Monday, April 24, 2006

Over Uneasy

After we dealt with the bank officer this morning — gosh, it took a long time just to sign a lot of papers for an equity loan we'll probably never use, although there may be something silver in our future (check back in June) — Cranky and I decided to grab a late breakfast at a really nice-looking restaurant nearby. I'm not saying I expected grand cuisine, but the place is neat, well decorated, and has the overall feeling of pride of ownership.
So why was my breakfast so mediocre? It wasn't a failure, far from it. I ordered eggs over easy and that's exactly how they came out. Kinda loose. Oops, I meant to order them over medium. My fault.
But they'd been cooked together in one of those funny little diner sauté pans, so the whites all ran together and I was served a perfect disk of fused, oozy eggs.
My question: Would it cost the restaurant one red cent more to cook the eggs separately so the presentation of the food is a little bit lovelier? OK, maybe one red cent: an extra pan to wash.
But this place is trying to be upscale in a charming middlebrow way: framed art, interesting lighting fixtures, decent ambiance. The food is fresh and credible, but — fused eggs?
I didn't like the flavor of the cottage fries, but that's just me and my hyperactive tastebuds. Oh, wait. I didn't like the English muffin either. It had no more character than a circle of dense, dull bread. The butter was local, however (yay).
If you were running a restaurant, wouldn't you go the one extra mile (no, it's only an extra inch, fergodsake) and find a superior English muffin? Of course, if you wanted to be at the top of the ladder, you'd be griddling them fresh, daily, yourself — which I certainly wouldn't expect at this place.
But still.

8 comments:

Dagny said...

Fused eggs. hehehe. Reminds me of the college cafeteria. If you are the only one serving food for breakfast AND have to cook eggs to order, then the eggs are going to be fused. Then again, no one ever had great culinary expectations from the cafeteria.

Greg said...

Fused eggs, ouch that sounds painful.I'm real particular about breakfast as well. Normally I make it for myself rather than pay a fortune for mediocre food.

Jamie said...

At least they weren't cooked in those rings that McDonald's uses that make the whites perfectly round! That creeps me out. :-)

We are also fans of "over medium." Probably because it is the fried egg that most resembles a poached one.

cookiecrumb said...

I always thought of breakfast as the one meal a restaurant couldn't mess up. I guess that was before I got fussy. (Wait! I've been fussy my whole life!)
And the more I think about it, the more I think those eggs weren't even all that fresh... How could really stiff albumen gush to the circular sides of that pan? (Well, maybe by overcrowding. But today my pee smelled eggy, and that's weird.)

Amy Sherman said...

Something silver? Are you moving into an Airstream?

cookiecrumb said...

Amy: Ooh. Kinda.
Cute! Go see Cranky's blog.

Guy said...

Jeez, you ArE fussy aren't you?

I stopped going to a local breakfast place because I asked for scrambled eggs and he made me a plain omelet. And it cost me about 16 dollars for that, two pieces of old bacon, "home fries" and an orange juice. This would be the Shutter Cafe, grrrrr.

Equity loan? Ick. I looked in to it and they were going to charge me 2200 just to start the darned thing, maintain a checking account at that bank (not free) and a few other things. I said NO.

That being said, we're getting 6 new fancy windows on friday! Meathenge Labs improves!

Biggles

cookiecrumb said...

I know, Bigs, breakfast has gotten freakily expensive, though we discovered a place in San Rafael yesterday that's half the price and looks good. Let ya know.
This equity loan is completely free. No startup charge, though we do have a checking account there. But see, now they have a lien on our house.
Happy Windows Friday. xx