Back From the Dead, and Hungry!

Two weeks ago, I was down in dumps. My blog idea was revealed to be anything but original, I was slightly reprimanded for my liberal use of French, and I hadn't had a decent breakfast in quite sometime.

Leave it to my girlfriend to come along and poop on the pity party. How did she poop on it, you ask? She took a giant dump all over my sulky self bitch-fest by dropping two beautiful, delicious, Eggs Benedict on my plate.

I'm not usually a huge Eggs Benedict fan.  Something about that hollandaise sauce just weirds me out. It always reminds me of a combination of brains and mayonnaise that coagulates with puss and old canker sores (Happy Halloween!). But it turned out to be one of the many highlights of this delicious, homemade breakfast.

The hashbrowns were called 'breakfast potatoes' and were really just a bastardized version of the Tater Tot. Well, they were somewhere between a hashbrown patty a la McDonalds, and the aforementioned Tater Tot. These hash-things were really good on their own, but with Sriracha Sauce... dear lord. My mouth was on fire, but a lovey dovey kind of fire. It was great.

The eggs were poached easy, which was great. When I cut into, yolk poured on to my plate like a freshly cut jugular vein (Happy Halloween!). The fried turkey didn't really stand out, which was terrific. With a meal like that, the last thing I would want to stand out would be the turkey. It was subtle enough though to add a little flavour that really contributed to the finality of the dish.

The cup of yogurt on the side had three almonds sprinkled on top. It was beautiful, and totally useless. I didn't touch it. I have it on good authority that it was good, but I wouldn't know. This is a breakfast blog, not some shitty useless yogurt blog.

The only downside to this breakfast, other than the aesthetically pleasing but stupidly boring yogurt, was the two cats crawling everywhere. These cats, who apparently carry the names Otis and Patrick, were all up in my grill the entire meal. I said, 'shoo' multiple times, but they were insistent. I thought I could distract them with the yogurt, but they weren't having that. They had their creepy green eyes set on that hollandaise sauce. After careful planning and strategizing, I managed to get my hands on a hoodie that had rather lengthy drawstrings attached, and the rest is history.

The meal itself was delicious, but for the future, I would hope that the owner of this establishment would get her goddamn cats under control. (P.S. They knocked over their water dish again. Fucking Patrick)

I would recommend this place to anyone that writes a breakfast blog, and is named Tyler Penner. Anyone else is not welcome. I like to sleep in, don't wake me.

Where there's a will, there's a Subway...

You know what? You try to come up with a clever title every week. No really, I'd like to see you try. You couldn't, could you? Ok then, my point exactly. Now if you don't mind, I'm trying to review Subway's tasteless breakfast flatbread thing they half-assedly throw together. May I continue? I know I'm being a bit of a prick, but- no, you shut up! No, you! Eat shit, pal. No, you eat it! Grow up. No, you grow up!

Wow. Sorry about that.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, or should I say, in hand, because that's where the majority of Subway's Flatbread Breakfast Sandwich ends up. This would be understandable if it was a sloppy joe, but it's not. It'd also be fine if it was a sloppy sub, but it's not. Not once in their cute little picture on their overhead menu did they tell me that this sandwich was about as tidy as a pudding sandwich eaten by someone with hooks for hands.

But overall, it tasted pretty good. With a Nestea zero, it cost about $4.00, which seemed right.  The egg was tasteless, and the bacon was ok... SIGH.










SIGH.











SIGH.









Yes, now that you mention it, something is bothering me. Here I thought, that my breakfast blog was the most creative, original thing on the planet since sliced bread. Turns out though, a little googling would have revealed that someone's already done this idea, and done it way better.

I'm done with the breakfast blog game. Too many cooks in this kitchen, so fuck it. I'm out, I'm done. Go check out Breakfast Winnipeg if you want dining advice.  I'll be coming up with something new in the near future.  Stay tuned.

Thanks For Nothing, Perkins.

This entire review is going to sound like the ramblings of a spoiled first-world baby, who's crying that his golden egg isn't golden enough. And I realize that on this Thanksgiving Day weekend, I should be thankful that my breakfast isn't being delivered to me in a burlap sack with a red cross on the front of it. But as thankful as I am that I have the luxury of eating and writing about various breakfasts around the city, I have to think that even the poorest little boy from the slums of Mogadishu would recognize the price vs. quality discrepancies that can be found at your average Perkins. "At the least burlap sacks were free!" he'd say.

Perkins has a notorious reputation among my friends and me, and every human, as a place that overcharges their customers for runny and slimy eggs, limp and lifeless bacon, air-flavored hash browns, and either way too buttery or way too not-buttery toast. After spending an hour at the Perkins on Panet Road, I remembered why this reputation is so well deserved.

I'm going to start off the review with something that I absolutely love about Perkins. The way they give you coffee. The coffee itself was about as interesting as watching The View on a slow news day, but the delivery method is genius. THEY GIVE YOU YOUR OWN POT. Laziness breeds innovation as they or I say, and I'm so glad that Perkins' staff can't be bothered to come by and refill your cup every five minutes. I'm not being facetious. Instead of giving you the Aunty Darlene treatment ("drink that first, and then you can have some more"), they give you an entire pot. There you go customer. Here's your four or five cups that you're gonna drink over the course of your meal. Now shut up and leave me alone.  I love it!

It should be said that when I went into this Perkins, it was a graveyard. A ghost town. No one was there. The waitresses looked annoyed that I was interrupting their conversation, but their forced pleasantries were delivered quite convincingly. The food delivery was also pretty prompt. 10 minutes after I ordered, I had my meal in front of me. It was hot, and fresh.

OK, now. Let's get real here.

The toast looked completely dry on top, and I was starting to lose my shit just a little bit. Nothing worse than toast without butter. But when I picked up the piece, it almost fell apart. I picked up the first slice, and it sagged down like a really sad clown face. The butter was dripping on to my eggs. I'm not watching my weight or anything, but dear lord. It was like they had a tub of Imperial margarine with an abundance of toast crumbs in it and used an ice cream-scooper to mold four slices of what resembled toast. It was pretty good actually.

The bacon was also a disappointment. You should all be well aware by now of my "if it tastes like bacon, it's good bacon" rule. But like they so proudly advertised in the menu, this was SMOKED bacon. Ooo la la monsieur Perkins. What? A frying pan doesn't do it for you anymore? I didn't know you were so high and mighty that you felt regular fried bacon just wasn't cutting it anymore and needed altering. The nerve. It was still pretty good, but just not the same.

The eggs were also decent, but barely. I poked into one with a fork and yolk came shooting out like Egg Faithful. This would usually be a good sign, but it actually turned the rest of the barely cooked egg into a egg white/egg yolk soup. Normally I would've just used my toast to soak this up, but that was also a buttery soup, so I didn't know what to do. I started to look for a spoon. 

This is where the hash browns came in handy. They were just sitting there in the corner of the plate, not doing or saying anything. No real problems but no real personality either. I decided to turn the shredded pile of Plasticine into an egg flavoured stirfry/soup/something. This is not how I would have preferred to eat my breakfast, but it actually turned out to be pretty good. Like I said in an earlier post, breakfast is the hardest meal to screw up. Even when you do, it'll probably still taste good.

I should note that Perkins does have options. You can replace the shredded hash browns with the cubed breakfast potatoes (which I should have done), or fruit (HAHAHAHA). You can also replace the toast with pancakes (which I should have done). An old lady sitting behind me did exactly this, and specifically requested that her pancakes be brought out later, so that they would be fresh when she ate them. Take note youths, with age comes wisdom.

The price for this meal was a fucking atrocity. It cost me $13.63 for this meal, and after a really crappy tip that was completely deserved, the entire experience cost me $15 dollars. I'm not one to whine... well, I guess that's exactly what this blog is about, but still, I'm a student, dammit! One more Perkins meal and I'll be back to reviewing Aramark Tater Tots. 

All in all, it was a breakfast, and it was pretty good. But since this blog forces me to sit and think about what I just ate, I'm starting to realize the subtle differences between a Perkins and an Osborne Village Cafe, or The Don. Perkins has the mainstream appeal, but as they approach a broader market with multiple chains per city, quality eventually goes down... I don't wanna get into it.

Bottom line, if you have to have something to eat on a road trip or something, and you're on the outskirts of Moose Jaw or Medicine Hat, and there's nothing else around, try a Perkins. But in Winnipeg, you can do a lot better. Have some self respect and find yourself a decent breakfast that's worth what it costs. 

To Be, or Tot to Be... That, is the Title.

Tater Tots: the bite sized snack that forever changed the potato game. When the Tater Tot was released in the 50's, it broke all the rules. All conventional potato standards were shattered. People were shocked and offended at this brazen new shape that potatoes could assume. Potatoes would never be the same, and neither would the mindset of millions of well-to-do middle class families, their cookie cutter starch world brought down and shattered by the Tot.

So anyways, I'm super broke and couldn't afford to buy a decent breakfast to review this week. I don't see why you're so mad... this shouldn't be a big deal. Please stop throwing stuff and saying words like that. Listen, I'll get a super sized breakfast next week, ok? Please, just stop. Thank you.

When I went into the Red River College Aramark inside the Princess Street campus, a certain feeling of dread lowered itself onto my shoulders and started laughing at me and taunting me. It knew I hadn't the money to get anything good. This feeling knew that I would be eating something so substandard, so shitty, that no review, no matter how scathing, biting, or vomiting, would be able to encapsulate the complete crappiness of my breakfast. It was the menace of the Aramark Tater Tot.

Before I begin, a brief history of the Tater Tot is in order. The Tater Tot was invented to solve the problem of wasted potato slivers when potatoes were cut into cubes. One chef (read: a god among men) decided to press the slivers together, push the resulting string through a hole, and cut it off in sections. The resulting potato cylinders were then spiced and fried, resulting in the worldwide phenomenon known as the Tatermania.

I wasn't super optimistic when I saw the cardboard container filled with Tots sitting in the nearly empty food cart. They didn't look good in that Aramark lighting, or maybe it was the college lighting. Or maybe just light. These Tater Tots definitely would've been better eaten in a pitch black room. But I always loved Tater Tots when I was a kid.  What's not to love? It's a deep fried potato, in bite-sized form. It's like a french-fry, but it's a cube. It's like a hashbrown, but it's a Tot. These things are awesome.

Usually.

As I held my Tots, I joined Stephen Burns in pouring a cup of coffee.  I looked at Stephen and asked, "You ever have those days, where you wake up, and you just know that you're gonna have to eat some Tater Tots?"

"Yes. Yes I do." Stephen Burns knows what's up.

Eating a Tater Tot fresh off the fryer is one of the essential steps of human enlightenment and spiritual transcendence. Ok, maybe not, but they're pretty damn good. Soft steaming hot starchy goodness held together by a golden crusty, flaky shell glistening with deep fryer oil... now that's a goddamn Tater Tot.

How the Red River College Aramark managed to screw these Tots up is a mystery. A mystery on par with the location of Jimmy Hoffa's body, the Zodiac killer, and the existence of pet rocks.

Granted, these Tots may have been delicious right after they were fried, but by the time my crooked teeth sank into them, they were long past their prime. They just weren't good. They were stale, cold, and bland. They were soft, but not in a good way. They were gritty, but not in a good way. They were Tater Tots, but not in a good way. They were shit, but not in a good... well, you get the point.

The thing that saved this breakfast for me though, was the price. It cost me $3.80 for the Tots and a coffee. A coffee is $2.25, which means the Tots cost $1.65. I was given 18 Tots. This amounts to just over 9 cents per Tot. I couldn't find out what the average price of a single Tater Tot is these days, but to me, that seems really reasonable. These Tots sucked, but I'd definitely pay 9 cents a piece for them.

So if you're ever as broke as I was today, and you just need something in your stomach to prevent it from collapsing or self-cannibalizing, I recommend the Tots. Head to the smoker's pit, look under some benches and find some empties. Cash them in, get some dimes, head down to the Red River College Aramark, and stock up on Tater Tots.

You won't enjoy eating them, but you won't be hungry after you do, so munch away. After all, beggars can't be choosers.

The Don Delivers Great Breakfast to The Tyler

There's word around this city that some guy named Don has a pretty mean bacon 'n' eggs operation that he runs out of his place downtown.

I always thought of The Don as a hipster hub/yuppie depot, but after eating there, I realize that I was at least half wrong.  An eclectic mix of the old and rich, the old and poor, the young and poor, and the young and hipster congregated at the downtown restaurant on the promise of a delicious and affordable, and most importantly, all-day breakfast.

The Don truly is the cure to a hangover. Something about a Pancake House or a Smitty's or, God forbid, a Perkins, just doesn't seem to absorb booze and dispense dopamine quite like The Don is able to.

The Don has two entrances. This one was more attractive and had less
people in the windows gawking at me while I aimed my smartphone.

I sat down at a table for two, all by myself. But they pack 'em in pretty tight at The Don. As soon as I sat down, I realized that not more than half a foot from me was a table of four middle-aged women talking about some sensitive subject matter, or at least, I assumed it was by the way they all hushed each other when I sat down. After 15 agonizingly awkward seconds, I crawled through the escape hatch and made my way to another table for two on the other side of the dining room.

After catching my breath for a few seconds, and reassuring myself that I was a good guy, and that people like me, and that no, those four middle aged women hadn't been talking shit about me, I ordered a coffee and a water. I opened the menu and found what I was looking for. The Don's very own and totally original meal called the "Classic Breakfast."

Toast. Eggs. Bacon. Hashbrowns.  Ok.

The first thing that caught my attention about the meal was the time it took from me placing my order and awkwardly handing the waitress the menu, to the time I got my food. I would say it took a maximum of seven minutes. Maybe less. Usually, I'm ready and willing to bitch about not getting my food in a timely fashion even if they bring it to me in the timeliest fashion, but today was different. It was brought out so fast I didn't even have time to Instagram the cream swirling in my coffee. This cost me several precious internet points, but alas, just as Mick Jagger said 94 years ago, "You can't Instagram what you want." Or something like that. Who cares? The 'stones suck.

The meal was delivered hot, fresh, and lookin' tasty. It looked so good, that I ate half of it before it dawned on me that I needed a picture for this blog.

Toast never gets the spotlight... except on this blog!

The eggs are clearly labelled in the menu as "free run Omega 3" eggs. Not knowing what an Omega 3 is, I asked the waitress what this meant. I wanted to make sure that my eggs weren't being fried in some sort of energy drink. She told me that all the eggs served come from grain-fed free-range chickens. I have to say, the eggs tasted delicious, even without the oppression. It feels good to know that the chicken who laid this egg isn't locked up in some rural-Manitoba concenchicken camp. The chicken that laid this egg is running free and wild, pecking at grains of wheat and corn, and not forced to ingest a gelatinous paste composed of what the waitress put as, "it's brothers and sisters." I learned a lot this breakfast.

Another thing I learned is how great bacon tastes. Bacon's good. I'm surprised it's not more popular than it is, especially on the internet. This bacon was delicious. The grease that had pooled in one of the curls of a bacon slice was still sizzling when I got it. The Don makes things fresh, that much should be clear.

The hashbrowns were also really good. Not even close to as good as the hashbrowns you can find at the Osborne Village Cafe, but still pretty good. I think they usually serve shredded hashbrowns, but the shredded pieces all coagulate into what turns out to be a giant hashbrown patty. No complaints here though. One thing I love about The Don is that they give you an option to add fried onions, banana peppers, or even cornbeef to your hashbrowns. It's an extra charge of course, but whatever... anyway, this paragraph on hashbrowns has gone on way too long. I'd say sorry, but you're probably not even reading at this point anyway, so fuck you.

At the end of the day, The Don didn't disappoint. The breakfast was good, the service was fast, and at 11 dollars, the price was reasonable. Prepare yourself to eavesdrop and to be eavesdropped upon, because seating is tight. It's not as tight as say, a chicken that isn't free-run Omega 3, but it's still a little tighter than most places. But in the words of every real estate agent ever, "It's not cramped. It's cozy."

So the next time you're hungover and having nightmares about drowning inside Jim Beam's bile, go see my boy Don. He'll hook you up with some greasy good times that'll take your mind off the pain. Albeit, temporarily.

Osborne Village Cafe: Best Place to Get Hash...browns.

Another week, another blog post, another disgustingly delicious breakfast to review. On the advice of fellow CreComm rookie Jacob Marks, I decided to check out the Osborne Village Cafe and see if this place is worth Jacob's hype.

Known primarily for its drunken metalhead brawls and random biker-gang stabbings, the Osborne Motor Village Inn is home to about five or six different things: a motel, a bar called the Zoo, a bar called Ozzy's, a vendor in the back, several shithead security guards, and the subtle aroma of urine that really brings the whole building together. Located at the very front though is the Osborne Village Cafe, a hole in the wall that could be easily missed, but shouldn't be. It's fantastic.

Looking out the cafe window, it was grey, dreary, and miserable. But inside the cafe... well, it was grey, dreary, and miserable. Still though, it was right up my alley and I really enjoyed it. It might have been the sticky flytrap in the corner, or the classic flickering fluorescent lightbulb, but I could tell that this cafe had seen some shit and had stories to tell. This is the type of cafe that Thelma and Louise sat at before driving their convertible off a cliff, or where Meg Ryan pretended to cum in front of a stunned and squirrelly Billy Crystal. It's a cafe where drug deals have been negotiated, sex trade workers took a break, and where greasy hitmen had been contracted to wack a husband or wife or two.

Picture from Left to Right: Unidentified Man; Not Pictured: Unidentified
Man. 

And they did all this while eating a lovely meal of bacon, eggs, hashbrowns, and toast.  With fruit.

Osborne Village Cafe calls it the "Classic Breakfast". A classic name for a classic meal. I started off with a coffee and a water. Classic. The coffee was coffee. I'm not a great at telling the difference between good coffee and bad coffee, but I know awful coffee when I drink it. This wasn't awful coffee. Also, a small detail but it's big in my eyes, they gave me a steel cup (gauntlet?) for the cream. Again, it's not a deal breaker, but it's a nice touch. Those little individual creamers really piss me off sometimes, but I don't wanna get into that right now.

The food was delicious. I've been making sure to not go to these breakfasts starving. I'd give a five-star review to a hub-cap with icing on it if I was hungry enough. I wasn't desperate for food. So trust me when I say that Osborne Village Cafe makes a mean breakfast.

The eggs were delicious. Perfectly over-easy. The yolk was running like mascara on some freshly-dumped emo kid. They weren't slimy or watery though, which is an easy mistake to make when you're some freshly-dumped emo kid.

The bacon was intimidating. I got four massive slices, and it took up the majority of plate. It was a lot of bacon. I'm not kosher or anything, but even I have my limits. The bacon was not too crunchy, not too soft, blah blah blah... it's bacon. It was good.

If your mouth isn't watering looking at this picture, see a doctor. You
might be dead.

The hashbrowns though, really stole the show. This part of the meal nearly had me pulling a Meg Ryan right there in the cafe.  They were unreal. I don't know what spices they put in those potatoes, or if they have a special sauce they fry them in, or if it's just the flavour of a disgustingly dirty grill with 20 years worth of grease on it, but good lord... they were good. I put some Sriracha sauce on half of them. The sauce is a well known classic, but these hashbrowns didn't need it. I'm going to go back, and just order a giant plate of these hash-browns. And then, unlike Meg Ryan in that stupid movie, I'm actually gonna have an orgasm, and I'll be barred for life... and it'll all be worth it.

I also got fruit.

Overall, this breakfast really kicked me in the balls and had me squirming around like some freshly-dumped emo kid, i.e., I enjoyed it. I would go here again. I would recommend this to anyone that's thinking of renting Harry Met Sally. Don't rent it.

Eat a delicious meal at the Osborne Village Cafe, instead.

Try A&W. No, This Isn't a Trick.

When one says the word breakfast, one thinks of two things: food, and A&W. It's true. You might not be even aware that that's what you think, but you do. No, you do. Don't argue with me. Fine then, go start your own blog, and tell the world what you think when you hear the word breakfast... I'm waiting... alright then. May I continue? Thank you.

Anyway, A&W. Canada's favorite and most endeared grease-pit fast food joint actually serves up a pretty decent breakfast. No, I'm not talking about slimy hockey puck sausages slapped between two sides of a stale English muffin (stay tuned for glowing reviews of that in the future). A&W has actually put some thought into their approach to breakfast. While they still serve breakfast sandwiches like their giant fast food brothers, they've made the tactical business decision to keep something that hungover people and senior citizens simply can not resist: a traditional bacon and eggs with toast breakfast.  

I was hesitant, I won't lie.  Fast food place?  Bacon and eggs? So much can go wrong. Actually, no, not really. Bacon and eggs is literally the hardest thing to screw up. You'd have to be really drunk and/or stupid to make bacon and eggs taste bad, and a credit to A&W, they were neither that drunk nor stupid. 

Not bad for a place that makes half their revenue off of Onion Rings.

The breakfast tasted good. The eggs were good. Bacon was good too. Even the toast was good. It was good.  

And so concludes my first breakfast review. I hope you enjoyed, and stay tun- what? Oh... you want detail. Fine.

I ordered my eggs over-easy.  They were over-easy/medium, but I let it slide since there was still enough runny yolk to soak my toast in (get your mind out the gutter, perv). The bacon wasn't crunchy, but it wasn't too soft either. The best part about the bacon was that it tasted exactly like bacon, which is all I really expect of my bacon. The toast was thick sliced brown toast and was buttered to perfection.

This meal, with an orange juice ran me about $7.50, which is a little pricey for what I got. Still though, there are no greasy truck-stop diners around here, so I knew I'd have to pay a little more to get a greasy truck-stop diner breakfast.

A&W makes their own paper plates! Beat that, actual restaurants!

One thing I thought that A&W nailed when it came to this breakfast was the name of it. They call it the 'Bacon and Eggs' breakfast. Brilliant. The bacon wasn't named after a family member, the eggs weren't trying to be my buddies, and the toast wasn't made fun of for being chubby. Just, 'Bacon and Eggs'. Award the employee that talked the company out of naming the meal 'Two Twins, Your Nephews, With a Side of Your Cousin' a promotion.

Would I recommend it? Not to anyone who's got a decent diet going. But if you're like me and way past that point, it's definitely worth a shot. You might disagree with me, but then again, you're probably a really self-centered, pretentious, picky eater who wouldn't touch anything on a paper plate unless you were at a wine mixer. But I digress. Yes, I would recommend it. 

On a scale of one to ten, this really was a solid meal. I wouldn't serve this breakfast at my wedding or anything, but really, I would probably serve this breakfast at my wedding. I think you'd find that you would too if you'd just give it a chance.

Enjoy!