breakfast blogger

I love small diner-style breakfast spots with booth seating.. here’s a breakfast I had at Mellos on Dalhousie, enjoy:

Almost pornographic, don’t you think?

I came across this interesting recipe while trying to justify my last post since it wasn’t breakfast related. Looks yummy indeed.

My buddy Simon carved up this awesome Stewie-o-Lantern last year and I thought I’d share:

Cheers!

I’ve been enjoying these a bit too much lately.. a toasted bagel with egg, bacon and swiss cheese with a kiss of mayo.

Damn, I could go for one of those suckers right now. The secret to making these well is to mix the bacon, broken up with the eggs in a small deep dish around the size of a bagel. The place I get these uses the kind of bowl used to serve French onion soup to mix it up before it gets nuked. Damn yummy.

I tried the new breakfast thing at Tim Hortons near where I work (I think we’re a test market) and was pretty grossed out. I wouldn’t feed this thing to my dog. This egg mcmuffin knockoff was just salty and nasty. And to top it off they managed to burn it too. Bleah :P

I am ashamed to admit that I’ve never eaten at ‘La Binerie’. This legendary Quebecois lunch counter has been serving pate chinois, tortiere, and their signature feves-aux-lard since, well, way before I can find out on the first 2 pages of a Google search.

I finally decided to seal the deal one sunny Sunday morning, so I called up my friend Paulie. 30 minutes later me and my ladyfriend and Paulie were on our bicycles, pedaling southwards, towards the stretch of Mont-Royal between St-Lawrence and St-Denis where I knew my fate awaited.

La Binerie is a place I had heard about my entire life. It is the Francophone ‘Cosmo’s’. Movie stars and hockey players eat there, and they happily sit at the little counter sandwiched between octogenarian social-security collectors and off-duty police officers. I was excited. Until I tried to open the door.

AAGGHHH!!!!!!

Defeat! Vacation?!?! Of course! Everything around here is closed the last 2 weeks of July for what we call the “construction holiday”. Everyone, from blue-collar labourers to wealthy textile merchants, takes off to the sunny shores of Maine to swim in the ocean and eat lobster and fudge all day. Hmm . . . maybe these guys are setting up a temporary breakfast counter on the beach in Wells or Ogunquit? My eyes begin to tear at the thought of their beans ‘n’ lard - with molasses poured freely over them.

Okay . . . okay . . . think . . .I still have to eat . . . I can’t hold a hunger strike for 2 weeks . . . or can I? . . .no . . . ladyfriend suggests a place she used to frequent . . .called ‘Anecdote’ . . .we can try that . . . so we bike a few blocks east to the corner of and enter

Nice. so far, even though I am still reeling from the fact that La binerie has eluded me, I am relieved to see that Anecdote looks pretty cool.

We sit down. Coffee is served. Paulie orders tea. We open the menu to see what brunchly fate is in store for our bean-deprived hungry bellies, and that’s when we see it:

Crap! Foiled again! Maybe the hunger strike wasn’t so far-fetched.
Okay . . .okay . . .still. . . must eat . . . I suggest biking all the way to NDG to eat at Cosmo’s . .but it is getting late - past noon -so we solemnly bike towards the corner of where I know there to be a family-owned restaurant that I think serves all-day breakfast.

But, as fate would have it, we are too late.

At this point I am weak with hunger. I consider eating my bicycle seat. Just then, Paulie, who has disappeared from sight, calls out that he found a place directly across from where we were fading away.

Rapido.

It is open.

It serves breakfast A L L D A Y .

I thank god, Jehovah, Allah, and Calvin Trillin. I think about Vishnu, but wasn’t he kinda skinny?

We order omelettes and over-easies with sausages:

The toast was thick, the sausages were great, and the potatoes were better.
We didn’t know if the food tasted delicious because of how hungry we were and how far we had come, but we didn’t care.

We were eating breakfast. Hallelujah.

I didn’t even scold Paulie for not finishing his fruit for the money shot.

Soon, when I have regained my strength and my will, I will try to visit La Binerie.

Pray for me.

Ez from Australia asks:

“I’ve read in American books about characters having “biscuits” for breakfast. With gravy. Or duck fat. In Australia, “biscuit” is another word for “cookie”. So what the heck are the biscuits that Americans are eating for breakfast? And what is the Canadian stance? ”

That’s a great question Ez..

My reply at the time:

“Short answer: Biscuits are little lumps of bread..”

I wrote back saying I would get back to with more on the subject.. Here it is Ez:

I wish I could say I’ve tried “real” American biscuits served up with gravy.. perhaps some American readers give us a good description of what it’s like (hint, hint!). All I know is that I’m missing on something really tasty..

(pic found here)

They don’t seem to be common in Canada, at least where I live. After a quick Google, I found that I can get biscuits and sausage gravy at Denny’s here in Ottawa, but after reading some reviews, I think I’ll pass.

There’s a whole section on biscuits in the Retro Breakfast book that Az bought me. Basic biscuits call for flour, salt, baking powder, shortening and milk but there are many, many variations. I guess I’ll have to try one of the recipes some weekend and report back on how it is!

Here’s a good recipe for biscuits and gravy with a nice read-up for those who are curious. I like the term “target viscosity” that the author uses for the gravy..

No, I didn’t make a typo in that title. Espesso is edible coffee.. and I wanna try it!

From Louisa Chu’s Movable Feast comes this:

“The name is a play on words: espresso + spesso - “thick” in Italian. It’s sturdy enough to stay put in an overturned cup, but deceptively light and airy, without the resistance of a traditional mousse, and delivers a surprisingly bold coffee flavor.”

Here’s the link to it.

I also happen to be a big fan of Lavazza coffee..

Found via grow-a-brain.