand in the door hesitatingly. An older lady sitting motions me, points to a spot next to the counter that I cannot see from the door. I am unsure about her gesture, but someone else jumps in by saying that there is a small table. Indeed, in addition to the seven regular, fixed tables for about four people each there is a small temporary table for two. For tourists or unexpected guests, I presume. Gratefully, I seat myself.

The waitress is right there to ask me whether I need a menu, which I do. I am probably the only person in the room who doesn't have it memorized. Unless it was changed some time during the last ten or twenty years. Then those guys would have made a ruckus. They all must have been coming here for decades, and they like their little place. But they don't mind visitors. They offered me a table, and then carried on with their lives. No funny stares or anything. Before I get to read the menu, the waitress points out the special (written on a white board behind me), essentially she is reciting exactly what I was planning to order. O. K. then, no need to look at the menu after all. Two eggs over-easy, bacon, home fries, toast (white or rye - I take rye) and a drink (juice, tea or coffee - I take coffee) for $5.31.

I had seated myself so I was looking at the other guests and the windows out front. This means I am sitting with my back to the kitchen, where the two women running the place are now working. Maybe I unfairly classified one of them as the waitress, they seem to share the work as needed. The kitchen area is tiny, not bigger than our kitchen at home, and it is open to the dining room, so anybody not trusting their food can take a look anytime. Not that it would be necessary around here, their can't afford to serve crap. They would be out of business the very next day. The waitress (she does do the bigger part of the work in the dining area) comes right back with my coffee, also placing a napkin, cutlery, cream and sugar on the table. A bowl with spreads is already on the table. Various jams, jellies and fruit spreads. I'm not going to ask for peanut butter, because if they have to dig it out from the back it is probably old. Or they simply don't carry it because of allergies or the established preferences of their regulars.

My food comes on a normal sized, homely looking plate, with the toast on a side plate. This really does look and smell home cooked. The two eggs are nicely fried, a tad of brown along the irregular fringes and running yellow on the inside. They taste fresh. The bacon strips are plentiful, dark and crispy. Not just fried fat, they are good bacon. The potatoes are cubed and pan-fried. As they would be done at home. Clearly a notch above. Toast is good. Coffee's o. k., nothing fancy, well-timed refills. Don't get me wrong, this is greasy spoon, not gourmet. But just about as flavorful as greasy spoon can get without going fancy. They can't fool their regulars with substandard ingredients, they have to do it well.

It takes me less than half an hour to finish, but the whole place more or less turned over once while I was there. A few tables are empty now, but new customers are on their way in. In order to pay, one simply positions oneself at the counter and waits for one of the women to attend. A sign points out that all rush jobs have been assigned to Helen Waite, so anybody in a rush should go to Helen Waite. (Read it out loud if you don't get the joke the first time around...) The woman types up my bill, coming out to $6 even. That's how they fixed the price of the special... I leave with a happy stomach, but don't feel stuffed either. The parking lot has a few spaces now, but more cars are pulling in.

Old Country Restaurant

Today I am having breakfast in Hamburg. New Hamburg, that is. I came across the website of MeMe's Cafe, so I figured I'd give it a try. Standing at the counter inside MeMe's, I am politely told that they don't want to compete with the place across the street that makes good breakfast. Specialty coffee and some baked goods are gladly for sale, but for a cooked meal I should just go across the street, sorry. My stomach tells me that a cooked meal is in order today, and I should save the bakery for another time. So I cross the street and enter The Old Country Restaurant. Note that they avoided the 'olde' in favor of a simple and honest 'old'. Because the place doesn't really look old inside, although it is well-used. Even this morning around 8am there is a smattering of regulars filling the place with life.

For the record, the place to have breakfast in New Hamburg, Ontario is The Old Country Restaurant on 105 Peel Street (Tel. 519-662-4545), which opens at 7am every day except Sundays when they only open at 9am, maybe to allow for church. Even though the style of this restaurant is very casual and low key, sort of diner, but country style, the service strikes me as very professional. I barely found myself a table when the waitress presents me with a menu and inquires whether I would like something to drink to start, coffee maybe? Yes, I would like some. From the menu, I see that the standard 2eggs etc. locally are referred to as the “Canadian Classic”. So the 2 eggs over-easy with bacon (or ham or sausage), home fries and rye toast (or white or brown) will cost me $4.25, the coffee will add another $1.50 to my bill. No need to disguise these or any other prices as 'special'. According to a note on the back of the menu, breakfast is served until 11:30am, no substitutions please.

Soon enough, my food is presented. The eggs are done to the point and taste fresh. For once, the correlation between fresh tasting eggs and special bacon seems to be broken, because the bacon strips - while crisp - are nothing out of the ordinary. The home fries are real home fries instead of home deep fries, so that is in bonus in my eyes, but really just a matter of preference. Overall, a medium size portion of your average greasy spoon fare. The marbled rye toast comes with a single portion of strawberry fruit spread on the side, but the waitress gladly brings a portion of peanut butter when I request it. Note that she does not offer me a coffee refill at this point, which makes sense because my cup is still mostly full. (Did I mention, professional service at this joint!)

Just at the time when my coffee (as usual) runs low while I spread the peanut butter onto the (well-buttered) toast, the waitress pulls out the coffee pots and starts touring the dining room. Impressive timing or just chance? When she arrives at my table she wants to know how everything is going. Wearily, I say “Good...”, because I am worried that she might follow the example of those places where 'good' means 'no more refills please'. Luckily, nothing could be further from her mind. Kindly, she fills my coffee cup and moves on. When all the food is a goner, she reappears and wants to know whether I would like something else. I say “No, I'm all good...” and upon her disappearance start fretting again whether this maybe also meant I didn't want the bill. What a few instances of thoughtless service can do to the frail psyche of a chronic breakfast eater! Lucky again, she knows what customers expect and quickly reappears with the bill, which has just one number on it: $6.50. Fair enough.

Symposium Cafe (Waterloo)

It is a few hours past my McDonald's experience and I am hungry again, but shortly before 10am it is still in time for a second breakfast. I've gone through some miserable hours at work and I am grumpy. Whatever comes next better be good, otherwise I'll take the opportunity to work off my pissy mood. There is a highfalutin' place in Uptown Waterloo, the ritzy-looking Symposium Cafe. (4 King St. N, Tel. 519-746-3550) That'll hit the spot! One way or the other... Not that easy to find out any specifics. When do they open? Do they serve breakfast? The website http://www.symposiumcafe.com/ makes it really easy for anybody wanting to open a franchise. It is an award-winning unique concept after all! Well, I don't have the time to start a franchise, I want my breakfast now! Now, there is a 'menu' page to the website, which also mentions the word breakfast exactly once, but does not give any specific dishes and rather provides a big fat link to franchise opportunities world-wide. Opening hours? Not on the Website.

Not on the front door either. (corner of King and Erb) But the 'open' sign in the window is lit, so I take that as a good start. When I try to enter the restaurant I almost get run over by the waiter who is beating it in the other direction. Did somebody just stiff the tab? No suspect in sight. But the waiter assures me that they are open. I continue on inside, but am held up by a “Please wait to be seated!” sign in a location that is guaranteed not to be visible to the waitress inside. Shyly, I inch towards a more visible location when the waitress finally spots me, checks on me really just being one guest, grabs a menu and decides for me where I would like to sit. I sink into the armchair and peruse the last page of the menu that she has directed me to. When I look up, the waiter is back from his excursion, standing in front of me and asking whether I would like something to start. Coffee, please. “Cream or milk?” I respond that I would like my coffee black. He seems hesitant. Is this coffee not suitable to be drunk black? In either case, he has to go and get it for me.

When he comes back I am trying to find out when they open for breakfast in the morning, but he is oblique: “In fact, we are open right now.” “Yes,” I am a bit speechless but try to rephrase my inquiry, “but when do you start?” He does not seem to remember. “Seven o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock,” I try to help him out. “Yeah, eight o'clock,” he finally says, but I am not sure whether he suddenly remembered the correct answer or is just trying to get me to the point of ordering my food. Since there are no '2 egg etc.' options on the menu, I have to pick one of the 3-egg full breakfast options, complete with coffee, tea, hot chocolate, etc., etc. (refills only on gourmet coffee or tea). With bacon, it will set me back $8.96 before tax. A proud price. Better be worth it. He also wants to know the type of toast I prefer, but I let him do his piece first telling me what's available. White, dark rye and whole wheat is. Initially I tend towards rye, but since he said 'dark rye' the outcome may not go so well with the peanut butter with which I am intending to pair it - remember my caraway experience? So I order white. He comes back one more time to ensure that I did say 'bacon'. Yes, I did.

I now have time to admire the interior decoration of the place. “Redefining the Cafe' Experience” (TM) and “Symmetry for the Senses” (TM) are they proudly presenting their slogans, and go on to elaborate that the “... interiors of our restaurants pay tribute to the Renaissance period...” My eyes wander up to the exposed air duct on the black ceiling and get stuck staring at the track lighting. Renaissance, eh? Well, I suppose they are referring to the fake marble walls, sections of which look like somebody went with a sledgehammer after the reproductions of famous paintings. But of course the damage is just intended to represent the passage of time. I remove the artfully balanced spoon from the top of my coffee mug and start sipping my coffee in anticipation of the imminent arrival of my food. Eventually it does arrive.

On the way from the kitchen to my table the waiter had stopped by a little side table to add two portions of 'fruit spread' to my plate, but gladly goes back to bring two portions of peanut butter. And, yes, sure, I'll have a coffee refill, even though I haven't drunk that much yet. So far so good. Too bad I don't remember how I ordered the eggs. I must have said 'over-hard', or something to that extent, because that's what I got. The 3 (three) regular-sized bacon strips are crispy, but look remarkably white. For $8.96 I would have expected better! The fried potato cubes have green pieces stuck to the outside. Finally something that seems to live up to the price. I decide to start with the potatoes, but very quickly regret ever having had that idea. They are piping hot on the inside. I will refrain from any speculations of how one gets food with overheated insides, but these potatoes will have to wait till the end of the meal.

The eggs are exceptionally bland, except for a faint greasy background flavor and don't really go with the bacon which does not have a very strong bacon flavor either, although the grease flavor is a bit more prominent here. Finally the potatoes are fit to eat, but also a bit dry on the inside. The waiter stops by in the middle of the meal to ask how everything is. I answer with a vague “Good...”, because I don't want to spoil his morning with details. He is making an effort after all - the food is not his fault. Unbeknown to me, he takes my response to mean that I do not require any further coffee refills. This is the second time in a week that this is happening to me - I need to change my coffee consumption patterns somehow to better fit with waiter's expectations. I am successful in flagging him down shortly after I change over to peanut butter and toast. He refills my empty mug promptly.

I continue to do some reading while finishing my peanut buttered toast, which finally leaves a pleasant flavor in my tortured mouth. I will not complain that the toast reminds me of our toaster at home which recently blew the heating filaments on one side so that one has to flip the slices half way through in order to get a symmetric result. Talking of which, didn't the Symposium people trademark the phrase “Symmetry for the senses” (TM)? They should go tell this to the toaster! In a sense, the flavors of the bacon and the eggs were somehow symmetric, so that worked. And they definitely “redefined my Cafe' Experience”, although maybe not in the way they had intended. I decide not to touch the decoration consisting of a salad leaf and a tomato slice. The tomato looks fresh, but who knows how it is going to mess with my taste buds after I successfully soothed them with the toast and peanut butter. I accept another offer of a refill and finally an offer of the bill. The food is not worth the money, but I tip with consideration to a waiter who did his best.

McDonald's (Westbound 401 near Cambridge)

It is just after 5am, I am hungry, and I am on the road. When I pass by the rest stop on the westbound 401 just before Cambridge I decide that maybe the time is right to include McDonalds into my portfolio. (Interestingly, their website http://www.mcdonalds.ca/ does not list this location, so I can't provide the contact info.) I have never had any of their breakfast items (Yes, yes, I admit, I have eaten at McDonalds before. I am blushing as I admit this. But it was a long time ago, o. k.? Sins of my youth...) and they have been bragging about their new gourmet coffee so much that any breakfast survey fairly needs to include them. It never occurred to me before to wonder when a place that is open 24 hours starts serving breakfast, but I am about to find out.

Inside and outside the traffic is light. Cleaners have the run of the place. The entire menu board at the McDonald's counter screams “breakfast.” Interesting. Are they only a breakfast place now? What happened to all the burgers and the other stuff? What if I really wanted a burger right now, at five o'clock in the morning? Would they kick me out? But I don't and they won't. I want breakfast. A “Bacon'n Egg McMuffin” meal (includes hash brown and coffee) goes for $3.99 (as opposed to a bare muffin with bacon and egg, which is only $2.69). I'll take that. “No problem,” the guy at the counter punches the fried items into his system and wants to know what I take in my coffee. Nothing. Black. I want to know how good it really is.

They really made a point of advertising the quality of their coffee (“Premium roast coffee” it says on the cup, and “100% Arabica” in an apparent dig at Tim Hortens) and launched a campaign of giving away their coffee for free to blatantly coincide with the end of Roll-up-the-rim season. (If you don't know that season you are not Canadian and will have to wait until I post an entry about Tim Hortens.) Now I am handed a cup full of this stuff and have to admit it is actually not bad. It is not gourmet, but it holds up to its main competitor. (Last time I checked McDonalds was not the biggest fast food company in Canada. Based on sales they were beaten by a certain coffee and dough nut chain.) Not too long after the guy at the counter also hands me a paper bag with my breakfast. It is surprisingly compact and light. Since they are always accused of making people overeat maybe I should not complain.

I comment to the guy about the all breakfast menu and find out that the menu boards can easily be flipped over, they have the regular menu on the backside. “In fact, we just switched over from lunch to breakfast about eight minutes ago.” From lunch? I guess they don't serve dinner. Who has lunch at quarter to five in the morning? I guess if I had been a tad earlier I would have had a cheeseburger for breakfast... And when do they flip them back again? “We serve breakfast from five to about ten thirty during the week and until about eleven on the weekend. Used to be from four, now it's from five.”

Back in the car I take a closer look at the content of my food bag. A small paper pocket is labeled 'hash browns', but since it all comes in one piece I am tempted to correct them and insist on the singular: 'one hash brown'. This accompanies the main packet with my 'muffin'. Very thin pieces of bacon had their length trimmed so as to not stick out beyond the muffin. A white patty presumably symbolizes the egg. It is still dark out and the dim lantern light does not let me discern whether the thin yellowish layer between the white patty and the bacon striplets is supposed to be cheese or egg yolk. I can't tell from the taste or consistency either. Was there supposed to be cheese on this or not? The paper bag proclaims that “Every Egg McMuffin (R) sandwich is made with a freshly cracked Canada Grade A Large Egg. Either I go inside to ask or just ignore the issue. I decide to ignore it. Doesn't matter. It all mainly tastes of salt (I didn't add any!) and a bit of grease. They may win the coffee competition, but they loose big time when it comes to the food, at least for the breakfast muffin. Sorry, but I have had better fast food for breakfast.

Fireside Family Restaurant

I have driven through Kitchener many times now without ever checking out the breakfast scene. Today that was going to change. Seven o'clock in the morning seemed a reasonable time for breakfast, but the folks at the New Frederick in downtown must have concluded that business was too slow at that time and recently changed their hours to only start at 8am. I could either sit there and wait for an hour or postpone my visit till later and go down my list of candidates. As I turned into the shopping mall at 725 Ottawa Street South to find Jolene's Family Restaurant, I was greeted by a big Cora's franchise. That would be stiff competition... And indeed Jolene's was closed, even though the sign was still intact. Inside however looked like a construction site. Does this mean they are getting renovated or does this spell the end? Maybe I'll have to give them another try in a few months, but with the big Cora's nearby I am not holding my breath.

Just down the street, another restaurant is proving that there is lots of breakfast business to be had at this hour. The Fireside Family Restaurant on 800 Ottawa Street South, in Kitchener, Ontario (Tel. 519-581-1200) opens at 7am every day (except 8am Sundays) and the parking lot is very busy. When you enter the restaurant, you literally hit a brick wall. I suspect the namesake fireplace is on the other side of it. A breakfast special is advertised (2 eggs etc. for $3.49) on a little white board. After making my way around the brick wall I have the choice of either a bigger central section or either narrow section along the sides. The right side has big windows and the left side initially tricks you into thinking that this place is huge, but you are simply looking into a wall of mirrors. I avoid being the first customer sitting in the central section, because I want to be sure to be noticed by a waitress.

In the window section most tables are taken, but I find a free spot just as a waitress is walking by. She asks me whether I would like some coffee to start and walks on to service other customers. When she walks by again I'm not getting any coffee yet, but she wants to know whether I need to look at the menu. The next time she comes by she's got the coffee, but no menu. She is asking whether I am waiting for someone else. When she comes by again she brings the menu. As chaotic as this may seem, it has a method as she is multi-tasking all her customers and gradually everybody will be served. There she comes again!

Since I look like I am close to a decision the waitress stops to take my order. I am interested in the 2 eggs over-easy with bacon, home fries and brown toast. She confirms that this is the special today and I can have it for $3.49 instead of the $5.29 advertised in the menu. Their breakfast is only served until 11am weekdays and 2pm weekends, so for change this is a real special instead of a way of encouraging people to eat an all day breakfast in the morning. She comes back with the food almost in record time. When I comment about that I get a proud and terse response: “Yep, they are fast in the kitchen.”

The plate offers me more or less what I expected in this dish, maybe a little bit more. The four strips of bacon are well above average, full flavor (definitely smoked) and all. Proud and terse response from the waitress: “Yes, our bacon is pretty good.” If she smiled, she didn't want me to see it. The bacon strips are firm, but the sharpened cutlery easily takes it up with them. If only the knife and the fork wouldn't screech on the plate like nails on chalkboard every time I'm having at the bacon! The eggs, well, are two eggs over easy, just as I ordered them and done just right. The potatoes in the big pile are of the deep-fried cube variety, although crusted with slightly reddish flavor. The brown toast is sitting on the sidelines. At one end of the oval plate, an orange slice sits as decoration.

To ensure that nobody gets the idea of eating their precious decoration, they placed the portion of strawberry jam firmly on top of it. Did I say strawberry jam? Sorry, but we are back to “fruit spread”. Nevertheless, a portion peanut butter is added upon my request without fuss or extra charges. Eagerly I read the label on the new arrival, but in addition to a big print 'peanut flavor' indeed it does say 'peanut butter' in small print as well. Good. I eat it slowly with the toast while sipping away on the umpteenth coffee refill and reading. When I start refusing more coffee refills, the bill is discreetly placed on the table. The $3.49 for the food has been joined by $1.35 for the coffee. I casually slap a $20 bill on top and watch open-mouthed as the waitress pulls out a wallet and makes change right there at the table. This used to be a familiar sight in Germany, but in North America it strikes me as rather unusual. “We all carry our own float,” the waitress refuses to acknowledge that this is anything but standard practice. A proud place. Proud of their quality and doing it the old-fashioned way.

Dean Michael's Griddlehouse

Dean Michael's Griddle House is located on Highway 59 just South of the first exit West of the merger of 401 and 403 in Woodstock, Ontario (Tel. 519-456-5064). You will notice the fairly functional looking brick building behind trees as you peruse the gravel parking lot. They open at 7am every day of the week and are famed for their rather original food creations. So I decided to give them a try this morning. Entering the building, I am lost for the first time. Should I go left to the dining room, right to the dining room or maybe straight to the gift shop. Luckily a waitress catches me standing in the hallway baffled and confused and coaxes me to a small table at the far end of the dining room to the right.

As it was apparent in the parking lot, there are quite a few customers already enjoying their breakfasts about an hour after opening. The inside of the dining rooms is a lot cozier and warmer than the outside of the building might have given away. Food-related paintings decorate the walls and a more upscale feeling is clearly intended by the designer. As I settle at the table I immediately feel lost again. Apart from the menu at the table listing the specials and the main menu provided by the waitress I am also handed a little photo-album labeled as a menu. What is that for? “So you can look at the dishes,” the waitress explains with an air as if all restaurants worth their money should provide this. Well, with names such as Manoopeedoop, Full Stack of Stickers, Mike's Mountain, Hole in One, Snickerdoodle and Rocket Launch (the last two are examples from the kids menu), how else would one know what the dishes are. Chinese restaurants have had illustrated menus for a long time. All that is missing at Dean Michael's is the numbering of the dishes. Of course there is also the visual appeal of the beauty of the creations.

I bypass the fancier of the creations for an order of two eggs over-easy, bacon (I could have had sausage, ham or peameal bacon), home fries and rye toast for $5.95. This is served at this price before 10am Mon-Fri, coffee included. Many dishes are beyond the $10 mark, justifiably so for these big and fancy creations. While I marvel over the menu the waitress provides me with a big mug of coffee. She takes my order, but since I am still working my way through the pictionary of dishes she kindly leaves the photo album behind when she picks up the menu. After some time my food arrives, immediately followed by another waitress wanting to refill my coffee which I had barely touched.

The plate looks impressive indeed. Apart from being a nice big piece of earthenware by itself, it carries solid portions of all requested ingredients, but most of all the most massive strips of bacon I have ever seen. They are so thick that it would have been impossible to have them crisp all the way. The outsides are nice and crisp, but on the inside they are still soft and juicy. But also in the other two dimensions they are entirely oversized. Very impressive. The eggs are done perfectly, but the portion of home fries is so massive that I decide that I don't always have to lick the plate clean. There are times when even good food cannot all be eaten up without consequences to one's health. (If this was some sort of competition, sure, bring it on. But I am merely here to leisurely enjoy.)

Now, the initial mug of coffee was big, but by the time I have rounded up the warm portion of the meal, it is completely gone. No waitress has been checking on me since I wasn't ready yet for the initial refill that came with the food delivery. Apparently they had extrapolated that one data point on my coffee consumption rate and concluded that I will be fine without further refills. When another waitress finally happens by with food for some other customers in hand I express my desire for more coffee. She appears surprised by my request, but gladly reappears with a coffee pot shortly after. Now my toast and peanut butter experience is well on its way. The peanut butter was easily procured from a bowl on the table stocked with various spreads. After paying my bill a while later I happily roll out of the restaurant to be on my way.

Harvest Moon

St. Jacobs is a touristy little town just North of Waterloo. I wrote about a breakfast place in the center of town earlier, but on my way out I noticed that there is an alternative breakfast place around. Today I was back to check it out. The Harvest Moon Family Restaurant on 5 Parkside Drive in St. Jacobs (Tel. 519-664-2373) is not an easy alternative, because you have to get there at the right time. Mondays they are closed. Tuesdays through Fridays they only open up at 8:30am. On weekends though there are ready for you at 8am, so that is probably their busiest time. Today around nine in the morning they were not too busy, with just a few customers scattered around two of the sections of the large dining halls.

The waitress is leading me to a small table in a little elevated section to the right of the entrance, where the few other customers are concentrated. The wast expanses of the banquet halls are unused. Maybe its the bad weather. Maybe its the recession. Maybe there are more tourists on the weekend. Before I can even sit down at the table the waitress already wants to know whether I desire coffee. Certainly so. She takes off and I get a closer look at the menu. While there are various specials written on the white boards scattered throughout the the rooms, I just settle on the built-in special that comes with the menu. Before 11 am on weekdays the two eggs over-easy with bacon, home fries and brown toast come to $3.99. At other times they go for $4.99, another indication that weekends are more busy. Note the difference in policy for when the weekday special ends compared to the Stone Crock Restaurant in downtown St. Jacobs. If I had felt fancy I could have also gotten liver or polish sausage with my eggs, but that would have upped the price a bit. Add coffee for $1.60.

When the food comes, it is pretty much standard. The four bacon strips are crispy, firm and have intense color. The flavor is intense but average. The eggs are good. The home fries are good. The toast is good. The waitress has to give it a pass when I ask for peanut butter instead of the one portion of strawberry jam. She offers marmalade instead, but I gladly stick with the jam. Silently, she comes to refill my coffee mug. Silently, she comes to bring the bill. When I leave exact change including a tip, she offers to bring change (I decline.). I leave the restaurant filled, but unexcited.

The Village Green Bistro

I wrote in an earlier entry about my intention to try out The Village Green Bistro in the Westdale neighborhood of Hamilton (925 King St. W., Hamilton, Ontario, Tel. 905-296-6300, http://www.thewebguys.ca/thevillagegreencuisine/), but they were closed for their holidays. Today I was luckier. When I pass by the place around half past nine this morning I can't believe my eyes. Their website and the little sign at the front door unanimously state 10am as their opening time, with the consequences that this has for their “all day breakfast” (i. e. except in the morning - I guess not any worse than those places falsely advertising “all day breakfast” but then close in the early afternoon before you have a chance to get there for a nice breakfast for dinner...). Now they have a big banner out: “Bistro now open” The front door is ajar, so maybe they really are open. I drop all my plans and storm the restaurant. Inside I find mayhem.

“Oh, yes, yes, come in, we are open,” the husband and wife team assures me. “Sit wherever you like.” The wife suggests the window table. It seems perfect, a small table with a nice view. The husband says nothing. So I fight my way through a pile of chairs to the window table at the far end and settle down. A stiff breeze blows from underneath. The husband must have watched my face - he's seen this reaction from many a customer before. I decide to be merely amused and turn down his offer to switch tables. “Many people do. Not everybody likes the cold air,” he assures me. A minute later I estimate that I will be able to handle the frosty gale for maybe another five minutes, but not the duration of a good meal. Since the coffee is approaching, I have to make my decision now. “Good choice,” comments the husband on my relocation exercise, “I personally don't mind, but most people do. I can sleep right under the air conditioner.”

The coffee mug is essentially a large bowl with a handle. That liberates the aroma rapidly and the bouquet of the coffee overcomes my senses. I glance at the menu that is part of my place setting and pick two eggs (“over-easy”) with hash browns, roasted veggies and toast (“brown”). While the husband takes off with my menu I crack a joke about the lack of bacon. This is a vegetarian restaurant, but since they are Jewish the bacon especially is a big No-No. They are sufficiently laid back to join in with the joke and the wife gets to work on my food while the husband finishes setting up the restaurant for lunch time. The restaurant is small enough so one an talk across the room. I am told that the majority of their business is catering, they just needed a base, hence this restaurant. Time goes quickly over the chatter, and a big plate with a voluptuous presentation of my food arrives. Maybe you don't need bacon for a good breakfast?

The centerpiece of the meal are some eggs (made in a mold and very evenly shaped - I suspect “soft-poached” rather than fried over easy) that are extremely flavorful (I can still taste them hours later...) with a nice runny center. They are placed on, well, what should have been hash browns. Instead they are sitting on a potato ladtke (grated potatoes held together with some egg and flour, a. k. a. a potato pancake) that explodes with flavor. What a combo! The roasted veggies (mushrooms, bell peppers, zucchini, tomato, potato, onions, maybe something else that I missed) are still fresh and crisp, yet are given the extra edge by the roasting. On the side there is also a blintzen. Now, were those two or three eggs. The menu on the setting next to me says “2 eggs...”, but for some reason I seem to remember three. I was too engulfed in savoring the flavors to pay attention... This is the most gourmet meal that I have reviewed for this blog so far.

I pour myself yet another coffee refill from the stainless steel thermos that the husband left on my table after giving be the first refill. The butter was left in chunks on top of the toast pile and did not melt. Normally I would be outraged by that, but somehow this is just fine. The fresh toast with butter tastes great, and is just the right background on which to linger on the flavors from the main plate. I even forgot to ask for peanut butter. Who would want to destroy the aftertastes? Finally I decide that any more coffee would be dangerous to my health and I get up to pay. The bill comes to $15.26 after tax ($11 for the food, $2.50 for the coffee), but it was well worth the experience. I stumble outside, still pondering the eggs...

Danayr Fresh Sandwich Shoppe

Driving by the Danayr Gas Bar on 1202 Northumberland St in North Dumfries, ON (just north of Ayr, Tel. 519-632-7321; http://www.danayr.ca/) it is hard not to notice a big sign advertising the “Danayr Fresh Sandwich Shoppe”, open daily at 6am. That sets my trigger: This place must be serving breakfast! Today, I will put them to the test. I enter the gas station about half past six, get my bearings and steer towards the food counter in the far right corner. O. k., so I should have written about putting “him” to the test. That understated, calm, middle-aged fellow pulling sheets full of cookies from the oven. When he is sure that I am standing at his counter, rather than just walking by it, he takes of his oven glove and turns towards me. “I would like something for breakfast.” (around here, they don't put their breakfast items on their menu boards - sounds familiar from this 'Indulge' place)

“A sandwich with eggs, ham, some cheese?” - “Yes, that sounds good.” - “Bagel or bread?” - “Uhm, yeah, bagel, why not?” - “Plain, whole wheat, everything?” - “Everything!” (I'm just gonna keep picking whatever sounds the fanciest - shall he go all out on my breakfast, no matter what the cost!) Now he is busy uncovering a portable electric griddle at the far end of the stainless steel bench, next to the sink. He turns it on, sets a ring on it for the eggs and starts collecting the ingredients. This really is a tiny little bakery. They maybe had the idea of a sandwich 'shoppe' more recently, I think. The bagel still comes from a plastic bag. I guess they are not really set up to make bagels from scratch. But it gets a toast-over. The guy fluffs up a pile of thinly cut ham before arranging it on the griddle next to the ring with the eggs. The pepper shaker is in heavy use on the eggs. Get some flavor in there! “Would you like some lettuce?” - “Uhm, yeah, sure.” Melt over some cheese, pile it all up and stack it in the bagel, cut, wrap, done.

“Here you go!” Looks pretty good. I could sit down right here at one of the two tables and read the flyers or local news media, but I'm gonna hit the road. But wait, I need some coffee. There is an empty urn stand next to his counter (some urns are on a table behind the counter), but he motions me to get my coffee from a urn on the far side, where regular gas station customers have been filling up on caffeine all along while I was waiting. I pour myself a regular-sized cup, noting that they get their coffee from a local supplier (Baden Coffee Co.).

I conclude that the only place available to fork over money is the gas station counter. While the woman there rings in my charges ($4.85 breakfast sandwich, $0.95 regular size coffee), I read the notices on the counter. If I had filled up with gas, the coffee would have been on the house. And the gas station attendant no longer helps out customers of the attached “Animal House” (pet supply store) during off-hours due to a recent robbery of this particular gas station. Inevitably, I look up and around, but no potential robbers are in sight. Eating this bagel while driving turns out to be impossible, so I have to pull over because I don't want it to get cold. The freshly fried eggs (still soft on the inside), the pepper, the ham, the cheese, the lettuce... Yep, that's a good sandwich!

Mount Royal Family Restaurant

Today, my wife wanted to do some shopping in Burlington. In order to entice me to join in, she scouted out an award winning breakfast place in the vicinity. “Mount Royal Family Restaurant” at the corner of Brant Street and Mount Forest (2029 Mount Forest Drive, Burlington, Ontario, Tel. 905-332-7111) apparently has won awards for its all day breakfast, so it seemed worth the hassle to check it out. From the outside, the place looked obscure and nondescript. The windows are covered from the inside with packing paper. One of the less inviting businesses in the middle of a large strip mall.

This joint opens at 7am except for Sundays when they open at 8am. At around 10am on a Saturday morning the place was busy, but still had a few tables available. Nobody greeted us at the entrance or told us what to do as we wandered around the restaurant, and there was no sign, but we had to act fast! We barely had the chance to score a booth and get introduced to a waitress when the tables ran out and a mad rush of new arrivals caused a line-up that wound half-way through the restaurant (a bit silly to have the line start at the far end, but that's how this place seems to work...).

A cheerful older waitress stopped by to ask whether we needed any coffee (“Of course!”) and bring us the one-sided laminated menus held in friendly red and yellow tones. They somewhat stretch the idea of a “special” by just labeling the three most popular items like that. Don't even dream of a 2-egg breakfast! Three eggs it is with a choice of meat, home fries and toast. Sure, that's my pick, as usual over-easy, with bacon and rye for toast. The price tag of $6.10 is supposed to include the coffee on weekday mornings, but even a bit later into this Saturday the bill will not show the coffee at the end, so I am not sure how much it actually would have come to. Pretty good deal, I would say. And it does not take them long at all to bring out the food. Not an easy feat, given that the place is packed.

The food sure looks promising. The egg yolks are running thick and yellow. The bacon may not be Mennonite cured, but is otherwise well above the fray: crispy and flavorful. The slices of home fries are also very flavorful, partially because of the crispy smaller prices, but they also taste as if goose fat or something similar was involved in their preparation. Not sure what it is exactly, but no traces or herbs or spices are visible on them. Overall a health portion of very flavorful and well-textured breakfast. The toast is decent. It originally came with one portion of jam, but a portion of peanut butter was added to it upon request without trouble or extra charge. The rye toast is of medium size (one portion of peanut butter does not suffice by my standards) and surely not old (how could it be, given the massive turnover that this place is experiencing). Coffee refills are brought throughout the meal, rounding out an enjoyable experience. When we get up from our table, it is taken within seconds...

Heritage Pancake House

This morning I am looking a bit farther afield. No sane person would take the freeway all the way from Hamilton to Waterloo, because it is a huge detour, about double the distance. First one has to take the 403 west to where it meets the 401, then one has to get off the freeway at the first exit and turn around to get back onto 401 east, because when they built the roads they figured no sane person would want to get from 403 west straight onto 401 east. And insane people should not be driving. I fall somewhere in between, and my excuse is that I won't just turn around at the exit, but eat breakfast there. Wanting to start the day with a good meal qualifies me as sane and fit to drive. According to my records, there are two choices for breakfast in the immediate vicinity of this exit in addition to the usual suspect fast food chains.

Somewhat randomly I pick the Heritage Pancake House to sample first. As I said, this place is located just off the Highway 59, which is the first exit west of the 403 and 401 merger. (815 Juliana Drive Woodstock, Ontario, Tel. 519-421-2846) I almost ignore the place, because the big sign by the street is somewhat torn down and the parking lot is empty. A big “Closed” sign decorates the entrance door of the ice dream parlor next door. But the family restaurant has its open sign lit, beckoning me to come closer. Now I can read the opening hours on the front door. Breakfast starts at 6am Mon-Fri and 7am Weekends. All day breakfast is advertised. Shortly before seven on a Friday, it's just me. The waitress does not trust me with picking a seat, however. She grabs a menu and leads me to a booth where I can see my car through the window. Roughly where I would have wanted to sit anyways.

Of course I want coffee, and when the waitress comes back with it I can't help but making fun of the menu. A little insert contains the kids menu on one side and the seniors menu on the other. “Why is there a breakfast option on the kids menu, but not on the seniors menu?” The waitress is baffled. “Well, the seniors can always get the one egg option from the regular menu.” Ah, I understand. The kids get chocolate chip filled pancakes. Maybe this really shouldn't be sold to the general population... I order the “Heritage Breakfast” for $4.95 with 2 over-easy eggs, bacon and brown toast. The waitress is struggling with my order. “Bacon, ham or sausage?” I reiterate my desire for bacon “Ah, you said that. I'm sorry, I'm still trying to figure out the seniors breakfast. You really got me there.” While I am waiting for my food, I look around the place. A rack on the table supplies big stacks of jam, marmalade, honey and peanut butter. No worries here. The interior of the place is not so inviting however. Somehow cold and uncozy. I try to image the place packed with families, squealing kids and all. That would fill it with life and nobody would miss any decoration. Yes, that would be it.

The food is super-quick. Well, I am still the only customer. The first regulars only appear around 7:30am. They must be certified regulars, because they are trusted with picking up their own menus from the pile at the entrance and finding their own table. The food is o. k. They sure did something special with the bacon, smoked it or something. Alas it does not come through in the flavor. The potatoes are crusted with some flavor, but a bit over-fried and stale. For some reason, there are pieces of greens on my toast. Maybe to make up for the fact that the toast is a bit dry. The waitress interrupts me for a refill. Not my favorite coffee. When I am done eating, she refills my cup, leaves the bill, but assures me that there is no rush and I should just continue reading my paper. Then, for the rest of the morning she ignores me while chatting with the other waitress and the other customers. Eventually I get up to pay at the register, and I'm on my way.

Lee's Breakfast and Casual Dining

Driving on Highway 7 between Guelph and Waterloo it is hard not to notice a place called “Lee's Breakfast & Casual Dining” on the Waterloo end of the road. (2890 Victoria Street North RR 2, Breslau, Ontario, Tel. 519-648-2371) It is located near the intersection of Highway 7 and Shantz Road next to a used car dealer and an aroma therapy & massage place. The latter oddly advertises both the quality of its aroma therapy massages and “New European Attendants.” Why would they make for a better quality aroma therapy massage? Do they smell better? I wonder... They seem to be distinct businesses, however. I do not get the impression that the restaurant gets involved with the massages or the used cars. When I call ahead to confirm the opening hours, I am assured over the phone that they open at 8am, although they are closed on Mondays.

When I show up on the parking lot at 8am, I am alone. Not only are there no customers, but the restaurant is simply still closed. A big blue sign in the door confirms it. If I hadn't talked to the guy on the phone just yesterday I would simply assume that I came too late and they closed down. Seven minutes later a second car with an older Asian couple pulls alongside my car. The driver greets me politely, but looks somewhat embarrassed. He gets out quickly, followed by his wife with big bags of groceries. They rush into the restaurant. I figure I better give them five minutes or so to straighten themselves out. They did not look like they expected a customer that early, but they are obviously embarrassed that they were caught red-handed opening late.

When I enter the restaurant, the guy greets me and wordily apologizes for having been stuck in traffic due to the construction going on along Highway 7. I assure him that it is no problem, I did not wait long and I did not mind because I had something to read. He tells me to sit wherever I like, but it is actually not that easy for me to pick a table. Several fans are blowing through the place and I pick a corner table out of the way of the fans. The woman comes by with the menu, apologizing even more profusely than her husband, saying that they had no excuse to be late and let a customer wait. She disappears again after taking note that I would like some coffee.

It takes a bit for the coffee to be ready, so she is gone for a bit. The table I am sitting at is dirty, it did not get cleaned at closing time yesterday. They probably figured they will have plenty of time before customers arrive in the morning. I get up again and look around for a clean table. The neighboring does not look too bad. The tables have coffee mugs on them which are upside down. Why was one mug per table always placed on a spoon? For drying? And what is the matter with those fans? What happened? I push a fan slightly to the side and sit down at the neighboring table. Now the woman comes with the coffee and to take my order. I order the special, which before noon costs $3.99 for two eggs etc. I order my usual over easy, bacon. She gives me the option of substituting tomato slices for the home fries, but I decline. The toast options here a bit overwhelming: white, whole grain, multi-grain, rye and caraway rye. I have had caraway rye before. It is good with cheese, maybe not so much with jam or peanut butter. But in this moment I am not thinking that far. I am simply excited about the variety of choices and bring out “Wow! What a selection! I'll take the caraway rye.” Even though she does not comment on me switching tables, she is immediately back with a cloth to clean the table that I sat at originally. When she leaves, I switch back to my original table, out of the way of the fan.

After a little bit of time and a lot of scraping noises from the kitchen, my food is served. A little side dish contains portions of jam, marmalade and peanut butter. She is also offering me a refill with the words “There is plenty of coffee for you, my son.” Not that the coffee is that great, but I need something to drink. The eggs and bacon are o. k. The fries are interesting and certainly more flavored than usual. For once they are over-fried, but they also added some herbs on spices. The woman tells me that she likes to add basil and pepper flakes. She tells me that they are very popular with people. Finally, I turn to the toast. Caraway rye and peanut butter are a terrible combination, but the fault is mine. I ordered it. While I am eating, a few other customers show up as well. They also seem to be making some money with take-out. The bill comes with yet another refill.

Squirrel Tooth Alice's

Looking around for breakfast places, this one surely caught my eye. “Squirrel Tooth Alice.” What a name! I had to try it. It is located on 649 Scottsdale Drive in Guelph, Ontario, just a block away from Highway 6. (Tel. 519-824-8412; http://squirreltoothalices.com/) They open for breakfast only at 8:30am, so I needed to pick a day like today when I didn't have to be anywhere early in the morning. And the end it was a good thing that I was not in a rush, because I got lost really badly trying to find this place. Partly because with such a name I was looking for a rustic Wild-West-style saloon or log cabin - or at least an imitation thereof. Instead, it was located in a tame strip mall near a retirement home.

The exterior is fairly sterile, although the first indicator of rebellion is the tame blue sign promising “Warm beer, lousy food.” Something is off with this place. Stepping inside, I am teleported into a cozy pub with sports programs on TV and a disco ball hanging off the ceiling. A few patrons are scattered throughout. On second look, the rustic wooden beams that make up the ceiling could be holding up the roof of a saloon or log cabin. On third look I am glad that they are not holding up anything, because they have obviously been salvaged from somewhere and are not in the best shape. Cool for decoration, but not safe as a structural element. While I take in the room, a waitress approaches me and kindly addresses me with the chosen words “You are free to sit anywhere you like.” I turn around and climb right into the booth behind me. “Oh, that's convenient,” the waitress comments.

The place is named after the real life character of Squirrel Tooth Alice, who was born in 1849 in Dodge City, Kansas. She was a prostitute who later apparently owned several establishments and became quite influential. The website attributes the quote “The customer always comes first” to her. The alleged connection is the hospitality trade and the commitment to customers pleasure. Despite there being some bad reviews of this place around the internet I am getting overall very good service, although I have no intention of testing how far the waitress would go in following the tradition of Squirrel Tooth Alice. She does wear a necklace with a tooth and is exceedingly friendly.

Every table sports a breakfast menu stuck in a holder in the middle of the jam rack. Grape jelly, orange marmalade, peanut butter, strawberry jam, blueberry jam, raspberry jam go the stacks. Nice selection, although honey is missing. The menu sports curiously named dishes such as “Squirrelly Muff” (some sort of a muffin concoction), but more or less follows the standard line-up. “The Alice Classic” come in at $6.99. It would have been $6.49 if I had managed to find this place before 9:30am. (It is 9:40 now...) It includes 2 eggs, a choice of meat, home fries and toast. Coffee/Tea are listed at $1.79, cheaper for take-out. When the waitress shows up with the coffee, I have mostly made up my mind: over easy and bacon. I let her rattle down the choices for toast, because that is usually a point of subtle difference between different restaurants. Here they offer white, brown, light rye and dark rye. “Light dark rye 25 cents extra,” warns the waitress. O. k. then, light rye it is for me.

The plate of food arrives with some playfully arranged dry and crispy bacon curls, perfectly prepared eggs, and a good portion of slightly herbed, well fried potato cubes, topped off by large, glistening slices of rye toast and a twisted slice of orange, which did not look too dry and tasted refreshing. I cannot say that the food is outstanding, but it is enjoyable and tasty. Normal, well-prepared breakfast fare. The herbed potatoes are a nice touch, but I do not find that it adds much to the flavor. I sure can't complain about the service. The waitress is attentive and friendly, except for the moment in the middle of my meal when I manage to empty my cup of coffee and she is nowhere to be seen. However, an eagle-eyed mustached guy immediately presents himself table-side with a pot of coffee. Only seconds after his departure, the waitress re-emerges and walks by with a pot of coffee to offer refills. I tell her that she has been beaten to it, but I sure will be glad to get more refills later.

The bill comes to $8.18 ($7.24 before tax), plus it comes with another refill for my coffee. I comment to the waitress about her not charging me for the coffee. She softly replies “Coffee is free with breakfast, always.” I pull out a $20 bill and note the need for change. Now, this waitress obviously got her math together and she has been working really hard on a good tip. So here comes the change: a $5 bill, 3 toonies, 3 quarters and a dime. Wouldn't a $10 bill and a loonie have been more logical? But then the obvious tip amounts would have been capped at $1.82. Apparently she is encouraging me to give generously. How about a toonie for tip? Of course, I could just give $0.82 to make a point or pull a loonie from my pocket, but she did make an effort throughout and what are a few cents extra...

Indulge Cafe & Bistro

After yesterday's breakfast I took a little drive through the countryside and came through a tiny speck on the map called Ayr. Obviously some Scottish ancestry here. But what shocked me was the density of breakfast places. I counted three! Almost enough to keep me busy for the rest of the week. The most upscale one is called the “Indulge Cafe & Bistro” (32 Stanley St, Ayr, Ontario; Tel. 519-632-8331), which was my target for today, especially given that they open as early 6am during the week (slightly later on the weekend). The place looks cozy, but it doesn't get that feel from mismatched chairs and tables. It is very sleek and stylish with its fancy bar front, leather armchairs and bar table seating, but the room is broken up, one of the dividing walls incorporates a little fire place and the lighting creates the mood. A cool place to hang out.

A friendly young woman commandeers the cash register and the wrap counter. I return her greeting, stretching my words as my eyes frantically search for the word “breakfast” somewhere on those various menu boards. I give up: “I would like some breakfast.” “Sure, a breakfast wrap,” she replies, confident that she can make a good sale. I still don't see it on the menu. “Eggs, bacon, cheese,..” - “Yes, I'll take that!” She turns around and starts frying some eggs. Remarkable. Don't tell me this is going to be fresh! While the eggs are in the pan she surveys my opinion about the other ingredients. “White or whole wheat tortilla?” Whole wheat sounds more wholesome. “Bacon?” Yes. She plucks some pre-fried bacon from somewhere. I might have heard a microwave beep while I was marveling at the freshly fried eggs. “Tomatoes? Onions? Bell peppers?” Yes, yes, yes. I still can't find the breakfast menu and get the feeling that she is just improvising for my sake. Finally I have to ask. “Oh, the breakfast menu,” she retorts, “it must be somewhere... Cheese then as well?” Yes, of course!

“And everything heated?” She is now setting the eggs (they look like over-easy, but well done) on top of the pile on the tortilla and wrapping it all together. The package goes on the griddle. “For here or to go?” Wrapped in paper, she hands me the final product in a little plastic basket with the napkin. I also take a large Seattle's Best coffee. That one I find on the menu for $1.95. I also discover the take-out menu, where I will later find the breakfast page (toasted bagels, wraps). The egg & bacon wrap goes for $3.50. She did not charge me extra for any of the other ingredients. Instead, my total comes slightly below what I expected, but who am I to argue. Tip deserved but voluntary. I plunk myself into one of the arm chairs and start digging into the wrap. It tastes really fresh, with every single ingredient contributing. Warm, freshly fried eggs go a long way and contrast nicely with the crisp vegetables. Gourmet, one could argue, even though it is actually quite simple considering the ingredients.

As I am eating, several customers enter the store, do a double-take on me, then get some coffee and occasionally also food for take-out. When I am done I comment to the woman that I found it odd that Ayr is so small and yet has so many breakfast places. “I know,” she chimes in, “and 3 hairdressers and 3 pizza places.” There seems to be no shortage of patrons. I marvel at the two boxes stuffed with coffee cards. They sure have a customer base! Where do all these people come from here in the middle of nowhere? And these are just the regulars!

Country Grill

Today I had breakfast in Paris. When you enter Paris on Paris Road, a sign welcomes you with the words “Welcome to Paris, home of the Country Grill.” As far as I can tell, it's the only breakfast place in town (I did drive around a little bit...). You may remember Paris, Texas, from the Wim Wenders movie and you may have been to Paris, France. Paris, Ontario, is somewhere between the two extremes, maybe a little bit on the smaller side. Smaller than London, Ontario, for sure, which is just down the road. Berlin, Ontario used to be nearby too, and it grew to be quite a city, bigger than Paris, Ontario. Alas, the Germans started a stink also known as World War I, and the British were sufficiently annoyed at them to rename Berlin, Ontario, after General Kitchener, who reportedly was quite good at beating up the Germans. Back to Paris. Paris, Ontario.

The Country Grill Family Restaurant is located at 30 Paris Road, near the intersection of Highways 2 and 5. (30 Paris Road, Paris, Ontario; Tel. 519-442-5714) They open at 7 am all days, and today around eight in the morning the parking lot was already quite. I enter the building through a door clearly marked as exit, without getting in trouble for it. It is not that busy and the entrance and at the exit, but maybe they have traffic flow issues at other times. Inside, the restaurant is mostly kept in dark brown tones and has a touch of country atmosphere. It is a proper and straight-laced place, except for some wooden crates and chickens for decoration. Even though the place is not packed, they sure are doing business. A sign suggests patrons seat themselves, so I find myself a booth. One of the waitresses is right there to hand me the menu and inquire about my need for coffee. (“Yes, please!!”)

This may not be Paris, Texas, but the top entries are Texas-sized. No trace of “2 eggs etc.”. It's “3 eggs etc.”, and If you want an omelet, that is made with 4 eggs. No mention of a special, but I was watchful on my way in an spotted the sign about the breakfast special on the way. 3 eggs with meat, home fries and toast for $4.19. 3 eggs over-easy with bacon and home fries. So be it. Toast? Even though the waitress warns me that it carries a $0.30 surcharge, I choose rye. Soon comes the food, festively arranged on a large oval plate. One portion of jam! One of those places, hm? I point at it and ask the waitress whether it could be exchanged for peanut butter. “Sure, hun,” and she walks off the get the peanut butter. When she comes back, she removes the portion of jam and places two portions of peanut butter on my plate. Two for one! Today must be my lucky day!

In addition to the expected items, the plate also contains a dried slice of orange, probably just their standard decoration, and a cup of baked beans which I happily eat (getting used to those things...). The eggs are good, even though the yolks seem to be a bit on the smaller size (maybe this is the size they should be at from normal chicken...). The deep-fried potato cubes are fluffy in the middle and crispy on the outside, just the usual side. There are also four strips of shiny red bacon, very appetizing but hard to take apart with the rather blunt knife. I need to pin the bacon down hard for cutting, which is not something the fork was made for, so the exercise ends up making me look like Uri Geller. Luckily, the waitress is nowhere to be seen, so I stealthily straighten out the fork and hold it close to the tines for the next attempt.

The coffee shows up on the bill with $1.75 and of course comes with refills. The first refill comes when I have barely taken a few sips, and then throughout my meal the waitress ignores my draining cup. I am starting to suspect that it all is a plot to save on coffee, but then there comes a refill at bill time, just in time to remind me that I had a really enjoyable meal and should tip accordingly. My stomach and I agree that overall this was a very enjoyable and recommendable experience and we tip to reflect that.

IKEA (Burlington)

You may be saying "What? IKEA? For breakfast? That can't be good!" My wife was just like that. She delayed our IKEA breakfast adventure trip for weeks, before she finally grudgingly agreed today. Even so, she insisted we have some coffee and a slice of toast at home before we go. “The portions must be tiny if it is only a dollar. And their coffee is probably bad as well.” Not so fast! But before the story unfolds, here are the coordinates. The opening hours of the restaurant at the Burlington store are 9:30am Sun-Fri and 8:30am Sat, half an hour before the store opens. The Burlington store is located at 1065 Plains Road East, Burlington, Ontario, near the confluence of 403 and QEW. (Tel. 905-681-4532; http://www.ikea.ca/) We arrive a bit later, but still early enough to find a parking spot remotely in the vicinity of the entrance.

At the entrance, we are greeted by signs advertising their breakfast. Ignoring the show rooms, we head straight for the restaurant, already busy and packed as one is used to from IKEA. Probably one of their secrets to efficiency is that they make sure they are always busy. We line up for food, grabbing a tray and studying the options. 2 sausages, eggs & home fries are their breakfast special for only $1. That's what I had in mind! If you are Jewish, Muslim or a health freak, IKEA still has breakfast for you: A yogurt & fruit combo goes for $2.69 and there are various other items on display, such as a lox plate, etc. Sorry, I don't remember details, I sped by that section, but did take note of the lox. We could also add cinnamon buns to our meals for $1.29 each, but we want to walk off the first part of the breakfast in the store and then have the cinnamon buns at the Exit Cafe.

Many, many years ago I heard this old joke about a patron at a restaurant being surprised that two eggs sunny side up are more expensive on the menu than two scrambled eggs. The dry answer of the waiter: “Eggs sunny side up can be counted.” In an endless streak of paranoia I have ever since ordered my eggs sunny side up or - more recently - over easy. At IKEA, there are no eggs sunny side up or over easy and there are no claims about numbers. A ladle full of scrambled eggs, a ladle full of home fries accompany the two breakfast sausages for $1. The portions look perfectly reasonable and extremely uniform. Given the price I don't even dream about being picky. I feel generous with myself and let the good lady add three strips of bacon for $0.50. My wife still doesn't trust the portions and adds two pancakes with apple filling for $0.99 to her breakfast.

The cup of coffee costs us $1 each, but includes free refills. It is referred to as Swedish coffee, but the beans of course are not grown in Sweden. They are UTZ certified (see IKEA website for what this means. It is something good, not the ultimate in shade-grown bird-friendly fair-trade organic fancy-grade, but at least a step towards taking responsibility for the product.) The coffee is also traceable. If you buy a pack in the food store, you can type the code on the pack into the IKEA website, and it tells you where exactly this pack comes from. Unfortunately I don't have a pack handy, otherwise I would love to try whether it goes as far as giving you a picture of the farmer. The coffee tastes very good, together with the cinnamon bun reason enough to add the label 'coffee shop' to this entry. Interestingly, they stopped calling their coffee “lila.” Every child (in Europe) knows (knew?) from the ads on TV that lilac is the color of the cows in the Swiss alps, who make the milk for “Milka” chocolate. It must have been quite disturbing for those kids to think that the same cows also made the coffee for IKEA.

A sign inside the restaurant proclaims a “Free cup of coffee.” But here comes the catch: “Everyday 30 min before the store opens come and enjoy a free cup of coffee in our restaurant.” So we are too late for that. But if you make it here in time, you get an incredible steal on a more or less full breakfast! Of course they hope that once you are there you take a stroll through the store and will be tempted into that new leather couch, a dining table or even better a whole new kitchen. Ingvar Kamprad is a shrewd businessman for sure, he doesn't offer $1 breakfast in a furniture store without reason. Make yourself at home...

Our total bill with all the extras comes to $6.20 after tax for two people. In any other place, this would be considered a decent price for one person! No tip is required. There is explanation sign near the shelves for the trays with the dirty dishes: “Why should I clean my own table?” It contributes to the low cost, because they don't have to pay people to do it. Although, there certainly is somebody who seems to be getting paid for whizzing around the coffee & tea station, cleaning everything and refilling where needed. Perfectly acceptable. The portions are easily double the size of what I got on the McMaster campus earlier this week, it's better quality, and half the price. O. K., fine, you can't get your eggs over easy, but that seems like a small price to pay... They should have IKEA on campus!

The food is indeed good and the portions are sufficient. I had to make this a separate paragraph, for emphasis. Their breakfast sausages are killer good! So much flavor! Apparently, they were so popular in the restaurant and hotly sought after that they brought them into the food store, even though they are not an IKEA item. (They are not on the IKEA website either.) According to the package they are made in the US on some farm that brags of having been around since the 1800's. 10 frozen sausages for $2.99 or so. The bacon that I had on the side was crispy, but more or less just average bacon - next time I'll skip it and try to negotiate for more sausages! My wife loved the apple-filled pancakes. The cooked filling is sort of what you get in American style apple pies. I tried them, and they are good. The scrambled eggs and the potatoes were good (moist and crispy respectively), especially after adding some salt and pepper. Did I mention: IKEA serves good breakfast. Don't underestimate them, and make sure to get the sausages (religion permitting).

We are getting refills for the coffee. It is free after all, and good coffee to boot. I regret that I prefer my coffee black, because nobody checks on how much milk, cream and sugar you use. I imagine some bum sitting in the restaurant all day (it is self-serve, so no server to kick you out) with his free cup of coffee from the morning, getting his daily requirements of carbs, fats and proteins from the condiment dispensers for free. I give my wife's coffee a generous shot of cream to make up for last weekend, when I accidentally condemned her to milk. Later on I contemplate another refill for myself, but I would end up sticking to the ceiling, and that looks like it could be painful in this place - too much piping.

After a stroll through the store (and some shopping) we settle down at the aptly named Exit Cafe for our well-deserved cinnamon buns. We are not really hungry (the portions were good), but we feel like treating ourselves. Remarkably, the cinnamon buns are more expensive here then they were in the restaurant! What a rip-off! Here they charge $1.30, whereas in the restaurant we could have gotten them for $1.29. Oh well, in either case we'll resort to the combo of one cinnamon bun with a coffee for $2, still quite a steal, especially given that the cinnamon buns are addictively good and the coffee once again comes with infinite refills. We could have had $0.50 hot dogs, but we don't want to sit here all day. Maybe if we did some more shopping...

Espresso Cafe

“We don't serve breakfast.” The girl behind the counter has me confused. It is seven o'clock in the morning, I can smell coffee and see display cases full of food. You don't serve breakfast? “But you have some food?” I senselessly gasp. “Well, we have quiche,” she suggests in an understated attempt to diffuse the situation. I am at the Espresso Cafe. It is located at 102 King St. West in Dundas and keeps its opening hours a secret. You will have to call 905-627-5943 to find out that they open 6am Mon-Fri and 7am Sat. Sundays they are closed. They serve coffee; they serve food; they are open early. In my eyes that qualifies them as a breakfast place.

The Asian girl behind the counter looks at me as I inspect the quiches through the glass. “White people are strange,” she must think, “They don't know that breakfast consists of bacon, eggs, home fries and toast.” In return, I wonder what Asians eat for breakfast. Sure I had a few “traditional” breakfast places run by Asians by now, including yesterday. But “traditional” here really refers to an Anglosaxon tradition. The Hong Kong style dim sum really qualifies more as brunch. Since the space behind the counter at Espresso Cafe is populated by three Asian ladies (mother and daughters?), I speculate that they maybe have an agreement with Danny not to compete, or maybe it's the same family owning both places? Either way, they are not getting out of serving me breakfast today! Even if I didn't want the quiche, there are muffins and other baked goods on sale next to a variety of sandwiches, some sure must be fit for early morning consumption.

I ask the girl to add the bacon and cheese quiche for $4.29 to my order of a medium cup of coffee for $1.29 (no apparent provision for a refill) that she had already placed on the counter. While I carry my coffee to the back of the room to pick out some rather fancy looking cutlery and then find a seat at a table near the front window, a microwave beeps in the distance and soon my quiche is served on an stoneware plate also carrying a little plastic cup with a side of ketchup. The quiche is o. k., it feels a bit on the dry side and that's all I want to say about it.

The coffee is decent, although I suspect it could be better if it was brewed stronger. It is served in a glass mug and so I can perform the newspaper test on it when it is half-empty. The newspaper test was originally designed by Europeans to detect American beer. You hold a glass of beer in front of a newspaper in sufficient lighting and try to read the text through the glass. If you can read it, the beer fails the test and comes most likely from one of certain larger American brewery corporations. And I don't care how much alcohol they have added. Reading newspaper through a glass of most European beers is next to impossible. This is the first time I get to try this on coffee, but it is a good sign that it passes the test.

Looking around the place, I notice that it considers itself a “licensed cafe”, so maybe morning business really isn't their focus. Although it seems to pay for them to open early: they have a fair number of customers. Most of them are workers who don't look like they have the time and patience to sit down for a “traditional” breakfast, but also a few idlers. I am wondering a bit about the identity of the place. From the outside, I had expected an eclectic and hip coffee shop, but it seems to be more of a restaurant with a side display of baked goods who happened across an espresso machine. Todays special is chicken pot pie with chef salad or soup. A sign over the counter proclaims “Enjoy the authentic gyros today.” Really? Should I have ordered gyros instead of quiche? Would it have been better? I wonder about their muffins and cakes, but I am ready to hit the road.

The Valley Charcoal

The Valley Charcoal restaurant at 44 King St. West in Dundas (Tel. 905-628-0020) opens at 7am all days. When I enter through the front door, all I can see is a sea of tables with a couple of customers scattered throughout. No idea what to do. Doesn't look like a server is going to attack me any time soon. A middle-aged couple enters the restaurant through the side door shortly after and goes straight for the counter at the far back of the restaurant, cheerfully greeting the Chinese guy named Danny who is in charge of the griddle.

I know he is Chinese because later on he will take a break and sit down with some patrons to tell them about the difference between riding a bicycle in China vs. Canada. He flips food on the griddle as he engages in friendly chatter with them. I form a line behind them just in time to stay ahead of an older lady who came well after me but obviously has a better grasp of how this place works. The couple ahead of me makes fun of the prospect of seeing her 'strut her stuff' at an upcoming parade, and she happily shoots back. Danny looks me deep in the eye to give me a friendly but terse “Hi!” That's it, no question about what I might want to eat or drink. For the woman behind me, he can already predict what she will order. Finally, a young guy shows up at the cash register and starts dealing with the line-up. He knows the couple ahead of me, but that doesn't make it any easier for them to get decaf coffee out of him. (Sure the husband gets a rubbing for apparently recently having given in to his wife on this.) And even if he wanted to serve it to them, the machine does not play along and he just has to take their money (Danny tells him what they ordered) and promise that coffee will be forthcoming.

When it is my turn, my order is duly noted by checking boxes on a preprinted order slip, which is placed together with some cutlery on a tray in front of the griddle master. I pick 'over-easy' (check) and rye toast (check). I pay my total of $7.58 and puzzle about what that means for the price of the coffee. The menu board above the counter had listed two eggs with bacon, home fries and toast for $5.50. Coffee is not listed, but apparently not free. Given the current tax rate of 13%, the coffee should have been $1.21, surely an odd price. If he had used the previous tax rate of 14% maybe the coffee was $1.15, or $1.09 at the 15% valid before that. These prices make more sense, but that would be illegal! Alternatively, if the tax was calculated separately on the food and the coffee, due to rounding the coffee price could have been $1.20. I settle on this as the most likely conclusion. Now what do I do? Do I wait for my tray to be filled? Sure that's how they do it when things are really busy during lunch time, but right now it seems permitted to walk off and find a table. Caffeinated coffee in hand. We'll see.

Back in the ocean of tables, many of the customers are regulars who know each other and loudly banter across the restaurant. One woman has a big fat alarm clock set up next to her on the table and is eager to tell the story. I hear it for the second time when the waiter humors her on his way to cleaning some tables with the question “What's with the alarm clock today?” She explains that her $9.99 wrist watch fell into the bathtub and did not survive the treatment. So she is carrying the alarm clock instead, because she has an appointment coming up that she cannot afford to miss. The alarm clock is still from the era when the loudness of the alarm was proportional to the size of the clock, due to the required size of the mechanism. And this thing promises to be loud! The waiter quips that he is looking forward to it going off, but is assured that it will not happen.

My food is delivered to the table on the tray strictly in the order in which the orders were taken (after the food of the couple ahead of me, but before the food of the older lady behind me). The waiter places all components on the table and quickly destroys the bill upon delivery, ensuring that the coffee price will remain a mystery. The tray is taken back by the waiter whose departure is only slightly delayed by my request to trade the jam for peanut butter. He swiftly grabs the lone packet and shows up with a packet of peanut butter shortly thereafter. Time to focus on the food. The eggs are floating in grease but look otherwise good. The bacon is crisp and dry. The potato slices are plentiful, without any apparent herbs or spices. Some of them are rather crisp, which is the only obvious flavor. However, they must contain something else because upon addition of small amounts of (old) ground pepper they get suddenly rather spicy.

The plate with the hot food is accompanied by a fruit cup (grapes, pineapple, orange). It does not look as if it is just garnish, so I eat it happily. The toast sits on a paper side plate in strange contrast to the stoneware main plate and cup. The two slices of toast are not that big, so the single portion of peanut butter turns out to be perfectly sufficient. Half way through the meal, the waiter comes through with a 'top-up' for the coffee, but that shall remain the only such offer. When my food and coffee run out, I get up and leave the restaurant.

Adeline's Family Restaurant

Right next to the community policing center in downtown Dundas there is a little restaurant. I am not sure about its history. I remember seeing a restaurant in that spot for many years, but I thought it had a different name and didn't serve breakfast. So I had to do a double-take at the lit open sign this morning. Oh well, this is about breakfast adventures, so why not give it a try. The name of the joint is “Adeline's Family Restaurant”. (2 King St. West, Dundas, 905-627-2332) They are closed on Mondays, but open on Tue-Sat at 7am and Sun at 8am. Half an hour after opening, there are a few customers scattered across the place, and I find myself a table near the window. A tattooed guy quickly brings me the menu and inquires whether I would like some coffee. “Definitely, thanks!” In between serving customers he entertains himself by setting up chairs and tables on the front patio.

The one-page laminated breakfast menu (“served 7am – 11am”) is kept simple in a fat black sans serif type font, safe for people who forgot their glasses. All around the rim there is a red stripe, giving it the flair of a very strict set of Do's and Dont's. All the usual breakfast suspects find themselves in the collection. 2 eggs with bacon, Adeline's potatoes and toast go for $4.99. Note that they don't call them 'home fries'. I'm getting my hopes up. Coffee goes for $1.35. No specials in sight. When the tattooed guy returns with the coffee pot to fill my mug, I order over-easy eggs and try to find out from him about the choices for toast. He seems somewhat uncomfortable with his role as a waiter, not familiar with the standard customer questions. As he stands there, trying to explain their food, he makes me feel like I am sitting on the couch in his living room and he is rattling down the kinds of beer he can bring me from the fridge. Finally I choose brown toast over white and he walks off to have a discussion with a woman who just arrived, presumably the waitress.

After some time the waitress arrives with my food. My usual swap of jam against peanut butter works smoothly with a 'no problem' smile. It is a classical 'greasy spoon', except that the potatoes show some sign of life with herbs sprinkled between. After finishing the hot part of the meal I turn to the toast and peanut butter. My coffee cup is empty and I am looking for a server. The guy from the beginning has long disappeared and the waitress is busy cleaning tables. So busy that she cannot possibly look at me. I put my cup up on the divider wall behind me, so she will maybe notice it. No reaction. As I am chewing into my peanut butter and toast, I hear noises behind me. She is cleaning the booth right behind me, within reach of my empty cup. I grab the cup back, worried she might just clear it, together with the dirty dishes from the table behind me. I politely ask her about getting a refill. Sure, no problem. She interrupts her work to fetch the coffee pot and pure me a refill with all the calmness and friendliness in the world. They are not trying to be stingy, but they are a bit clueless.

When I am done, the bill arrives at my table, but that I add a $20 bill to it after a few minutes does not garner any attention. This time I am not surprised, because I have watched other customers pay at the counter on their way out, so I follow the example. The waitress calmly counts my change to the last penny and hands it to me, as if a tip was the last thing she would expect. I give her one nevertheless and head for the exit. The door is firmly locked. Uhm. Are they already closed? It's not that late yet! My tip was decent, that can't be the problem. Another customer enters the restaurant a few windows over to my right, that door looks more familiar. That's where I came in too! So all ends well.

Pita-Pit (Westdale)

So here is my plan for the second breakfast today - destroyed! There is a strange little place just across the street from the Global Village market that only opens at 10am, but advertises breakfast all day every day (except for Saturdays, because they are Jewish - another neat little twist: What will they do about the bacon?). This week, however, they decided to go on their Summer vacation. And I had it all planned...

Luckily, I just discovered today that a rather unlikely place in Westdale is also serving breakfast: The Pita-Pit. I always thought of this place as a lunch and dinner student hang-out. But it says big and bold on the door: “Now serving breakfast!” They open at 8am every day and claim that their breakfast is served all day. They must be doing well, because they recently expanded into a bigger space next door to their old location. Now they are right at the intersection of King St. W and Sterling. (1056 King St. West in the Westdale area of Hamilton, Tel: 905-529-PITA or 905-529-7482; http://www.pitapit.com/) When I stroll in around 10:30am, nobody is there. I mean, really nobody. Not only no customers, but also no employee. Maybe it's self-service. No bell to ring either. Cautiously I peek behind the counter. I don't know how to operate all this stuff, and I'm not sure where the ingredients are, so maybe I should back off. I back right into a guy.

Finally, some sign of life! The guy just parked his coke truck outside for delivery, but he does this all the time and he knows where to track 'em down. He disappears through a back door and shortly after comes back out to ready his truck for unloading. Then he notices me, asks me whether they know that I am here and offers to tell them, disappearing in the back door again. Finally a girl shows up, surprised to find a costumer. Maybe in all fairness I should mention that during the Summer Westdale is fairly devoid of students, the main clientèle of this place. So maybe she was rightly surprised to have a customer. While she takes my order, I glance at the tip jar on the counter. It kindly points out that “Pita-Pit” spelled backwards gives “Tip-a-tip”. Well, not after this performance...

From various breakfast creations, I choose a pita called “Awakin' with bacon”. According to the menu board it is supposed to come with bacon, scrambled eggs, home fries, grilled green peppers and onions (grilled veggies if you believe the preprinted table-top menus), your choice of cheese (I pick cheddar, but also could have had Swiss, feta or Parmesan.) and sauce. I am a bit helpless about the sauce, but the girl points out that most people pick mayo or mustard with this particular pita, so mayo it is. Of course everything wrapped in a pita. This sets me back $6.10. I am searching the menu for coffee or tea, but there is none. I add a can of coke for $1.49 to my order, partly out of gratitude to the coke guy for helping me out and partly because it has caffeine and a color resembling that of coffee. So my total after tax is $8.58, no tip as I mentioned.

The ingredients are thrown and scrambled on the griddle to heat them and mix them, then wrapped into a pita and some paper and handed to me before the employee disappears again to the back. I settle at one of the tables to study the result all by myself, just me, my food and the music. Edible, but nothing exciting. Egg flavor. Bacon flavor. Plenty of cheese. Some errant bits of potato which are a bit dry. Nice touch with the onions and green bell pepper. I'm indifferent about the sauce. The coke, well, tastes like coke. This competes well in the fast food arena, and I could have just gotten up and left with it. So there is a bright side to it, and it fills me up more that the recent meal on campus. Just wished they had coffee, and all the coffee shops are at the other end of Westdale. If I had known I could have brought some along.

Eventually, the girl shows up again to supervise the coke delivery and sign the paper work. Half way through my meal, another employee strolls into the store and disappears in the back as well. I remain the only customer until nearly the end of my meal, when an over-tired looking young doctor shows up, still in scrubs and with stethoscope around his neck, barely able to stand. I guess he is ordering dinner...

Global Village Market

There is a small place at the edge of Westdale selling Fair Trade coffee and specialty foods. I met the owner when she started the place several years back, she was dropping off her kids at the nearby school and noticed the lack of a place to sip some Fair Trade coffee nearby. There is a Tim Hortons across the street and a Second Cup just two blocks down, so there was no shortage of coffee, but it was before the days of My Dog Joe, and if you fancy Fair Trade, the offerings in Westdale had their limits. So, when the unit at 948 King St. West in the Westdale neighborhood of Hamilton became available for lease, she took the dive and started “Global Village Market”. I remember trying to support her in the beginning, but it was impossible because she only opened up after dropping off her kids, and sometimes she ran late. When her kids needed to be picked up, the store closed. When the kids were sick, the store never even opened that day. Times have changed, and she understood the problems of that business model. Now, she opens 7:45am Mon-Sat (Sun closed), much better for my attempt to grab a little breakfast while walking by. I know she serves coffee and muffins, and she has a little table and two chairs out on the sidewalk, so she qualifies as a breakfast place.

I want to make sure she has settled in and fresh coffee and muffins are available, so I stop by at around 8:30am to buy a medium size cup of "Just Us" Fair Trade organic coffee for $1.55 and inquire about muffins. “They are running a little late today,” she tells me, “but they are almost done, if you can wait five minutes.” Sure, I'll just pre-pay $1.00 for a morning glory muffin and settle in at the table outside, nursing my coffee in a take-out cup. The cup is the type I hate with the small hole in the plastic lid through which I always burn myself with the hot coffee, because I can't feel it coming. Since I am enjoying the nice weather sitting in the shade on a Westdale sidewalk, I can take the lid off and drink my coffee straight from the cup. Soon my muffin arrives, still too hot to eat. I snack on it while watching passer-bys and traffic. It is good, but not outrageously so. I must say that it does not compete with My Dog Joe's secret recipe (which my wife has been trying to find out, but it is jealously guarded). I wonder where the “Global Village Market” got their recipe from.

At the end of the muffin I am left with the wrapping paper, but there is no garbage can in sight. So I wander back into the store to toss it (still no garbage can, just a recycling bin for the cups and lids) and start chatting with the owner about muffins. She admits that they are not organic, but she says that at least they are local. “We get the batter from Oakville. It's not easy to find a supplier of organic batter.” After I get over the shock that the muffins are not made from scratch, she further admits that other than the Fair Trade organic coffee and a few of the dry goods on the shelf there is not too much organic about the store. Not even the milk for the coffee is organic, she explains, because the organic one goes bad too quickly. I thank her and take the remainder of my coffee for a walk through Westdale. I know I will be hungry again soon, because I merely had one muffin. But I have a plan for that. I'll have a second breakfast today, see next entry.

CreationX (La Piazza, McMaster University Student Centre)

"CreationX" is the grill place at the food court ("La Piazza") in the Student Centre of McMaster University in Hamilton. During the Summer, when the campus is fairly dead, it is one of the few places where you can get some food on campus early in the morning. It opens at 8am and today is my day to try it out. I am not expecting gourmet food, just economy-priced student fare, but as the Chairman always says at the beginning of the battles at "Kitchen Stadium": "With an open heart and an empty stomach..."

The "La Piazza" food court at the MSU (McMaster Student Union) works like its counterparts on many other campuses: you pick your combination of food and drink from various outlets and stations and pay at the cash register on your way out. Then you sit at one of the tables scattered in the vicinity or take your food to go. A reasonably friendly, black-capped guy (presumably a cook, not a chef) takes my order at the grill counter. Their breakfast menu is not very extensive, but I can find what I am looking for: 2 eggs with toast and bacon for $3.45 and a side of hashbrown for $0.50.

The guy acknowledges my order and cheerfully tosses two micro-strips of bacon on the griddle. "Clonk" goes the hashbrown when it is flung into one of the deep-fryer baskets which is then subsequently lowered into the hot oil. Meanwhile I am fretting about not having been asked about my preferences for the eggs and toast. Unnecessarily so, because now this black-capped one-man-band has arrived at the point where these decisions have to be made. "White or brown" - and two slices of brown toast rattle into the toaster. "Over-easy" - and the eggs get cracked onto the griddle.

While the hash brown gets lifted out of the hot oil, a guy with a tall white hat strolls by and Black Cap greets him with "Good morning, Chef!" The chef, looking pleased with himself and the world, greets back. Black Cap sticks some butter one one side of my toast pieces, slices them diagonally and places them into the lid side of a folding take-out cardboard container. The eggs go into the deeper end, followed by the hash brown clunker and the two small bacon strips. "Here you go," he hands me my breakfast and turns to the next customer.

I find two portions of peanut butter ($0.15 each) next to the bagel toaster station and pour myself a medium cup of Tim Hortons coffee from the fresher looking of the two pots at the coffee station. Tim Hortons of course also sell breakfast at their restaurants, which will be the topic of another review, which is why I will not comment on the coffee at this point. Needless to say there are no refills. Some packets of salt and pepper, a plastic knife, a plastic fork and a length of napkin round out my breakfast supplies. The moment of truth comes at the cash register. $3.45 (eggs, ham, toast) + $0.50 (hash brown) + $0.30 (2x peanut butter) + $1.22 (medium cup Tim Hortons coffee) + tax + (no tip) = $5.95 total. Average price I would say, but by far the smallest portion of food so far. Definitely not a value meal for students!

I find myself a table, sprinkle the eggs with some pepper and ready my plastic cutlery. The eggs are actually not bad. So let me put a disclaimer at this point that any comments I may make about the food in no way pertain to the guy who made it. He did his job and I believe him that he knows how to cook. The eggs are proof positive. But he has to work with what he is given. The tiny bacon strips are designed for use with plastic cutlery, so they come apart easily. I wouldn't call them crisp or flavorful or anything, but they don't offend. The egg yolk is nice and runny, but it is difficult to sop it all up with the chunk of hash brown. If it was bigger it could have doubled as a puck for ice hockey. (Just to be fair: it is not that hard - it can be broken apart with a plastic fork!) Next time I should order 2 or 3 of them. Maybe they should affix a warning to the menu for unsuspecting customers. At least it doesn't have any offending (or unoffending for that matter) flavors.

Sadly I have to leave some yolk behind on the cardboard and turn to the toast and peanut butter. Not bad, although I have seen bigger slices before. The two portions of peanut butter turn out to be on the plentiful side, given the limited real estate.

I have barely started sipping my coffee and my food is already gone. My stomach is howling and I start dreaming of a really, really big lunch. I look at my coffee: "Come, I'll take you for a walk around campus!"

The Courtyard

Today we went to the courtyard. Better to say, we went to The Courtyard. Courtyard, Locke Street, that is. The Courtyard is located at 252 Locke St. South, Hamilton, Tel. 905-979-7586, next to (and connected to) The Gallery on Locke. In fact, both are owned by the same people, a potter and an artist (see http://willowpond.ca/ for details) who are madly in love with Paris. Not nearby Paris, Ontario, as one might think. Paris, France. So much that they offer guided tours to Paris, France. And they are not quite cheap because if you want to go to Paris, France, you have to take an airplane to get there. But you get to hang out there for a whole week (2 separate tours are offered in the spring). Since one can't constantly be going to Paris, The Courtyard, Locke Street, is an attempt to recreate a cafe as it could be found in Paris, France, in Hamilton, Ontario. I wonder whether there is somebody sitting somewhere in France offering tours to Paris, Ontario, and running a cafe that would make people feel like they are in Canada instead of France. Probably not.

Every morning starting at 7:30am The Courtyard, Locke Street, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, opens for breakfast. When we arrive around 9:30, the place looks completely dead from the front, except for a blinking "open" sign. I see it when it is on, look at the opening hours on the door and tell my wife that I think they are open. She stops looking through the window into the empty "The Gallery on Locke" dining room just at the moment when the "open" sign has blinked off, and between the empty interior and the unlit "open" sign decides that the place must be closed. A tug on the door finally proves me right, but the place looks so ghostly that we do not enter. The "The Courtyard" coffee shop next door looks a bit more lively, and a sign on the sidewalk invites us to check out the courtyard behind the "The Courtyard". Behind the house, there is indeed an inviting, calm space with tables, chairs, a bathtub fountain and pleasant music sounding from speakers. Nice place! But totally empty. A couple arriving at the same time as us immediately disappears into the house. We find an outside table and I decide to go inside the house as well to tell the server that we are here, or maybe we have to buy our food inside and bring it out ourselves. Inside, I spot the couple with two earthenware mugs getting themselves coffee at a dispensing station inside the tiny coffee shop. I greet the server-barrista-cook behind the counter, next to the espresso machine, in front of the stove, who hands me two menus and sends me back out. She seems to be running the place by herself, so I understand. Outside, we examine the menus.

Now, since this is a cafe styled after Paris, France, the menu consists of six pages, the first one of which is the title page and the last one of which advertises the trips to France. Out of the other four pages, two are dedicated to drinks (one page of fair trade organic coffee and one page of cold drinks), one is dedicated to savory crepes and one is dedicated to sweet crepes. Because all the French ever eat are crepes. Actually, they eat them with a hat '^' over the first 'e', and that's also how they are served at The Courtyard, but this is gonna get too complicated on my keyboard. Sitting in the Paris-France-style courtyard in the back of The Courtyard on a Saturday, I am getting hungry for baguettes and croissants, but this is not a French bakery after all, so not a chance. We decide on getting a medium coffee ($1.79) each (small or large would have been $1.49 or $1.95) and also the only real breakfast item on the menu, the "Sunrise" omelet-crepe ($8.99). The other couple is sipping their coffees, but we sit and watch the water fountain. Finally, my wife sends me inside to organize some coffee. Makes sense, that poor woman who is running the place probably can't move from her counter, stove and espresso machine. I order the coffees and omelets from her ("You already know what you want?!?"), but get sent back out while she deals with another customer with curlers in her hair who must have entered the place through the front entrance.

Eventually, the woman shows up outside to bring our coffee in two earthenware mugs that are so wide that they almost remind me of bowls. Very stylish! Another smaller bowl holds brown, white and fake sugar as well as some milk portions for the coffee. Since I had yielded to questioning inside that one coffee was going to be 'black' and the other with milk, my mug is brim-full while my wife's mug has plenty of room for milk. My wife is digging through the milk&sugar bowl for some cream, but in vain. I had condemned her to milk. Puzzlingly, the woman who brought the coffee looks slightly different from the woman inside. But I am generally bad with faces, so who knows... The coffee is very good, and enjoyable to sip in these peaceful surroundings. What a nice business idea, would be nice to see more customers. A good while later two women show up carrying four Sunrise omelet-crepes and cutlery for the other couple and us. That explains it, there are indeed two of them working here.

The crepes come on nice hand-thrown large plates with a side of salsa and several pieces of roast potatoes. The potatoes are sprinkled with rosemary, the crepes are sprinkled with chopped parsley. Compliments on the presentation! Unfortunately, the quality of the food does not quite keep up with the presentation. The roast potatoes are cold and dry by the time they reach our table. The crepe is stuffed with scrambled eggs, cheese, onions, mushrooms and various peppers and tastes good, but not exceptional. When we are finished eating, my wife comments that now she knows why the French are so skinny. I. e., we are both still peckish.

Slowly, other customers file in. We flag down the waitress to inquire about coffee refills. They are $0.99 each, she assures us and takes off with our mugs to refill them. Quite a while later our mugs reappear with fresh coffee. Since all mugs are unique from the potters hand we can confirm that indeed she gave the same mug back to everybody. (The other couple also got refills at the same time...) Somewhat impractical, to be left without coffee for such a long time, but this is a place to enjoy and relax. When some other customers inquire about sugar, we give them ours after the waitress disappears. Lucky for them, because the waitress does not bring sugar until much later, after the guy goes inside and comes out rather upset. Parisians are real men! You are here for the full experience!

Eventually, the waitress comes by to ensure that we are done and ready for the bill, which she brings shortly after. The bill list our coffee, 2 refills for $1.39 each and the omelets with 'taters'. Wait, why is the refill suddenly more expensive? While I just want to deduct the difference from the tip without much fuss, my wife suggests we ask them about it. Remember, Parisians are real men? While I am not Parisian, I accept the challenge and ask the waitress when she comes by to collect her dues. Well, it looks like she mixed up the prices for small and medium refills when she quoted us. "We'll take that off the bill," she apologizes and disappears. When she reappears with the new version of the bill, the refills have disappeared completely. We are highly pleased and decide to tip on the generous side after all, still saving us a few cents over the original bill.

Stone Crock Restaurant

Yesterday I was temporarily distracted from my quest for the ultimate Mennonite breakfast, because my wife had found out about that Mennonite cured bacon story and wanted to go to that place as well. So I had to break my pattern of only visiting each place once, with the result that my wife loved the bacon and also positively commented on the way her scrambled eggs were cooked and the freshness of the toast. I thought my bacon was done more to perfection the first time around, but it still took the best bacon award so far. Unfortunately, we went there a bit later in the morning and the adjacent furniture outlet was already open, but that is a whole different story...

Today, I made another big step towards discovering the ultimate Mennonite breakfast. I went to St. Jacobs in the heart of Mennonite country, a little village that has become a big tourist attraction, and for those tourists actually interested in the Mennonite culture there is even a little shop called "The Mennonite story" where one can explore the history and culture of the Mennonites. If not, just enjoy the markets and indulge in shopping. (interesting contrast...) Right in the middle of St. Jacobs there is a place called "Stone Crock". Correction: there is an area called "Stone Crock". This includes a deli, catering business, gift shop, bakery, bistro and a restaurant. This restaurant opens at 7am for breakfast and was my target for today. For the record, Stone Crock Restaurant is located at 1396 King Street North in St. Jacobs, Tel. 519-664-2286, and opens at 7am (weekends 8am). More info is available at http://www.stjacobs.com/html/restaurants.html.

Upon entering the place, it is very easy to get lost! The restaurant has at least 5 different dining rooms, 2 independent sets of full-sized multi-user bathrooms and various lobbies in addition to being directly connected to a bistro and the bakery. The bakery opens at 6:30am and when I glance inside, I notice a number of people having breakfast there. I'll have to count that as a separate place and try it another day. I find myself a seat in one of the dining rooms, namely the one that is slightly populated and where I seem to have the best chance of being noticed by the waitress. Between all the rooms, they have more Mennonite furniture on display than that outlet store yesterday. And it's not just tables and chairs, they are fully equipped with cabinets as well.

In general, the restaurant has a (German?) country atmosphere to it. Given the roots of the area, not a surprise. Two more indications that this place has German roots can be found upon visiting the downstairs bathrooms. The lobby area in front of them displays a photograph of a bible printed in 1560 that advertises that it is a freshly translated German version (somebody trying to compete with Luther...). Actually, I take that back: It looks more like it was written by hand, not printed! The other indication that this place is run by Germans is that above the sink in the washroom there is an instruction sheet which explains how to wash your hands in 11 (eleven) steps. If that's too many steps for your taste, another sheet explains how to use a hand sanitizer, which only takes 8 (eight) steps.

Back to the dining room, where the waitress pounced on me right away with a pot of coffee and a menu. (If you had seen this friendly lady, you would chide me for the use of the word 'pounce', which conjures up far too violent of an image. But she was quick!) She pours me some coffee and leaves me to ponder the menu. All the tables in the place are set properly, including big stacks of jam, marmalade, honey and peanut butter. It seems a bit of a waste, because only a few guest had found their way into this vast labyrinth at 7:30am.

The breakfast menu is actually quite short and simple. Pancakes and French toast are on there, each served with local (!) maple syrup, the "2 eggs etc." were on there, including the obligatory super-sized version, omelets, a fruit salad, bagel & cream cheese. Something for everybody's differing idea of 'healthy', but pretty much just one laminated page. Served 7am till 11:30am. A little extra sheet points out that the 2 eggs with meat, home fries and toast can be had as a special for $4.99 weekdays before 9am. Given that the regular price for this item is $5.49, not much of a special. As the waitress later explains, the kicker is that the special includes the coffee, which normally sells for $2.19. Now we are talking serious savings! But why does the special only last till 9am? I bring up the awkward topic of a lack of customers with the waitress, but she just smiles and says that it will get busy later. Let me guess - nine o'clock? When the tourist hordes invade... That's why they got all these tables ready for breakfast! And those poor suckers won't even know what they missed since they just simply won't get the extra little sheet and will have no idea the special even exists...

I order 2 eggs over-easy with bacon, home fries and rye toast. There is the waitress again with a coffee refill! Is there some competition on lately about who gives the most refills? The food also comes fairly quickly. Presentation is kicked up one notch from what I had gotten used to lately. A slice of orange decorates the side of the plate. It is clearly decoration and not meant to be eaten, because it is wilted on one side. More importantly, the plate is bigger than usual. So even though the toast is balanced on the fries, there is plenty of space to shuffle things around. Not that the portion is smaller, it is really a bigger plate. The marbled rye toast is larger than usual, but thinner. That makes it nice and crunchy at the surface, but you can still taste the fresh bread inside. Presumably it comes from their own bakery, so you would expect something good. Eggs are done to perfection, and the yolks run nice and yellow. The potatoes could have been written off as regular hash browns (and not even that brown), if they hadn't added green onions for extra flavour. Nice touch, especially when mixed with the eggs and the bacon. The bacon. Now, here comes some good bacon. It is not your usual strips (it has above average meat content), it is crispy (but not too much) and it tastes excellent. The Mennonites and their bacon!

When the waitress comes by for yet another refill ("No, not now, but I do have a question!") I inquire about the origin of the bacon. "Oh, it comes from our shop next door," she explains, but where the Deli shop gets it from, she does not know. Reasonably local, I suspect. Since they only open at 9am I cannot check, but one day I'll find out... In either case, I had a very enjoyable meal, and the bill only comes to $5.64 after tax. ("No, I don't need another coffee refill, just some change...") The combination of perfectly cooked eggs, delicious bacon, flavourful potatoes, large fresh toast with unlimited spreads and plentiful coffee (decent, but not gourmet) for that cheap seems really hard to beat.

Dearborn Restaurant

My quest for the ultimate Mennonite breakfast continues. Typing “Mennonite breakfast” into Google, the first hit is a blog named "Mennonite Girls Can Cook". Well, I never doubted that, and they have some cool recipes, but that would restrict me to my own kitchen and since I am neither Mennonite nor a girl there is no guarantee that I can cook. I fared better googling “Mennonite breakfast restaurant Ontario”. This let me in on the secret that members of a certain Mennonite church like to have breakfast at the Dearborn Restaurant at 105 Lexington Rd, Waterloo (Tel. 519-746-0321). A phone call confirms that this place opens at 7am (Sun. 8am) and here goes my next breakfast.

The Dearborn Restaurant is sufficiently out of the way that you have to pretty much know it's there in order to find it. When I enter it shortly after opening this morning, I already wasn't the first customer. More customers will arrive throughout my meal, but the place is not busy yet. I seat myself at a booth and when the waitress spots me, her first question - pot in hand, mug on table - is: "Coffee?" She seems surprised that I need a menu, but she has one handy and also drops off some cutlery. The 2-sided laminated breakfast menu mostly has "eggs etc." options (incl. the 3-eggs-all-meats lumberjack) and omelets (nice selection!), plus notably the option of a combo with added fruit salad and a kids corner, probably the most extensive kids breakfast menu I have seen so far. Meat options include bacon, ham, breakfast sausage and Polish sausage. Offering alternative sausages appears to be a must around here. Coffee goes for $1.50. The 2 egg breakfast is just that, without meat. But my eyes fall on the "Dearborn Breakfast" for $5.50, which is just what I was looking for. I order it with 2 eggs over-easy, bacon, home fries and brown toast. Now, I forgot to pay attention to the "special" that was advertised in the front window, but the server assures me that it is the same item. So Mon-Fri before 11:30am the "Dearborn" goes for $3.99, weekends before 2pm it goes for $4.99.

The food comes almost too quickly, but has been prepared masterly. The eggs are prepared to the point: all white is solid and all yellow is runny. The 4 bacon strips are crisp and flavorful. The potato slices have been pan-fried to enhance their flavor, all by themselves without any recognizable additives. So I let them have some salt and pepper and mix them up with the bacon and egg flavors. I would go as far as saying that this is as good as you can get, just using regular bacon, eggs and potatoes. Any breakfast better than this would require additional ingredients.

Throughout my meal I have been inundated with coffee refills ("Let me warm it up for you!"), the "Egg & I" place no longer holds the record. This is surprising given that the service here is reserved and unobtrusive as much as it is friendly and efficient. It took the waitress a while to notice me after I seated myself and it took a long time for her to pick up my $20 bill to bring change, but was she ever there when I ran low on coffee! For completeness, I should mention that she gladly added a portion of peanut butter to the raspberry fruit spread (not jam!) that came with the toast without trying to charge me extra. Maybe I didn't get any secret recipe prepared meat today, but simple quality, understatement and hospitality are probably what attracts their customers.

Cedar Barn Restaurant

That Mennonite bacon from last week still isn't off my mind. Maybe I can get more of it by getting closer to the Mennonite heartland with my breakfast adventures. On 1217 Lobsinger Lane in the North end of Waterloo, not too far from St Jacob Farmers Market, is the Cedar Barn Restaurant (Tel. 519-664-2569). It opens at 7am (Sundays: 8am) and the (supposedly famous) breakfast is served all day long. It is in the country side, with ample parking around the main building. It is not really a truck stop, but a trucker in the know found himself 'street parking' on the gravelly shoulder of the road.

Upon entering, one is presented with a choice of two doors through which to enter the main room of the restaurant. There is the 'lunch room' to the left and there is the 'dining room' to the right. Through the windows, patrons are visible populating both. The difference is that the tables in the lunch room are blank, whereas the tables in the dining room are set. Not sure what that means, but the large amounts of spreads stacked in the middle of the tables in the dining room help me make up my mind that that's where I want to be. The offerings are peanut butter, marmalade and jam. (Hold on - there are 2 kinds of jam: strawberry and raspberry! Do I have to start specifying the type of jam now? Couldn't the grand ol' English language with it's over 500,000 words have had two different expressions?) Country music is playing. The room is decorated to go with the barn theme. Hay forks on the walls, figures of sleeping animals, etc. At the far end, barrels form the foundation of bar stools for those wanting to sit facing the wall and the kitchen.

I prefer a window seat at a table set for 4 people. You may call that overkill for a single person, but it is not that busy and it means more peanut butter for me! The waitress is chatting with some patrons, presumably regulars, over in the lunch room (the division between the two halves of the room is merely hip-high), but eventually moseys over to my table to present me with a menu. She asks whether I would like something to drink, but the coffee pot in her hand belies the openendedness of the question. "Yes, coffee," I respond obligingly. She turns one of the mugs on the table right side up and disappears to the far end of the restaurant after pouring my coffee. I start studying the menu. They do have omelets (on special today) and various other breakfast items (incl. some in the kids section), but my eye falls as usual on the "n eggs etc." section. In this case, n = 1, 2, 3. n = 3 refers to a 'Hired Hand' who is also allowed one type of meat, home fries and toast. There are also 2 eggs with one type of meat and toast, which is different from the "2 egg special" also including home fries. The "2 egg special comes to $5.45 and is my choice. The only open question is whether I should go for bacon or for their oh so famous "fresh farmers sausage". I will ask the waitress when she comes to take my order. Since I brought myself some reading, I am obviously not in a hurry.

Eventually the waitress does comes back, however. Yes, they are proud of their farmers sausage, although some people think its too dry, she says. They also have other types of sausage. I inquire about the bacon. The whole setting of the place makes you want to believe that when you order 2 eggs, a kitchen boy runs over to the chicken coop to fetch them, and you wait for the squealing of the pig when you order bacon, but the waitress admits that the bacon just comes from a distributer (Flanagan). In fact, upon closer inspection of the surroundings of the building later when leaving I realize that there is no farm attached. Still, the farmers sausage sounds like something I should try, so I order it on the side ($2.50 extra). My main order is the 2 egg special, over-easy, bacon, brown toast.

Even though the service is not rushed, I certainly cannot complain about a lack of coffee refills. The food also comes relatively swiftly. I shift the toast onto one corner of the potatoes and start digging into the eggs (running thick and yellow), bacon (nice crispy strips, somewhat above average) and home fries (make that hash browns). The potatoes are finely cut, but not at all mush. They sop up the egg nicely. The bacon is done quite nicely, and apparently in an attempt to satisfy different tastes. Different pieces are done to different crispness levels, between medium to very crisp, but never burnt. The most amazing thing about the bacon strips is that they just keep coming. I just pulled one from underneath the eggs to spot a few buried in the potatoes and I did cover up some of them when I moved the toast. This is all in addition to what I thought already was a decent portion of bacon openly on display. There are also 2 short pieces of grey-brown sausage. They do taste good, I don't mind the dryness at all. Order them if you like sausage. Avoid them if you like breakfast sausage.

The nicely browned and lightly buttered toast with peanut butter rounds out my meal. The bill rightly shows $5.45 for the meal, plus $2.50 for the sausage on the side, plus interestingly $1.50 for the coffee. The menu had it listed for $1.35. I decide not to make a fuss about it since the whole place is just too mellow for that and such small amounts are easily balanced out via the tip. The breakfast was a pleasant, slow, joyful experience and I want to end it that way.

Snooty Fox

The snooty fox evades the hunters and sneers at them from the distance. The pack of dogs is howling in humiliation. The disappointed hunters gather to decide what to do next. One points at the village in the distance. One looks intently at the forest behind them. After a few trees, there is a dark wooden picture frame. Then comes a dark green wall and a beer commercial, then a large mirror and a painting with another scene from a fox hunt. The wooden trims and paneling along the wall are dark brown. The white(ish) ceiling attempts in vain to make the place more cheerful. The room is divided into three areas: the fully stocked bar with bar stools and dart board, all of which are sitting idle on this Sunday morning. There are also a number of booths and an elevated area with a fire place and a bunch of tables, some of which will be cleared during life music performances or karaoke evenings. The is the "Snooty Fox", a popular student pub in the heart of Westdale near McMaster University. (1011 King Street West, Hamilton; 905-546-0000; http://www.snootyfox.ca/)

While during the week life at the Snooty Fox starts with lunch, a small section of the menu (top 1/3 of the last page) is reserved for the "Weekender", breakfast items served Saturdays and Sundays. "Brunch" would be the correct term, because there is no lunch menu for weekends and breakfast stretches until 3pm. According to the menu they get going at 9am, and indeed when we show up shortly before ten, some people are already paying. We had relied on the website, which lists 9:30 as the starting time for Saturday and Sunday breakfast. Curiously, the menu page on the website also lists the "weekender" as being available 9am to 3pm. So which one is it? A number of customers had made it here before us, proving that the place is not limited to students but in fact appeals to all age groups in the neighborhood, at least earlier during the day.

We anticipate fast service, because the waitress walks around in shorts and running shoes. She attends to us friendly, professionally, but unhurriedly. She still has a long day in front of her. Coffee is her first concern, and she also brings us menus, pointing out the easy-to-miss location of the breakfast items. The combination of ingredients for omelets is up to you, there are no prebuilt suggestions. There are flap jacks and one version of French toast, and a choice of eggs with various meat combinations (including a "hungry man" option and steak). One or two breakfast sandwiches. That's it. Something (one thing) for everybody. I choose my usual 2 eggs over-easy with bacon, fries and brown toast. While we are waiting for the food, she brings by a carrier with ketchup and various sauces as well as a bowl with assorted spreads. I find honey ("pure honey"), jam, marmalade and several portions of peanut butter. Before putting down the bowl, she inquires about peanut allergies, the first time somebody has done that. How considerate!

When the food arrives, my over-easy eggs are so easy that one yolk has already started flooding the plate. Even small parts of the egg white are still runny. Quickly, I rescue the toast that was stacked on top of the eggs from getting soggy by shifting it on top of the potatoes. Not a lot of space on the plate... The bacon strips are very curly and have a light crispness to them. My wife diagnoses them as being deep fried rather than fried on the griddle. But they have been dried and are not dripping with grease at all. Clever technique! The home fries are also remarkable. Essentially, they are French fries cut into cubes before frying. Their centre is heavy and potatoey. Very nice, although no effort was made to add spices, herbs or the like. Salt and pepper will do. Overall, one of the tastier takes on breakfast so far.

Our meal is interrupted by the server trying to find out whether everything is going well and whether our coffees may require a warm-up a. k. a. refill. That will remain the only offer of its kind during the meal, but since the coffee was served in generously-sized mugs to begin with I don't need more. Some time after the plates are empty, the server comes by to inquire whether we would like anything else, and upon us denying this to be the case presents us with the bill. Only one of the two coffees got charged, at $1.75 not the cheapest so far, but a very fair price if you divide it by two. The "2 eggs with etc." come out to $5.45 apiece, well worth the price and a good tip.

Breezy Corners Restaurant

Halfway between Hamilton and Guelph on Highway 6 somewhere there is a traffic light at an intersection. At that intersection there is a truck stop. (A big sign on the parking lot points out where the trucks go. And customers only!) There is a family restaurant. There is a bar. There is a rest stop for tourists. Actually, they are all one and the same institution, called "Breezy Corners Restaurant" (1480 Highway 6, Carlisle, 905-659-1556). They open at 7am, but serve breakfast all day long, which is good because today I was late.

The inside of Breezy Corners Restaurant mirrors its schizophrenic purpose. It looks like 3 or 4 different places were cut up and glued back together. The wooden bar near the entrance could have been outside by the pool. Next to it, fronting the kitchen, is sort of a diner, with a truck stop seating area and a few steps leading down into the family restaurant. The wall decorations are as diverse as the place itself, maybe the most dominant feature being old black and white photographs of landscapes and women. Above the windows into the kitchen are coldly illuminated green-white display boards, showing pictures of dishes. Below each picture - except the last one - there are the names of two dishes which sometimes fit the dish on display and sometimes not. The last picture apparently is beyond description. I couldn't identify the food on it either. I hope their food tastes better than those dishes on the pictures look like they taste.

The customers of the place are also a mixed crowd. A young couple with their baby are just leaving as I arrive. There are some truckers, some couples, a touristy looking goup, some older folks, a gaggle of friends. I wouldn't call the place crowded, but they have a steady flow of patrons to keep the two waitresses moderately busy. Service is very swift.

The waitress arrives to confirm my need for coffee and leave a copy of the breakfast menu behind, which is baffling at first. The headliner is "5 eggs any style with...". The waitress assures me that people do eat them. Fortunately for me, below there are also the options "3 eggs any style with...", "2 eggs any style with..." and "1 egg any style with...". The rest of the menu is occupied with the usual variety of breakfast items. I don't bother looking for specials since it is past 11am and probably too late for any of that. Instead I settle for 2 eggs over-easy, bacon, home fries and toast. Rye is an option, so why not.

The food comes very quickly. They sure know how to turn over their guests. Understandable, most people stop by because they are hungry, not because they have too much time at their hands. The toast is big, thick, rounded and has a fancy brown swirl in the middle. It comes with two portions of jam. Upon request, the waitress adds a little plastic cup with peanut butter. Now its time to start looking for the fries below the pile of bacon. There are more strips of bacon than I have fingers on one hand, i. e. a lot of bacon. One of the strips got onto my plate because it really badly needed to get off the griddle. The other strips are not too crisp, just done right. Eggs are fine. The fries are nicely browned cubes, but terribly bland. Nothing that a bit of salt and pepper from the shakers could not fix.

Coffee refills are frequent throughout the meal, but when the waitress judges that I am winding down the bill ends up on my table instead of further refills. As I said, they know how to keep up the turnover. Studying the bill, I find $6.25 for the food (makes sense), $1.35 for the coffee (to be expected) and $0.30 for 'rye'. So the peanut butter was good and free and the toast was also good and plentiful, but a little extra charge for Mr. Fancypants with the rye toast. The total is $8.89, so the tip just so ever lightly puts me above $10. (More than the waitress expects, judging by the change she provides me with.) I guess that's the going rate on Highway 6. Highway 8 was cheaper... But I did not give them the chance of an early morning special and the food was good and plentiful after all.

A Change of Pace Restaurant

When I noticed a YABPISM in Morriston next to the intersection of busy highway 6 and even busier highway 401, I didn't think much of it. YABPISM stands for "yet another breakfast place in a strip mall". There is tons of them, mostly you don't even find them on the internet. They are just there. Local joints. You sometimes notice them when you drive by, or look around while waiting at a red traffic light. This one could have been of interest to truckers and travelers passing by on the 401, if only they had any way of knowing it's there. Fortuitously they open at 6am, as I found out a while ago by taking a closer look at the door. Today I was in need of an early breakfast.

The place is called "A Change of Pace Restaurant". Certainly an odd name, but it is located next to a Mennonite furniture outlet store. Maybe there is a connection here? For the benefit of the non-local reader, Mennonites are known for their traditional lifestyle. They mostly are farmers and (so it seems) furniture makers, and are known to rumble along the roads on their horse-drawn carts. They have German roots, I believe, and populate rural areas not too far from here. But I digress. I was telling you about today's breakfast place. 'A Change of Pace Restaurant' (Tel. 519-767-9987, http://www.achangeofpace.ca/) is located on 34 Queen Street (i. e. Highway 6) in Morriston, Ontario, just south of the 401. They open for breakfast at 6am Mon-Sat and 7am Sun. Already at the door they announce their breakfast special, "2 eggs etc.", but 'etc.' in this case only amounts to sausage or ham. Where is the bacon?

Inside, the restaurant is friendly and clean, but simple. I pick a table by the window and the waitress immediately comes out from behind the take-out counter to inquire about whether I would like to drink coffee and whether I am still waiting for somebody. 'Yes' and 'No' are my respective answers, upon which I am presented with a menu and mug of hot coffee on an ill-fitting saucer. They do have the cups for the saucers stacked behind the counter, but I must have looked thirsty enough to come straight out with a big mug. The waitress points out the weekday breakfast special to me again, 2 eggs with sausage or ham, home fries, toast and coffee all for $5.59 only. So it is not a typo then that they left out the bacon? I am told that, no, their bacon is not on special. It's that good. Now she got me: A bacon that's too good to go on special?!? Alright then, never mind the special. I'm going to invest $7.59 into the 4 strips of Mennonite cured bacon with 2 eggs, home fries, toast, coffee! Over-easy and rye. This better be good! The food comes quickly. 'Not too busy right now,' the waitress points out and already refills my coffee.

Rye toast looks good (interesting: A rounded 'Texas toast' - always learning something new...), and it comes with 2 portions of "strawberry fruit spread". Wait a minute! So this is not jam? I ask the waitress first for peanut butter (a portion of which arrives in a little paper cup) and then about the difference between jam and fruit spread. She does not know, but thinks it has to do with the manufacturer. She shows me a portion of what she says they order as "honey", but the label reads "HONEY flavoured spread" (same manufacturer). No thank you! I'll stick with the peanut butter, which they seem to be getting somewhere else. The waitress points out that if it was for her they would get all their spreads in big jars and give them out in little paper cups as people request them: "Too much plastic."

Now, the main plate offers a breakfast that looks slightly different than usual. The bacon strips do seem to have a different texture, but the visual highlight are the home fries, big chunks of potatoes coated with some reddish seasoning. Very promising! The potatoes indeed are quite flavorful. Most amazing, however, is the bacon! It has a slight crunch to it when you first bite it, but then it falls apart on your tongue and spills its lingering flavor. The flavor is clearly 'bacon', but it has an unusual subtlety and depth to it that must be the result of the special treatment by the Mennonites. When I cut into my eggs to combine them with the bacon, the egg yolks run thick and yellow. Breakfast heaven!

I clean off my main plate, careful not to leave any of the flavor behind. The rye toast seems fresh and goes well with the peanut butter. All the way through I am encouraged by constant coffee refills from the friendly waitress. (Although she stops the refills when I run out of food...) The bill after tax comes to $8.58, but I push it beyond $10 with a generous tip. I have paid over $10 for my breakfast before, but this is the first time it is actually worth it! Best breakfast so far.

P.S.: It is lunch time and I am still tasting the bacon!! Oh boy! Not the time to get weak and stop sampling new breakfast places. If only they all could have such bacon...

Quarry Restaurant

The Quarry Restaurant is located on 567 Highway 5 W in Flamborough, across from a big quarry (surprise!). (905-627-0485, open 6 am, closed Sun) It consists of a fragile-looking small white hut next to a parking lot that is not quite large enough to make 18-wheelers feel comfortable, but certainly would accommodate a couple of dump trucks from the nearby quarry. One worries what might happen if one of the dump trucks ever backs up a bit too far... This morning around seven there is only one truck on the lot, plus some cars. A big sign in one of the windows promises a $5.15 breakfast special (6am to 11 am). Without reading through the details, I decide that that's going to be my breakfast.

Upon entering the restaurant, I get once again confused about what to do. This is the price you pay for trying a different place every day. Never quite sure what to expect next. I stand right in front of a 'functional' bar with a slightly grumpy woman behind it who looks at me as if I am an alien. The small dining room to my right is functional and clean. A scruffy-looking biker dude sits at one of the tables and reads a newspaper. I didn't see any Harley outside, so the dump truck must be his. A big display-cooler narrows the pathway from behind the bar into the dining room. The kitchen is in an adjacent room which is accessible by passing behind the bar. Bathrooms are to my left. By the looks of it, this place could be inside a portable cabin that is moved around the quarry as a break room. Clearly, I am out of place in my office attire.

The poker face of the woman behind the bar does not give away what I am supposed to do next. Do I order at the bar from the menu board behind her? Do I sit at a table and wait for service? I awkwardly go for the middle ground, dropping my bag onto a chair at a nearby table and returning to the bar (the woman has not moved one inch during all this!) to mumble something about wanting to take the breakfast special. The woman points to a pile of menus in front of her and just says: "That's the menu!" I thank her profusely, grab one of the menus and retreat to my table to re-read the menu without comprehending details. When the woman finally turns towards my table I reiterate that I would like to order the special, 2 eggs, bacon over-easy, fries and of course toast, ehm, brown. And coffee to drink. She transmits the order to a man operating in the kitchen and pours my coffee. I am assigned a spoon and 2 portions of cream to go with it, but as usual I prefer my coffee black.

Finally I can lean back, relax and take in the place. I notice further details, such as pictures of Greece decorating the walls and a poster praising their Greek food. Even though this did not look like a family restaurant to me (and I don't think it claims to be), I now notice a highchair parked in a corner, making it entirely feasible to visit with little children. Two large baby pictures behind the bar further attest to the woman having a warm heart, once you get her thawed. Maybe I just made the wrong entry. When the trucker dude leaves, he makes pleasant chit-chat with the woman behind the bar as he pays his bill and suddenly neither of them appears so rough anymore. Several other customers arrive throughout. The guy from the kitchen slips through between the bar and the woman to bring out my food. The toast is accompanied by one portion of jam and when I ask for peanut butter he willingly brings out a portion without confiscating the jam.

The potatoes look really good today. They are thin slices of real potatoes that have been fried in a pan. No additives such as onions or herbs, but very good basic potatoes. Now that I call home fries! The eggs are good and the bacon strips are very nicely done, although the blunt knife is no match for them. Coffee is refilled during the meal and after polishing off the main plate I finally turn to the toast. The first slice I eat with peanut butter, and something is off with the taste. I think that maybe I should stop insisting on peanut butter in places that don't bring it out voluntarily. So I use the jam with the second slice of toast, confirming that the toast itself also wasn't the freshest. Probably brown toast is not a top seller here either. But I have enough coffee left to rinse it all down.

I gather my stuff and walk up to the bar to pay. First, the woman types in $5.15 for the breakfast special. Then she starts experimenting with various other numbers to type in and finally settles on $0.30 to bring up a total after tax of $6.16. Surprised, I ask: "The coffee was 30 cents?" That's quite cheap but I think I had a deal like that somewhere else before. "No," comes the answer, "that's for the peanut butter. The coffee is included in the special." Ah! Uhm! How sneaky! Oh, well...

Cambridge Family Restaurant

I still have one place left to try on the Preston main drag in Cambridge. Actually, one might think 2 places, since a sign in one window (the only window?) of the Grand River Hotel proclaims breakfast as well. It shares that window with one of these 'open' signs that turn on and off, but I have never seen the 'open' sign turned on in the morning. So maybe that place can be discounted. So, what's left to try is the "Cambridge Family Restaurant" (752 King Street East, Preston, Cambridge, 519-653-4455). From the outside, it looks like one of those puny little hole-in-the-wall places with barely two tables. The window is largely taken up by the advertisement of their breakfast special of 2 eggs with bacon for $3.20 before 11 am Mon-Fri. They open at 7 am and I reach there around 10 minutes later.

When I open the door and enter the place, I am a bit surprised by the size of the place. A takeout counter with display case dominates the front, but the dining area goes quite deep! The decor is dominated by brown tones and wood, the style is clearly 'diner'. And there are already a fair number of customers so shortly after opening! I settle at a booth somewhere half way down and wait for the waitress to spot me. It does not take her long, and her first question is whether I need "menus". Well, actually I only need one, but who knows. I answer in the affirmative and also agree that I need coffee. Really, I didn't need the menu, because I am just going to order the special anyways. Overeasy. Bacon. Brown toast. The waitress now wants to know whether I would like baked beans - they are included in the special. I'm not really a big fan of baked beans but greed wins and I say "Sure!" Before she takes off with the menu to put in my order I take a quick glance and notice that my dish would have cost $4.75 after 11 am or on weekends. The coffee is listed at a mysterious $1.22. How did they come up with that price? The brown tones make the place a bit gloomy, but maybe that's preferred for night time. There is also a liquor bar at the back and the menu is far from being limited to breakfast.

When my food comes, it surely is one of the most stereotypical greasy soon meals I've had so far. The eggs and bacon are o.k., but the potatoes are quite mushy. (And, no, they are not supposed to be mashed potatoes, they are advertised as home fries.) I also try the baked beans. These are very distinctly sweet and sour, and therefore not my favorite, but that is a personal preference. The toast came with 2 portions of jam, but peanut butter is gladly added to my plate upon request and without extra charge. Refills for the coffee are included as well, of course. It is time to pay and I ask the waitress whether to pay her or at the front. She replies that she can do cash at the table, but for Interac I would have to come to the front. I opt for cash. Now I understand the weird price for the coffee! With the breakfast special and tax, it comes out to a catchy $4.99.

Frieda's Place

My original plan for today was to check out the Rockton Cookhouse. Good reviews on the internet and opening hours varyingly quoted as early as 8am. But when I arrive at the door today, it clearly states that it is closed Mondays and Tuesdays (first strike against me, today is Monday) and opens 11am on all other days (second strike against me, no way they are serving breakfast that late...). My fall-back is a place that I had spotted when I grabbed a breakfast sandwich from "Country Style" the other day. Right next door is a family restaurant called "Frieda's Place", but it only opens at 7am and was hence still closed at the time. Today my timing is better and I enter Frieda's Place (210 Pinebush Rd, Cambridge, near Franklin Blvd & Hwy 401, 519-740-8880) shortly before eight. I am the only customer, but that will change over the next half hour.

This outfit is somewhere between a restaurant and a cafeteria. You order your food (take-out or eat-in) at one end of the counter and pay for it right away. The woman speaks your order into a microphone, but the kitchen is so close by that her voice is more audible from the kitchen speaker than from across the counter. When your food is ready, it will be put onto the far end of the counter and yelled out, this time without P.A. system. Condiments and cutlery are yours to grab from a table on the side and when you are done it appears you are expected to sort your dishes properly at the station in the middle of the restaurant. Saves you the worry about whether a tip would have been in order... I choose my usual two eggs over-easy with bacon, home fries and (brown) toast, plus a coffee. Pricing is an interesting affair around here. The "2 eggs etc." are listed for $5.85, but only if you order them after 11 am in this "all day breakfast" joint. Before 11am they go for $3.95. But that is not yet the special! The special is this same dish for $3.50 7am to 11am Mon-Fri. Bacon version only, if you trust the take-out menu or all versions (bacon, sausage, ham) if you trust the menu board above the counter.

I also would like some coffee, the price of which is nowhere to be found, take-out or eat-in. Having paid $5.42 for my meal including coffee and taxes and assuming I got the price for the special, I can calculate back the coffee price to be $1.30. The mugs and two coffee pots on hotplates are occupying the midsection of the counter for self-service. It is o.k. to get refills, as the friendly woman behind the counter points out, relieving me from a potentially awkward situation.

I find myself a table by the window and wait for the yelp indicating that my food is ready. I am handed two plates across the counter, one with the fries, eggs and bacon and one containing the toast. No spread. Catching the tense look in my eyes, the woman behind the counter points to the ketchup next to the cutlery on a table to the side. I inquire about peanut butter instead, but she does not have any. Rather she is referring me to two baskets on the counter, indicating that she has 'marmalade and strawberry'. She skips the 'orange' before the 'marmalade' and the 'jam' after the 'strawberry', but luckily I know my spreads by now. I hesitatingly put one portion of jam on my plate, waiting for her to announce the extra charge, but she just smiles silently. I take all my courage together and grab a second portion, but she just keeps smiling and lets me walk away without extra charge. Nice people around here!

Back at the table, I inspect my bounty. The home fries are once again a misnomer, except this time they have been deep fried. But they are of the little cube variety that you can buy frozen in a bag. They also taste accordingly. They accompany the meal just fine, but clearly not what I would call "home" fries. Eggs are good and the (almost too) crispy bacon strips round out the main part of the meal. A solid breakfast overall, I guess, but probably not their specialty. They brag about their Greek food on the menu.

Harbour Diner

Today the target was the Harbour Diner (905- 523-7373; http://www.harbourdiner.com/) on 486 James Street North in a residential neighborhood a few blocks from the Hamilton Waterfront. It has good reviews, so let's see whether it can live up to the hype! They open at 8 am every day and serve breakfast until 11 am during the week and 2 pm on weekends. At around 10 am on a Sunday there is no line-up, but all tables are taken. So the business is healthy. The place reminds of a refurbished house that has been furnished and decorated with items from various garage sales. The wallpaper is, well, colorful. A model ship sits atop a bookshelf without books, an old scale from some general store sits atop the cooler with milk and juice cartons. There is space for a few people at the bar, but the room is filled with random chairs and tables of various sizes that give the place flexibility and character. The walls are further decorated with dramatic harbour view photographs.

While I am waiting for my table to get ready the power goes out. I feel sorry for everyone (including myself) who's food is not out of the kitchen yet. Other patrons react as well, but the waitress calms everybody down: "Don't worry, this happens all the time. It's the toaster!" Sure enough, the power comes back shortly after and business continues as usual. The neighborhood is in a transformation from poor to rich and currently going through the 'artists-are-still-able-to-afford-living-here'-stage. The Harbour Diner reflects this. Not a rough'n'tumble crowd, but the prices are actually quite affordable. The utterly decent coffee (bottomless) goes for $1. My standard option (2 eggs with bacon, 'The Harbour') would have come to $4, but for Sunday brunch I feel a little bit more peckish and choose the 'Midship' (2 eggs, bacon AND sausage AND country ham, home fries, toast) for $6. Very reasonable! Eggs overeasy as usual, rye toast.

The coffee came swiftly but the food is taking its time. Now two of the waitresses are in a race, the outcome of which will determine whether I will get my food first or a refill of my near-empty coffee cup. The food arrives first by a few seconds. The plate is decorated with one (!) raspberry, a quarter slice of pineapple and a slice of grapefruit. But the decoration looks too fresh to just leave it on the plate and the refreshment is much appreciated. The 'home fries' are a bit of a misnomer since they have never seen a deep fryer or frying pan in their life. They are oven roast potatoes, done quite well with some seasoning. Eggs are o.k. and accompanied with a generous pile of meat: 2 strips of bacon, 2 breakfast sausages and a good chunk of lean ham. The (rounded) rye toast tastes fresher than average and is nicely buttered. It is accompanied by a single portion of jam. When I ask for peanut butter instead, a portion of peanut butter is delivered to the table swiftly. The jam stays, and I end up eating both (no extra charge for that...). Overall an enjoyable meal, so far the best effort at potatoes. If it only wasn't raining outside so heavily. I don't have an umbrella and get home soaked. (No, for once I did not drive.)

Texas Country Restaurant II

I have driven past this place many times, and I have always been wondering about it. Even though it is located at the reasonably busy intersection on Highways 8 and 5 (known as Peter's Corners - nothing to do with me), nobody ever seems to stop. There is this small restaurant right next to a Sunoco gas station, but clearly separate from it, as the concrete bars dividing the parking lot clearly indicate. It was probably conceived as a truck stop, but the parking lot division makes it distinctly unfriendly to 18-wheelers. In either case probably mostly local truck traffic, away from the freeway. The sign by the road says "Texas Country Restaurant II" whereas the sign on the building itself still reads "Texas Country Restaurant". (905-628-9925) At some point it must have risen from the ashes of its predecessor.

Looks empty just before nine on a Friday morning, but I'll give it a try. A sign says "Open" and from the front door I can find out that they are open 7am to 4pm most days, except for 8am to 3pm on Sundays and 8am to 2pm on holidays. Late risers beware! I also learn that "no outside food or drinks permitted" and "Washrooms are for customers only!!" The location would make it a tempting rest stop for families on the weekend... Since I have no intention of violating any of these rules I fearlessly enter the restaurant, where I am directed to seat myself. The interior gives the restaurant a feel somewhere between a truck stop and a country diner. There is a take-out counter and 3 sections of mostly bench-style seating, 2 of which are closed. I am the only customer and easily snatch a window seat.

The friendly but solemn waitress comes over to bring me the menu and to ask whether I care for any beverage. Since it is too early for beer I choose coffee. According to the menu coffee or tea are included in any of the breakfast items (except kids corner and breakfast sandwiches) if ordered before 10am. Interestingly, the 'kids corner' shares the last page of the menu with the liquor, beer and wine section. Strange combination... Well, I better pick some food because here the waitress comes back with my coffee and some cutlery. The breakfast sandwiches strike me as an interesting idea, I guess they are competing with the fast food chains. Or maybe the sandwiches are more popular for take out: Imaging trying to control an 18-wheeler while fiddling with eggs overeasy and loose bacon strips! But I crave for something more homely since I am not in a rush.

Let's skip the omelettes and French toast (in a Texas-style restaurant, shouldn't this be called 'Freedom toast'?) and go for the good old eggs and bacon. See how they compare. In Texas everything is bigger, so one or two eggs aren't even an option (except maybe in the kiddie corner - I forgot to check the age limit on that). In this section of the menu all entrees start with "3 farm fresh eggs with..." O.k. then, overeasy with bacon (4 strips according to the menu), home fries and brown toast. ($6.95) The toast of course is 'Texas toast'. Rye is not an option. Strange, didn't I have a rye Texas toast elsewhere before? But this place is not very busy. Who knows how often they would sell a rye toast, and how well-aged it would be by the time I order it.

Unsurprisingly, since I am the only customer, I do not have to wait long for my food. The toast comes with a portion of jam and a portion of marmalade. Quiz question: Which fruits form the base of each? - See one of the earlier blog entries for the correct answer. When I request peanut butter instead, the waitress has to give it a pass. But she agrees to trade the marmalade portion for a second portion of jam. The eggs look like overeasy eggs should look and taste good too. The bacon strips are of the regular kind (i.e. not exactly texas-style!), but nice and crispy. The chunks of potato presenting themselves as home fries are crispy and flavourful (although nothing exotic). They are not burnt, however, I might add. (At one time I would have taken this for a given, but recent experiences taught me otherwise.) While I work on my meal, a take-out customer gets 2 coffees and an order of toast. Otherwise no other patrons in sight.

When I am almost finished (still working on the buttered toast & jam), the waitress finally stops by to clear my main plate. She asks how everything is, but the gapingly empty plate answers the question. She seems hesitant to offer me a coffee refill for my very empty cup, but I gladly accept. I try to strike up a conversation about this place not being busy, but of course this is a sore topic that does not resonante well with the waitress. She says something about it being quite busy on the weekends and everybody suffering from the recession. It seems unfortunate that they are struggling since their food is quite good and they would sure deserve more customers. I know of a few places with worse food that are bustling with people... (Without pointing to specific blog entries!) The price of $6.95 seems Texas-sized at first, but if you consider the third egg, the thicker toast and that it includes coffee in the morning, it is actually quite reasonable. Once they iron out little glitches like not stocking peanut butter, skimping on the coffee refills or giving change in a tip-unfriendly way (I had to dig into my wallet to find the right coins), they deserve to be busy all week long.

Country Style (near 401 & Franklin)

This morning it was early (before 7am) and I was in a rush. Not too many options, and probably the right time to start delving into fast food chains for breakfast options. I had seen "Country Style" coffee outlets in gas stations, but now for the first time I entered one of their full-size restaurants. The location at 210 Pinebush Road in Cambridge (near the Frankin Blvd. exchange of the 401; 519-620-3860; for corporate website of the chain check out http://www.countrystyle.com/) was conveniently located and so I gave it a try. I will later be assured by the friendly lady behind the counter that they open at 5 am every morning. I resist the temptation of using the drive-thru in the pouring rain because I want to check out the inside of the place. It is your typical fast food joint with bolted-down vandal-resistant furniture etc.

I am drawn to the side of the counter that has the advertising for the 4 types of breakfast sandwiches over top. The friendly lady in uniform prepares my choice of sandwich (sausage, egg & cheddar) right in front of me: the sausage and egg patties go together into the microwave for a little warm-up while the English muffin (?) halfs get tossed into the toaster. I'm not actually sure this is an English muffin, and I don't think they ever claim it is, but it sure looks like it is supposed to look like one. When the two patties are warm, they get stacked on top of each other and a slice of cheese goes on top as well. When the sandwich halves make it out of the toaster the stack is completed and a breakfast sandwich was created right in front of my eyes! I choose to combine it with a (medium size) coffee and pay $3.75 after tax (tip not expected - refill not expected either), which is certainly cheap although not exactly a large meal. Too late do I notice the board above the far other end of the counter offering a breakfast bagel. That could have been an interesting option! Too late. Even later I notice that they have a different special every day and my combo would have been even cheaper if I had only waited a day. Thursday was BLT special day. What agony! Better to focus on the motto written on my coffee cup: "country style - it's going to be a good day." I step outside into the rain and drive off.

Now about the coffee and the food. Thankfully the sandwich is not greasy, that makes it a lot easier to eat on the side, and the simple paper wrapping is perfectly adequate. Coffee is quite decent too. It is double-cupped and with the type of lid that opens up to let you sip off the rim of the actual cup. Why can nobody bring the two warring sides together when it comes to take-out paper cups? I like the sleeves better than the double-cupping, but prefer the style lid (like Tim Hortons or Country Style) that lets you sip on the cup rather than having this small hole in the plastic lids that always seem to come with sleeved cups. In either case, coffee is nothing to complain about. The sandwich is o.k. The sausage patty has flavor (although a significant part of that flavor seems to come from salt), the egg, cheese and bun are inoffensive and keep me filled up longer than I had expected. I will try the other fast food chains eventually, but for obvious reasons there is no need to go to more than one location per chain. If you desire, you can usually find their other locations from their corporate websites.

VIP Restaurant (Visitors Inn)

The Visitors Inn on 649 Main Street West in Hamilton (905-529-6979, http://www.visitorsinn.com/) is the closest hotel to McMaster University, although still at a bit of a distance. Like most hotels it has a built-in restaurant where the guests can have breakfast, lunch and dinner. The restaurant is also open to the public, but on this Wednesday morning shortly after 8 we are the only patrons in the VIP restaurant which is also heavily featured on the hotel website (http://www.visitorsinn.com/dining.html).

Starting at 7am daily, a variety of items are on offer, headed up by a Continental Buffet (i.e. no hot items) for $6.95 and "The Traditional", a combo of 2 eggs any style, bacon, ham or sausage, home fries and toast for $7.95. That's fairly steep, given that this type of dish goes for half the price just a few blocks down the road. So it better be 'gourmet' if they want to compete and attract anybody other than innocently lost tourists. So "The Traditional" is what I order (over-easy, bacon, whole wheat), together with some coffee ($1.35 bottomless). Assorted spreads (honey, jam, marmalade, peanut butter) are in a bowl on the table.

When the food arrives, the toast comes with two little portions of butter on the side. This could be lauded because maybe somebody doesn't want the toast buttered or wants to adjust the amount of butter on each slice, but by the time I get around to spreading it on my toast, the toast has cooled down and the butter sits on top instead of soaking in. The main plate is your average "2 eggs etc." fare. They tried to flavor up the home fries, but the fries ended up a bit soggy and partially burnt. Eggs and bacon are good, but not outstanding. So don't get me wrong, it's not bad food. But at that price? Sure, they probably pay more lease than the greasy spoon down the road, so they can't compete on price. This means they need to beat out the competition on quality. Which they don't. Too bad. The service is good.

C. C Restaurant Family Style

There are quite a few breakfast places located along highway 8 as it makes its way through Cambridge. One of them is "C. C Restaurant Family Style". (246 King St. E, intersection with Eagle St., Cambridge, 519-650-8118) Don't ask me why there is a dot after the first C but not after the second C. I also don't know the difference between a family restaurant and a restaurant family style. But it looks promising and the door sign lists opening hours from 7am during the week and from 8am on Sundays. Not bad. The restaurant has 2 entrances from the parking lot on either side and I happen to enter into a smaller part of the restaurant that is set apart from the main space by its slightly more inviting decor (i. e. a tad less drab). A few other patrons are sitting in the main part of the restaurant, but I settle down right here.

The Asian guy taking care of the customers comes right over to bring me a menu and opens the window blinds in this part of the restaurant so I can look outside. This gives me time to order coffee and look over the two pages of the laminated and well-worn menu. 2 eggs with bacon, home fries and toast normally go for $4.40, but are on special for $3.20 weekdays before 11:30am. Coffee is $1.30. I request overeasy for the eggs and bacon (instead of sausage or ham), but the waiter does not offer me a choice for toast. I don't ask, because I assume that he knows what he is doing. If they only have one type of toast, or the other types are not recommended for whatever reason, I am just happy to take whatever they think they do best. Coffee comes right away and also the food does not take too long. The plating is clean and simple. A twisted slice of orange decorates the main plate. The plate with (white) toast also carries one portion of spread. I ask him whether I could get peanut butter instead. He agrees and turns to go, but comes back to grab the provided spread before going to replace it with one portion of peanut butter. What bugs me is that it is only one portion and he did not leave the original stuff around. I also did not catch what the original offering was because it was flipped upside down, and curiosity is burning now. Oh, well!

The strips of bacon are long and very evenly crisp. They also taste good. The overeasy eggs are runnier that in most places, but still near perfect. The fries have been flavor enhanced with some secret mixture that is still slightly visible in the coating. Nice! I like them. Except maybe that they are a bit on the dry and dense side inside. Finally I decide that the slice of orange is probably just decoration. So they did take it very seriously to provide a tasty main dish. I speculate that it has to do with a shift in priorities between cultures. Decoration of restaurant - expensive and not important, as long as is clean. Limitless condiments - far too expensive and people don't appreciate. Constantly bugging customers with coffee refills and questions whether everything is fine - annoying. Taste of food - veeeery important.

I watch the Asian guy interact with other customers (presumably regulars). He praises the German Autobahn where you can drive your car without speed limit. He seems to be running this place all by himself (although there must be somebody working in the kitchen, I don't get to see them). He makes an honest and hardworking impression. Eager to do a good job and please people, but also hard on everyone, especially himself. I imagine that if I give him a good tip he will probably put it into a savings account to pay for the education of his kids. Oh, am I getting sucked into thinking in stereotypes! But I like the guy, so I don't feel bad. I just wished he would come by and offer me some more coffee. He only approaches my table again when I am done with my meal and push my plate away. His timing suggests that he was watching me very well, but didn't want to disturb me. Why else would I sit in the far end of the restaurant? He comes over with a smile and offers me a refill of coffee, which I gratefully accept. He reassures himself that I am really done and grabs the main plate, but disapprovingly looks at the half slice of toast that is remaining on the side plate and leaves it for me to finish. (I don't. I'm out of peanut butter and don't care enough for sparingly buttered white toast to finish it by itself.)

I continue to read and sip the coffee refill. It is hot. Normally I would just drink half of it and then jump up and pay because I have an appointment coming up. But this guy somehow guilt-tripped me into finishing my coffee, which takes a while because it is so hot and will later on make me 2 minutes late for my appointment. The moment I start packing my stuff I hear the cash register ring. Once again he did not want to rush or bother me until I signal that I am ready. Usually you get this kind of service only in expensive European restaurants - impressive. (Although in the case of the coffee refill I would have preferred the less classy route.) I pay my bill of $5.06 and also give him $1 tip. I want to know from him who "C. C" is, and he tells me that's his mother, who owns the place. "She's the boss."

Rising Dough Scottish Bakery & Coffee Shop

Today I wanted to follow up on a few leads for breakfast places in Cambridge that I had found on the internet, but as you surely know not all information on the internet is true or up to date. No “Patricia Rose” family restaurant was to be found at 230 Clyde Rd, unless this was really referring to somebody's private kitchen. No trace of “Schooners Fish & Chips” at 383 Elgin St N either. So I wasn't too hopeful about my last lead, the “Rising Dough Scottish Bakery” on 927 King St. I had driven by that address many times, and never noticed any sign of life early in the morning... Today I almost missed the place again, the street number seemed to belong to a Giant Tiger Superstore. I nevertheless turned into the parking lot, noticing a sign pointing me to the “Rising Dough Bakery & Coffee Shop”. Well then, it has to be here somewhere. Through a back entrance I finally find my way to an unassuming bake shop inside a stone building directly on King Street. (open 7:30 am, closed on Sundays, 927 King St., Cambridge, 519-650-2774)

When I enter, I find myself in a different world. It is quite lively in here, the place is packed and I can barely secure a table to sit. I do get a few surprised looks, mind you. Everybody else appears to be a regular, and from the looks of it they have all known each other well for at least 60 years. No need to put the breakfast menu in writing then. Just notices offering tickets for ceilidhs and to the Highland Games. A white board lists the prices of various pies and pastries, including haggis pie and other Scottish specialties. Not a trace of breakfasty stuff, except for the Wednesdays senior special of a scone and a coffee for $1.75. I turn to the shop assistant behind the counter and inquire what's good for breakfast. I must have been the first person in a long time to ask this question, she looks at me as if she hasn't heard this question in years (although she is much younger than the regulars). Well, a scone with butter and jam then, she suggests. Sure, I'll take that. Yes, and some coffee, please. Black. Actually, make that two scones. Comes out to $3.45. I pay right at the counter (seems like all the regulars get to pay when they leave, but who knows what I am up to), receive my coffee and settle at that last free table.

When folks break up at one of the other tables, they say “See yer tomorrow!” and stop by other tables on their way out to say “Hello!” to their friends. Soon the shop assistant brings the two scones, cut open and spread with butter and a generous helping of tasty but sweet and very sticky jam. Soon I need to go and grab some napkins from the counter, but the jam is so sticky that the napkins only have a moderate effect. (It doesn't help on the way out that the bathroom doesn't have soap.) Nevertheless the delicious raisin scones go well with the jam and butter. I enjoy my breakfast (coffee is o. k., nothing to write home about) and study the decoration of the place. Memories of Glasgow come back with the signs explaining various expressions of the Glaswegian Patter (local dialect). You can also buy magnets with the Scottish flag or imported cookies and candies. A little haven away from home for all the good old Scottish folks around here.

West Town Bar & Grill

It's a Saturday morning and my wife is craving 'greasy spoon' breakfast. An old favorite of ours is the West Town Bar & Grill (214 Locke Street South, Hamilton, 905-570-1412, http://www.thewesttown.ca/). It opens at 7:30am every day and serves breakfast until 11:30 on weekdays and 2pm on weekends. Locke street is a happening neighborhood and this is the biggest bar/pub in the area. The space has visibly been cobbled together from 3 former businesses, which adds to the character. The walls are decorated with old musical instruments and photos. One poster promises $100 to anybody who is willing to emigrate to California. (I wonder whether the offer still stands...)

We select a table and choose from the menu while a waitress provides us with coffee and cutlery. My wife opts for a Greek omelet, but I pick my usual 2 eggs over-easy, bacon, rye toast and home fries. With 2 eggs, this sets me back $5.49, but I would also have had the option of only one egg for $4.99. On the kids menu the one egg option goes for only $4.59, but there are probably less toast and fries included. Also, I'm not allowed to order from the kids menu because I am visibly over 10 years old. Our food comes soon and the eggs are rich in flavor and just right. The bacon is in the conventional strip format, but well prepared. And finally some home fries with character! Well, I don't spot any herbs, but they definitely have flavor. Unfortunately, some of it was acquired by spending too much time on the griddle, so I have to leave some smaller charred pieces on the side. The plate is decorated with a wedge of orange, but that disappears towards the other side of the table before I can blink. Overall an enjoyable meal.

Studying the menu, I had noticed that coffee costs $1.79, one refill only! When the waitress stops by and offers to top up my wife's half-empty coffee cup, I caution my wife that there is only one refill according to the menu. The waitress rolls her eyes and assures us that she has no intention of enforcing it, none of her coworkers do, no idea why it says that on the menu. Another interesting note on the menu is that jam, jelly, peanut butter etc. is $0.29 each, with the first two being free. How do they enforce this? There is a well-assorted bowl with spreads on the table for self-service - maybe this is just a backup to be able to deal with obnoxious customers, just in case. It is possible that over the years they have seen it all, but apparently the average customer has nothing to fear from the friendly staff. So let's not hold it against them. The place bills itself as a pub, but it is definitely family friendly and there are a large number of families with kids enjoying their breakfast. Greasy spoon at its best.

Mel's Diner on Campus

If you want to have breakfast really early in the morning (let's say before 6am), the choices are limited. Today the saving grace was a place called Mel's Diner near the campus of the University of Waterloo (Campus Court, unit 7, 140/150 University Avenue West, Waterloo, 519-888-7982). They are open 7am to 10pm Mon-Wed, and then from 7am Thu through to 10pm Sun. So on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, you can have your breakfast really early! They made a big effort to make this place look like a true 50's style diner. Neon signs, music box with curves, bubbles and lights, Elvis pictures, movie posters (fitting: Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's"), a crate of old Coca Cola bottles, etc. In case you wonder about the name of the place, it was probably borrowed from the movie "American Graffiti", a poster of which is prominently on display. I choose to have my breakfast at the bar.

The waitress supplies me with a paper place mat, cutlery and a laminated breakfast menu. I settle on "3 fresh farm eggs with Texas toast, home fries and a choice of bacon..." ($6.99) - bacon it is, eggs over easy. I can have a 'rye Texas toast'? Didn't know that combination existed, but I guess Texas toast just means thick and square. No particular need for a rye toast to have round edges... Coffee is served swiftly (average quality, $1.50 bottomless), and I painfully learn that the bar stools don't move. When my food comes, the plate is decorated with 1 portion of strawberry jam, and the waitress whizzes off to serve other customers before I can say 'peanu...' So I start by enjoying my eggs (indeed on the delicious, rich side of the spectrum, perfectly done & runny on the inside), bacon (regular strips, but nice'n'crispy and a generous helping) and fries (boring little things, but properly done, slightly crispy, not greasy and nothing to complain about).

A momentary power blackout destroys my hopes for a coffee refill and peanut butter. It lasted less than a second, but now the waitress is racing around rebooting all the computers. She is still taking orders and manually forwarding to the kitchen, but people who want to pay have to wait for the system(s) to come back up. Somehow I still manage to get some peanut butter out of her in the middle of all this, but my coffee refill has to wait until she is happy with the status of the computers and starts racing around the joint offering coffee refills to everybody. I look around and realize that I missed a menu item which was not on the laminated version, but finds itself on the blackboard next to the kitchen: "Mel's fav, $3.99, 2 eggs, bacon, ..." 2 eggs would have been enough, but why the $3 price difference for 1 egg? O.k., this one does not promise 'farm fresh', but I would think they use the same eggs for all dishes. Maybe there was a subtle difference in the sides.

I also notice that they have a competition on, for people to master the "Godfather", a 3 pound burger for which you have 90 minutes to finish it (no take-outs!), after which you will get a T-shirt and your photo goes up on the wall. Looks like most people fail, according to the count. Not sure what the punishment is for loosers, except for the shame of the moment. All in all a fun place, obviously geared towards students during the evening and night. Excellent breakfast joint nevertheless.

Tammy's Place

At the far end of Dundas, at the end of town, just before Hwy 8 winds up "The Mountain", there has been a breakfast place since 1984, called "Tammy's Place". (338 King St. W, Dundas, 905-628-4343) A sign at the door proclaims the opening hours to be 6:30am to 2pm Tue-Sat, 8am to 2pm Sun, closed Monday. The menu still list more generous hours from a time past, but I am told the new hours are here to stay. The interior of the place is simple and clean, but decidedly 'country' with rustic light wood furniture and plenty of wood in the decoration. Service is quick and friendly once I enter the place, but at 6:40 in the morning I am also the first customer of the day. It will get busy later, at around 7:30. Coffee comes quickly and is refilled throughout. The menu is on the table and contains all the usual suspects for breakfast, plus lunch items and a children's menu. While the regular breakfast menu list no such restrictions, children's breakfast is apparently only served until 11:30am on weekdays. I order 2 eggs over-easy with bacon, home fries and rye toast for $7.50 and notice that the coffee is included in the price. So it is not quite as steep as it initially sounds.

While I am waiting for my food, I pursue my new-found hobby of studying the jam basket on the table. It is stocked with honey, peanut butter and some other items. And here it gets interesting. We have 'strawberry jam', 'orange marmalade' and 'grape jelly'. So there are proper names for everything. What was the 'jam-like preparation' about at the other place last week? Everybody else seems to be serving the real stuff! Maybe I can put this to rest now, but I resolve to comment on anybody serving funny stuff in the future. Gladly those guys are so far in the minority.

When my food comes it is immediately clear that the chef at Tammy's made an effort to justify the somewhat higher price. Finally some home fries with extra flavor. Presumably a hefty dose of Hungarian paprika. Not quite what I had in mind when I wished for this the other day, but I appreciate the effort. The bacon also has a special touch. First of all it is not in the usual stip form. Secondly, it seems to have been cooked before frying, giving it some deeper flavor than one would usually expect. Again, not my absolute favorite, but a much appreciated effort at making breakfast special. The eggs are very good and overall I have to rate this as an enjoyable experience. Once again, refills past bill time and a staff that makes an effort.

Veno's Cafe

There is a tiny hole-in-the-wall type place in the Preston area of Cambridge that caught my eye with its advertisement of a breakfast wrap. Not a bad idea to try something else for a change! So I made use of the still amply available free parking along King St. (I am sure this changes later in the day....) and entered Veno's Cafe (763 King St. E, Cambridge, 519-219-1133). Luckily it was already past 8am, because that is when they open. They close at 5pm (so clearly no dinner here!) and stay closed on Sundays (good for the owner, unfortunate for potential guests). Stepping inside, the place is tiny. Space for 10 people to sit. A counter on top of an ice cram cooler, a cabinet with a selection of fair trade coffees for sale. A minute kitchen in the back. Truly a one-woman operation. Later the owner will put a folding table and 2 chairs on the sidewalk, thus boosting capacity by 20%! The inspiration for layout and design clearly came from a painting of a coffee shop in a far-away place that is hanging on one of the walls.

The menu board list two breakfast items (apart from muffins): a $4.75 wrap with 3 eggs, bacon, cheese, bell pepper and onions in a tortilla and a $3.50 sandwich with an egg, cheese and bacon. I order the wrap and a coffee at the counter and sit down at the table by the window. Soon a plate with my wrap arrives, also sporting a disposable plastic tub with some (presumably home-made) salsa and a disposable paper tub with some sour cream for dipping. When the coffee is brought I double-check with the owner: $1 for a good-sized mug of fair trade coffee?!? How is that possible? Well, apparently the coffee company is owned by her husband and so she can get a good price. I am also told that she has only had this place for a month, so I strongly suspect that this is just the introductory price and will not last. The coffee is tasty, so is the wrap with the dips. The meal turns a bit messy though, so I get myself a napkin from the counter. (no utensils or napkins come with the food...)

I stay on a bit for some reading while sipping my coffee. I can observe that the place is not very busy (3 customers in just under 1 hour), but the resonance from the few customers that do come in is very positive. Finally, I go back up to the counter to pay and chat a bit more. They are still working out the wrinkles of running this place and I wish them success in the future. I buy another cup of coffee in a paper cup to take along the way and leave a decent tip (probably not necessarily expected in a coffee shop). At that price and good quality...

Galt View

The Galt View restaurant caught my eye on the roadside of Hwy 8 (Galt section of Cambridge, 693 Coronation Avenue, just down the road from Babcock & Wilcox, tel. 519-621-5686) because of the sign they have out proclaiming to have the "Best breakfast in town!" I did try to eat there before, but I arrived around 6:40 in the morning and everything was closed down. Since there was no sign whatsoever at or near the door, neither 'open' nor 'closed' nor anything indicating the opening hours I started wondering whether this place maybe had closed down. Today, however, I was in better luck since I arrived after 7am and upon entering was greeted by a sign suggesting that I seat myself. So I did. The restaurant has a particular feel about it, the type of place that is usually attached to a hotel. But I had checked around the outside of the building before entering and I am quite sure there is no hotel in sight. The other parallel coming to mind to the type of very functional interior you often find in Eastern European restaurants.

The menu somewhat confirmed that suspicion. In addition to all the regular fare, the two pages of breakfast items also include house specialties such as liver & eggs or Polish sausage & eggs. Ah! I decide on their breakfast special of 2 eggs, bacon, toast and fries, which goes for $3.99 on a weekday between 7am and 12 noon. (There comes the clue at when they open!) Also implies that it would be perfectly o.k. to order breakfast in the afternoon, just a dollar more expensive, same as on a weekend. Over-easy is my request for the eggs, and for toast the choices are white and brown. Brown it is for me. The waitress splits her time between serving the customers scattered throughout the restaurant and preparing stuff in the back, maybe place settings for lunch. So she gets around to everything eventually, but you are not being watched with an eagle eye. When the food arrives I notice 2 things right away (apart from the pleasant plating): The good news is that the bacon does not have the usual strip shape. (Is it going to be real good?) The bad news is that they seem to be short on jam (and yes, it does say Strawberry Jam), only one container decorates the side of the plate. When I ask to trade it against peanut butter, however, two portions arrive and join the jam. So they are not as stingy as it initially looked. Good.

The bacon and eggs are delicious and flavorful, well above average. What makes these eggs taste richer and creamier that most? And why are the better-tasting eggs always accompanied by irregular-shaped and tastier bacon? (Note to self: edit entry for Sammy's to point out flavor of eggs.) Given this extra effort it seems odd that the chef played it safe on the fries. To be sure, the fries are good. Chunks cut from real potatoes and fried crispy. Clean. Not too greasy. No intense flavors. But after seeing liver & eggs on the menu and tasting the eggs and the bacon, wouldn't I have expected grandmothers home fries with the secret mix of herbs, spices, onions, etc.? Well, maybe then it would have been harder to hit the mainstream taste and win 'Best breakfast' awards from the local newspaper so many times, as witnessed by the plaques on the wall. Coffee on the side is good and occasionally refilled, including at bill time. ($1.65 bottomless; I noticed that they also sell their own labeled blend by the pound.)

Russell Williams

Russell Williams is a family restaurant on 20 Plains Road E (near intersection with Waterdown Rd which leads to the Aldershot GO station) in Burlington, and has been that way reportedly since 1932. They open for breakfast every day at 6:30 am and on weekends you better be ready for a big line-up. Mid-morning on a Monday there is still a fair crowd, but several tables are available and a sign in front tells you to seat yourself. The service is warm, friendly, accommodating, unrushed. One page of their menu is dedicated to "All Day Breakfast" and all the important items are there (eggs, omelets, French toast, Belgian waffles, pancakes, etc.). Two eggs over easy with bacon, home fries and toast clock in at $5.20, but they are on special today for $4.95. When the waitress offers me choices for eggs and toast I pick my usual 'over easy' and 'rye', but I hesitate when she asks "Home fries o.k.?" Even though in the end I will want the home fries I curiously ask what the alternatives are, but the list was far to long for me to remember any of it. Sure indication, however, that the breakfast choices are not limited to the one page of the menu, but can be customized ad libitum.

Bottomless coffee is served, of course, but when the bill comes at the end I have to check back with the waitress why she didn't charge me $1.40 for the coffee. Turns out it's included with breakfast before 11am. Now this just made this the cheapest breakfast so far, and I will be investing my savings into a generous tip. The coffee is of the average quality you find at family breakfast places, but the quality of the food certainly rates above average. I enjoy the home fries and the plentiful bacon together with my eggs. The toast came with 2 portions of strawberry jam, but now I have started reading the small print on these portions. This one indeed proclaims to be jam. I will continue to pay attention. Not that I was planning to eat the jam - my request for peanut butter is gladly if unhurriedly honored. After a few refills of coffee and a few pages of reading I receive my bill and unhurriedly pay at the cashier up front, then find my server to give her the tip (using the money I saved on the coffee).

Cora's (Ancaster)

I was excited when Cora's opened a francise nearby. They are a chain from Quebec and I really enjoyed repeated visits to their restaurants in Ottawa. Now they finally dared to venture further away from their roots. The Ancaster branch (in a plaza across from Fortinos on 73 Wilson Street West, Tel. 905-648-2672) opens at 6am during the week and at 7am on Sundays. I arrived mid-morning this Friday and had to face a line-up (not too bad at 10 min, but a warning of what this place must be like on the weekend). Luckily, the open kitchen is right next to the entrance and I could entertain myself by watching the preparation of the food. Surely nothing bad could come out of an open kitchen like this!

After being seated by the hostess at a small table with a paper place mat that doubles as a game board, my waitress stopped by without much delay. She brought the menu and offered to get me started with a drink (various juices, smoothies and other 'health drinks' made up the list, but she didn't mention coffee). I requested coffee (the menu lists it at $2.15, my most expensive coffee so far - that better be a huge bottom-less cup of organic fair-trade gourmet etc.!!). I didn't bother with juice since rumour has it (and the illustrations in the menu feed the rumor) that every plate comes with plenty of fruit. All the 'unhealthy greasy-spoon' stuff is hidden somewhere on a page towards the end of the very extensive menu sporting French toast, crepes, waffles, omelets and various fruit-heavy concoctions. Between colourful names and beautiful pictures of delicious foods I finally pinned down the desired combination of items, called "Jo Tabah": 2 eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, toast. ($7.35 + tax) The usual list of toasts is extended by a choice of English muffins, but I once again opt for rye. The waitress also offers to add onions or mushrooms to the potatoes and I decide to try the mushroom refinement (which found itself on my bill at $1.55).

The smallish-sized mug full of rather average tasting coffee arrived when my order was taken and had nothing organic or fair trade about it b.t.w., otherwise it would have been labeled as such in the menu. Just for the record, the waitress stopped by for one refill in the middle of my meal after I had emptied the cup. No refill was offered when the bill was brought. Between the size of the cup and the numbers of refills that was probably the smallest amount of coffee I had for breakfast so far, but also the most expensive coffee. The food arrived after what I would consider a normal amount of time. It was nicely plated, but largely devoid of fruit. A sliver of orange was lying by the side. In a more obscure place I would have considered it suspicious and left it on the plate, but in such a bright and friendly place with an open kitchen I dared to suck it out for its juice. The eggs (over-easy, as I requested) were good, although a bit heavy on the salt. That was my fault though, because I slipped with the salt shaker while discovering that my potatoes must have been stirred together from 2 batches: 1 batch looked rather dark as if re-fried from last night and the other batch looked rather pale, just barely short of still being raw. Both batches still tasted acceptable, but I was starting to wonder whether open kitchens really guarantee food quality. Everything was elevated by the addition of mushrooms, but the overall quality still didn't rise above average.

On the topic of peanut butter, a small, well-assorted plate of jams (Sorry, not jam - the small print says 'jam-style preparation' - I wonder what that entails?) and 1 portion of peanut butter was delivered with my food. When the server stopped by for the coffee refill I asked her for a second portion of peanut butter, which she took (with permission) from the small, well-assorted plate on a neighboring table. Am I glad those people didn't care about peanut butter. I sent over a grateful smile for them. While the waitress brings by the bill (to be paid to the cashier at the exit) I am left to ponder whether the disappointing (compared to my Ottawa experiences) quality of the food was the result of one of the cooks having a bad day or had to do more generally with the quality of the food at a branch restaurant being inversely proportional to the distance from headquarters. Or maybe I ticked them off by ignoring all the fancier items on the menu. Maybe I should give them a second chance some time. Oh, in case anybody cares, I did witness all the waitresses assembling and singing "Happy Birthday!" for one of the patrons. So you can have your birthday party here, just like at any other good family restaurant chain.

Java Fair (Dundas)

Java Fair moved a little while ago from a basement on King Street to a house on 12 Millers Lane (between King Street and Hatt Street) in downtown Dundas. The opening hours can be a bit frustrating (8 am to 3 pm Tue to Sat, closed Sun, Mon) and when we first moved into the area it took me months to convince my wife that they are ever open - we always managed to arrive when they were closed for one reason or the other. Nevertheless, I caught them when they were open this morning and it was a rewarding experience. When I entered, the place appeared empty, but quite a few customers were spread out over the back patio. There are no menues other than the board behind the counter. I ordered "The Java", which I guessed was their breakfast special of 2 eggs (over easy, I picked as usual), sausage and bacon (turned out to be 3 pieces each), plus toast (I picked rye.) and home fries for $6.99 (+tax). They serve organic coffee (back-calculated to $1.89 medium size after tax - there is a sign proclaiming that due to the high cost of organic coffee they cannot afford to offer refills), but my inquiry about the rest of the breakfast menu uncovered that there was nothing else organic or local about it. Too bad, this might be a worthwhile niche despite the extra cost.

When the food arrived, I have to say I was impressed. Bonus for presentation (well, for a place that otherwise looks rather informal), the bacon was crisp and everything was of very good quality. Not at all dripping with grease - nice and clean. No jam or condiments came with the food, but I was asked what I would like. My request for peanut butter was honored with a little ceramic jar full of it. Fresh and without the plastic wrapping - nice touch! The food was basically of the quality and presentation that I would strive for if I was practicing to serve breakfast to guests at home. So that makes it the closest to 'home-style breakfast' that it can get for me. Good coffee too. Although - just by the nature of the place I don't think they could handle crowds...

Maple Leaf Pancake House

The Maple Leaf Pancake House (open 6am - 3pm) on 1520 Main St. W. in Hamilton near the McMaster University main campus is reputed to have impossibly long lineups on the weekend, but the crowds on a Wednesday morning are moderate. A big sign near the counter insists that you wait there to be seated, but when the waiter finally comes out he just motions me to sit wherever I want, he'll be right with me. The menus are on the tables and flow over with traditional breakfast fare. (Waiter's face from across the room is a question mark as he is holding one thumb up and says “Coffee!” - Yes, I would like some!) I decide on “Maple Leaf Special #4”, i. e. 2 strips of bacon and 2 sausages with 2 eggs, toast and home fries. ($6.50) When the waiter takes my order (the chef and half the customers go by the name of “Buddy”, but I somehow qualify as “Friend”) he accepts my request of “over-easy” and rather suggestively says “Brown toast?” Was that something written in my face, that I look like a brown toast guy? When he repeats this with other customers after me, I am reassured that it's probably just something he is turning over in large volumes. In either case, brown toast is fine with me.

The guy is cheerful as he works the room, but in his own, peculiar way. Maybe he is the reason the place is packed on weekends? When the chef has my food ready, he has to point the waiter in my direction as to who it was for. Efficiency is not their specialty. But they sure are not stingy! There is an extra strip of bacon on the plate and when I ask for some peanut butter he generously (“Sure, my friend!”) adds 4 packets to the 3 packets of jam already on my plate. He occasionally comes by for coffee refills, (included in the $1.35 price) even after he as already cleared my plate and I am just sitting there reading. The food is good, solid breakfast fare. No frills, but I can see why they are not short of customers.

City Cafe Bakery (Cambridge)

The City Cafe Bakery is located on King Street in Cambridge right at the bridge over the Speed River, between the Preston core and the 401. They have a nice and friendly sign up on the street and it says that they open at 6:30am. Must be a breakfast place. When I walk in though, this place is a bit more on the unusual side. There are tables and a guy is sitting, reading the newspaper and eating breakfast. That's encouraging. What's discouraging is that I seem to be the only idiot who doesn't know how the system works. Several take-out clients whiz by me, grabbing items from shelves, paying cash and storming out before I finally realize that I will not be seated, not even asked what I would like to eat. The only people working the place are the two bakers. All the goods are lined up on shelves between me and them and when I am done collecting my meal I show it to them and give them cash for it. Then I will pick a table to sit down and eat (and maybe read one of the complementary newspapers).

Since I don't like my breakfast too sweet, I ignore all the tarts and donuts and other goodies and hit the croissant shelves and bagel baskets. The fresh baking smell numbs my brain and I load up a paper-napkin-lined basket with one croissant (they are huge!) and 2 bagels fresh from the oven (1 regular, 1 multi-grain). The eat-in price ($1.50 croissant, $1.25 bagel) includes a condiment each, but the selection of those is rather limited. No fancy spreads (unless I overlooked something), just little packages of Kraft's Philadelphia cream cheese and some jam. O. k. then, 2 plain cream cheeses for my bagels and 1 strawberry jam for the croissant. I find some plastic knifes and napkins in a corner, and also grab a large organic coffee ($2; a regular would have been $1.50) in a paper cup. I hand the baker $6 across the bagel baskets (tax included, no tip expected) and settle down. The bakers appear to be very friendly and cheerful guys, exchanging jokes amongst themselves and with regulars. I strike up a brief conversation that reveals that they have been doing this for 2 years, they boil their bagels for 60 seconds before they go into the big wood-fired oven in the center of the room and their pizza is a killer. So are the bagels and the croissant. I thoroughly enjoy my fresh breakfast (good coffee too), even though there is neither an egg nor any piece of meat or bacon in sight. (Still wonder whether they should do something about spreads...)

Egg & I (Hamilton, Upper James)

"Egg and I" (1760 Upper James, 905-574-4799, open at 6:30am) is a local chain of what are supposed to be ultimate breakfast restaurants. (there are 2 other locations: Stoney Creek and Ancaster) The place is fairly big, but quite busy on a Monday morning and my car is relegated to the back of the gravel lot. Inside it's 'seat yourself'. The service at this place is amazing. Friendly, fast, very efficient. I am still adjusting my chair, and I am already asked whether I would like coffee ($0.35 bottomless!! - must be the cheapest around) and whether I already know what I want or need a minute to look at the menu. The menu is right at hand, and I decide to take a look. Despite a wide variety of breakfast items I settle again on a simple "2 eggs over easy with bacon, home fries and rye toast". ($5.50 + tax) When I look up from the menu, my server is whizzing by, but stops dead in her tracks to take my order. I take a few sips from my coffee and another server who happens to pass by with a coffee pot in her hands immediately offers to refill it. Throughout my breakfast, my cup will never be less than 3/4 full.

I did not time it, but the food must have taken less than 5 minutes to arrive. There is no jam or peanut butter on the table, but the plate comes with two portions of strawberry jam. When my server zips by a minute later I ask her whether I could trade the jam for some peanut butter. She says "no problem, I prefer that myself" and gets me two portions of peanut butter within seconds. The jam stays on the plate. They are obviously not counting portions or trying to charge extra, but they must have experience with people stocking up with condiments left on the table. So far so good. The food itself, well, is o.k. The label 'inoffensive' comes to mind. Not something you would complain about or send back to the kitchen. But also not very exciting. Efficient. Consistent quality. Fast. Friendly service.

Locke Street Bakery

Looks like the beginning of my breakfast 'adventures' so far is littered with repeats of old time favourites. None of them really serve the ultimate gourmet breakfast, but they have good things going for them, so why not re-visit. Locke Street Bakery on (surprise!) Locke Street in Hamiton is essentially a bagel place with accessories. (open 6:30 am, except 7:00 am on Sat, Sun) Street parking was easy on a Friday early morning, the story is usually quite different on the weekend or later during the day. The place is swarming with regulars, and the staff gladly engages in friendly chatter.They are good at what they do best: bagels and cream cheese spreads, neighborhood meet & greet. They also serve Seattle's Best coffee. While they serve items other than bagels and coffee and while I have been here many times, I could not remember for the life of me what those items are. I think maybe bread and pizza are amongst the selections.

So, for bagels then, if you want a medium coffee ($1.62), and egg omelette on an onion bagel ($2.86) and an onion bagel with smoked salmon spread ($2.48, all plus tax, tip is optional) - as I had this morning - the wrong thing to do would be to straight get in line. The line is often long as the place is always bustling with eat in and take out customers, so this might be tempting but will lead to embarassment at counter. You are expected to first pick out the bagels of your choice from the well-assorted display baskets on the side and carry them to the cashier who will note your custom requests on the side of a sheet of wrapping paper, put your sliced bagel on the conveyer into toaster and with the other, ungloved hand operate the cash register and handle your change (cash only, I believe). If you pay for coffee you get a paper cup and sleeve. Self-service from the urns, including various roasts, flavors and decaf. I never figured out whether the cup is meant to be bottomless. I remember getting a refill on my first visit, but even though nobody said anything I was too embarrassed to ever try again.

Back to my food, I knew what to expect, their quality is very consistent. The egg omelet was o.k. (I said yes to the options for butter, tomato, salt & pepper), just simply some scrambled egg on a bagel without special tricks, but I had to have it since I am supposed to be writing about breakfast. I could have had bacon on it, or gotten the bacon and cheese bagel, but I decided to skip the bacon for the day since it is just the regular bacon you find elsewhere. The real winner are the bagel and cream cheese combinations. There is a good selection of yummy spreads, and I love the smoked salmon one so I made sure my second bagel was of that kind. Delicious! Coffee was good, as in coffee shop good (as I mentioned, Seattle's Best in consistent quality), not as in road side diner style. So I left with a happy stomach after a pleasant if slightly less conventional breakfast.

Sammy's Bar & Grill

This morning I picked Sammy's Bar & Grill in Ancaster (2 Cameron Drive off Wilson, 905-648-6756). I remember their bacon being yummier than most, so that keeps me ordering eggs over easy with bacon, even though their omelets were alo good whenever I tried them in the past. Lucky I was a bit late, because they only open at 8am during the week (9am Sun, Mon). Didn't think of that! From now on, will note for each place when they start & stop serving breakfast. This place has breakfast all day, so the end time is not an issue. While we have seen the place crazy busy on weekends, there were only a few customers on a Thursday morning just after opening. The service was swift and friendly. I ordered coffee ($1.55 bottomless) and 2 eggs over easy w/bacon, home fries, rye toast for $5.75. Add tax & tip to those numbers. The fries and toast I would call average good, something I wouldn't mind eating on a regular basis, but nothing special either. There is a selection of packed portions of jams, honey and peanut butter for free on each table. The bacon is definitely above average, don't know where they get it from since even the shape is a bit different. Maybe a local supplier - that would be a good thing... In either case, if all breakfast places were as good and pleasant as Sammy's, the world would be a better place. But it's not really gourmet.

P.S.: I should add that in addition to the bacon the eggs are also tastier than average. Not sure about the reason. Maybe again a question of supplier.

My Dog Joe

O.k., so today I wasn't really on the road, but here comes my first post. We went to our local favorite coffee shop, "My Dog Joe" on 1020 King Street West in Westdale, Hamilton (Tel. 905-777-8100, http://www.mydogjoe.com/). My review will be biased, because I have been there many times before. There is only one 'real' breakfast item on the menu (if you don't count several varieties of savory and sweet muffins), called 'Fritata'. It is 1/6 of a sort of Spanish omelet (including some veggie like zucchini or green asparagus, plus onions, herbs and some cheddar melted on top) in a flax seed bagel. I have eaten their fritatas since they started experimenting with them almost 2 years ago, and I have to say that the flax seed bagels are the best match and the current portion of omelet is just fine. I must have eaten 50+ fritatas over the last years and that in itself already shows that I think they are really good.

At My Dog Joe they put a big emphasis on buying organic and local ingredients for everything they offer in the shop. But don't expect to come to this place and eat something different every time. (I can't get used to their savory muffins, as much as my wife loves them. Their blueberry muffins are really good, but too sweet to be my thing when I'm really hungry.) In either case, breakfast totaled $5.50 for the fritata and $1.89 for a regular size coffee (choice of medium, dark or decaf - there is a discount for a refill), plus tax. Tip is not required, but we go often and I like the people working there. (One criticism I can offer is that they don't always brew their coffee consistently. We found out that it can taste even better if you buy a pack of coffee from them and brew it a bit stronger at home.) What should be mentioned about this place that they try to source organic and local as much as possible. Their coffee is all 'shade-grown, bird-friendly, fair-trade', etc. They also have free wireless internet access and try to offer a cool place to hang out (art on the walls, limited wine and beer for the evening, selection of soups, sandwiches and quiche for lunch, character pieces for chairs and tables). Highly recommended, except during exam time when it is hopelessly clogged with students.