Thursday, March 24, 2011

An ode to the diner breakfast, or family restaurant

There is a Tumblr called BKFST and it represents just about everything good and meaningful in the world. 







This blog inspired me to write a post about my favourite kind of breakfasts. Throughout my 24 years of life I have gone through several breakfast phases, and I would like to outline them for you. 


Keep in mind, please, that these are my favourites. I have breakfasted at hundreds of restaurants, and I'm really pruning down my personal best to keep this post at reading length. I could write a book about this topic. 


So without further ado,


The cheap, awesome, and super filling diner breakfast.






Right down the street from where I grew up is a diner called The Good Bite. This place is a legend in North Toronto. It's been open since the '70s and does not disappoint when you want a greasy plate of eggs, bacon, and home fries. I still go here with my parents at 8:30 a.m. (before it gets crowded!) every few months. Their coffee is usually perfect, and I drink it black. This place will always have a special spot in my heart. They also make a mean grilled cheese with bacon. 











The first time I visited Dan's home town of Royal Oak, Michigan, I was blown away by the amount of really fantastic diners. The U.S. is different from Canada, I think. Here, the suburbs are sad, depressing places full of strip malls and fast food. The metro Detroit area is a diner haven, and I think upon seeing that this is where Dan came from, I fell in love with him even more. One restaurant that has become really special to me is called the Delmar, a diner where the special beats anything I have ever experienced. Three eggs, bacon, sausage, AND ham, toast, homefries, AND a slice of pineapple. AND COFFEE! The price is the best I've ever seen — it's something like $4.99 for the whole meal — and the space is nice and big and bright. This place tops my list, and I go each and every time I'm in the state of Michigan. The picture is one I took with my Holga when I went about a year ago with Dan and his brother. I think I have been about 5 times now. 


UPDATE: The Delmar is now called Pete's, which doesn't sound as cool, but everything else is still the same.








 Another favourite, though I've only been there once, is the Whistle Stop in Birmingham, Michigan. Dan and I stumbled onto this gem by accident, and when we walked through the front doors, I felt like I had walked into a different decade or country. It is impossible to explain the Whistle Stop, and I've tried many times. This restaurant belongs in a place like Stratford, Ontario, or a similarly quaint town where most residents are over the age of 80. It felt as though everyone in this restaurant was a regular, and had come for breakfast after getting out of church. This place is perfect, the food is excellent (I had an omelette), and it's the kind of place that I don't think has changed in about 60 years. I hope it never does.






dennys.ca
I know this is unorthodox, but Denny's has got to get an honourable mention on this list. Every time I take a car trip that is longer than about 2 hours, I crave a Denny's breakfast. Many road trips I've taken (the most notable being my trip to Montreal with Susan two summers ago, and a day trip to an apple picking farm with Dan and an old room mate) have started or ended with a great Denny's meal, and it doesn't matter whether you eat there at 10 a.m. or 10 p.m., it's always a delicious breakfast. I love the Grand Slam, I love all the options, (biscuits! grits!), and I love that there is one of these along just about every highway in Ontario.


There are many more diners in Toronto that I haven't tried. At the top of my list are Sadies Diner, the George Street Diner, the Bloor Street Diner, and Flo's Diner. 


Thank you for letting me share my breakfast passion with you. I realized in writing this that each of my favourite diner's has a really nice memory associated with it which, I'm sure, makes each of them a place of comfort that I will come back to. I love these diners for their atmosphere and shared experiences just as much as I do for the breakfasts they serve. 


I will update again soon with different kinds of breakfasts, including fancy breakfasts, trendy breakfasts, home-made breakfasts, and on-the-go breakfasts.

5 comments:

  1. I had a really good burger at Good Bite once. I love that place... it reminds me of a restaurant we used to go to in Arthur called Danny's Place (it's now a Chinese food restaurant, because every small town has to have one). All the walls were yellowy as it was invariably filled with smoke, the affable husband and crusty wife who ran it were both at least 70, and it even had a pie rack by the cash register.

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  2. SIGH, I love that. You'll probably always remember that place, it's yellow walls, and the pie rack!

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  3. Denny's changed their homefries and broke my heart.

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  4. Instead of being the crispy coated ones that were golden brown with little green flecks, they were red skinned real potatoes. Not crispy, just like, homestyle, you know?

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