Tag Archives: breakfast

My Hipster Doofus Lunch

28 Aug

August 28, 2013

Where would you rather eat: a place with an extensive menu and generous portions of good food, or a pretentious place where on Sunday they only have a brunch menu which has as its highlight “warm donut appetizer”?

Now guess which one I got stuck in.

3:45 in the afternoon. Who is still serving brunch at a quarter to four? Better yet- who wants brunch? It isn’t breakfast, it isn’t lunch, you can’t get a T-bone steak (now THAT’S a man’s brunch) and if you go in and order oatmeal you deserve the scorn I will heap on you. The brunch menu was less satisfying than the breakfast menu, less satisfying than the lunch menu, but made me much angrier than either.

Before I name this place, I do have to give it a compliment. The service was good. My party of four had- no joke!- five different people serving us, sometimes three at once. The service was so omnipresent that if my soup was too hot there was someone over my shoulder to blow on it for me.

But seriously, there was one good thing about this place. Out table was in the front and we were right near the window. Just on the other side were outdoor tables and two of them were filled with nothing but cute busty blondes in sun dresses. I LOVE New York!

But the menu sucked.

We were in lower Manhattan and someone in my party who is not to be named because my brother is marrying her and I want to keep harmony in the family, suggested The Odeon. This is allegedly a well-known and very good diner. I call it pretentious because the one-page menu (what diner has a one-page menu?) listed the Executive Chef, whom I will not name due to the fact that he might start crying in his soufflé.

Meanwhile, if I heard someone at the table say that Robert Di Niro ate there once I heard it 34X108 times. Would you take dinning advice from this man?

                  Robert-De-Niro_1378583i     

I have pictures but, due to the fact that I currently have The World’s Worst Cell Phone (I think it was made in pre-war Italy) the pictures came out awful. I’ll post them anyway and try to give you the highlights.

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The appetizers included Goat Cheese Salad, Steak Tartare, Mixed Green Salad, and French Onion Soup. The Saturday specials on the sidebar included the aforementioned warm donut. Who in their right mind would call a warm donut a special? In that case my local Dunkin Donuts is full of special donuts (mostly lukewarm, some stale.) My brother and I both had the French onion soup. It wasn’t that good. We both had better french onion in Outback Steakhouse, of all places, and I have no clue if they have an Executive Chef or just pour it out of a bag. And this soup had some dry crunchy things topping the cheese which were especially unwelcome, both in taste and texture.

Note that the menu then has an egg section and a cereal and griddle section. We all skipped that since we wanted food.

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The lunch entrees section contained nothing to get excited about either. I will let it speak for itself that our party contained a lawyer in a well-known firm, a director of a non-profit organization, a banker, and me, a high-level supervisor at a Company I Am not at liberty to name, and three of us ordered the cheeseburger.

I ordered mine medium and when I lifted it to take my first bite, the grease dripped out and ruined my shirt.

We are not without class. We are well-educated people, but normal people. We live in New York but not among the hipster doofus hoi-poloi. We wanted food. Cheese curd would not do it.

And that lousy French onion soup? $12.

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Breakfast- The Most Important Meal of the Day (Delicious-Tasting Repost)

4 May

May 5, 2013

Mr. Blog is off trying to talk Allan Keyes out of rigging the Kentucky Derby. so for today, enjoy this Classic Repost, not seen in five years.

from June 30, 2007

The Editors and Staff of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride would like to Congratulate BMJ2K – Winner of the 2007 NAACP Image Award on his Outstanding Achievement.

NOTE: The following originally appeared in Woman’s Day Magazine, February 2006, under the pseudonym “Breakfast Betty”

Breakfast has long been known as “the most important meal of the day.” Indeed, though there has been fierce competition from both brunch and dinner, it has always been the morning meal which gives us the strength to make it through our rough days.

Back in the badly misnamed “dawn of time” (misnamed because time actually began about six months earlier) the early hominids that would later evolve to become both the human race and the French (“la culture de la sauce crémeuse“) lived in a state of near-perpetual hunger. During the day fierce predators roamed, and at night the scavengers came out. Early man would hunt in the twilight and try to find whatever sustenance they could. It wasn’t until the discovery of fire led to the innovation of bacon and eggs did humanity’s ancestors feel secure and able to meet the daylight hours. Hash browns soon followed, then coffee, then the pyramids, and then, ultimately, The Federalist Papers.

In today’s modern age, it seems silly to look back just a few decades and realize that our great-grandparents never had the opportunity to eat an Egg McMuffin. Nor did they drink Sunny Delight or Hi-C. (Both of which, by the way, contain no more than 10% juice.)

The Egg McMuffin was created by a McDonald’s franchisee who wanted to increase his profits. He reasoned that his restaurant was only open half the day, but if he opened during the morning hours he would increase sales in the previously closed early hours. He hit upon the McMuffin because it could be easily made on existing McDonald’s equipment. (True story- look it up.)

Today, McMuffin-penetration in our urban areas is fast-approaching 98%. There is not a man, woman, pre- or post-op transsexual, or child who does not have the opportunity for a hearty morning McMuffin.

The question is not, of course, whether or not to eat an Egg McMuffin for breakfast. The question becomes where do you eat your McMuffin? Important as breakfast is, many of us take the McMuffin for granted. Eating on the subway or in your car is not breakfast. Eating at your desk and dripping crumbs on your computer isn’t breakfast. Neither is gobbling your McMuffin while trying to sell a house. (If you are a realtor, this is also not a good way to sell a home.)

Breakfast should be the most human and humane meal of the day. Lunch is often just whenever you can squeeze it in. Dinner is a hassle to be endured with your family or a bad date.

Breakfast, however,  should be the basis of a good day.

Heed my advice: Make a good breakfast the center of your morning. Take it from Breakfast Betty- this column would not have possible without a strong morning meal of pancakes and vodka.

egg-mcmuffin

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