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!