Location:
2403 Bull Street
Savannah, GA
31401
One thing at the very top of my Savannah list of places to visit was the Back in the Day Bakery. I'd seen it on Jamie Beck's blog and she highly recommended it on the list of must-sees she gave me.
On a rainy day it was an amazing, indulging breakfast pit stop.
I mean, biscuits and jam? I could have those every day.
(Also, who knew that I could have been sitting so close to one of my Instagram connections - wow, small world!)
Location:
65 Salem St, Boston, MA 02113
The North End of Boston is one of my favorite parts of this city, it's great for photoshoots and of course, for the food. So, I couldn't believe I had never been to Pauli's before.
Guys, it really is WICKED fresh and CRAZY GOOD!!
The lobster grilled cheese sandwich was not only massive, it was chockful of fresh and huge chunks of LOBSTAH and lots of melted cheesy-goodness (don't worry, I Lactaid-ed myself out).
The catchy "Pauli-tician" sandwich caught my eye, for it's name and for its ingredients (chicken cutlet, prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar). Those are my must-haves for literally everything, plus, it's approved by Paul himself! I could eat it again, right now.
Another not to be missed sandwich is the Vito. Why? Because it was created by the "Vito" from The Sopranos.
That's right.
Looking for breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Pauli and his team have got you covered. If that's not enough, they also have a full catering menu, as well. Want to order online for delivery? They've got you covered there, as well. I knew the battery powered bikes were there for a reason!
And the team there? They're awesome!
Thank you Paul and the team for treating us to an incredible dinner!
Here's a little background on my childhood. I was born in Kerala, South India and grew up in Botswana, Africa, so breakfast was always very fresh and very local.
I was lucky to have farm fresh eggs for breakfast in the mornings. And incredibly fresh chicken. I have literally never eaten chicken as delicious as that, since. In fact, I have since stopped eating chicken!
But I digress.
With my South Indian background, eggs are just ONE of many options for breakfast, and sometimes are just an accompanying dish to other staples, like Upma which is something of a dry porridge made out of semolina flour. Upma with a side of eggs and optionally a banana with a sprinkle of sugar is delicious. Say what? Yes, it is certainly an acquired taste, but worth trying if you ever have the opportunity to do so.
Then there is my all-time favorite breakfast for special occasions: appam and stew. Appam is a fermented pancake made out of white rice. It's a breakfast treat, saved for birthdays, Christmas and New Year. And recently, my Mom has been making it for us whenever we go back to visit Toronto.
Sounds weird to have "pancakes" with something savoury like a stew, but appam is not a sweet pancake. If you've ever tried Ethiopian injera, it's similar but not quite as sour as injera and not served cold as injera.
So, if you're adventurous to try a different type of breakfast other than eggs, I'm sharing my Mother's recipe for Appam and Stew, which is her Mother's recipe and definitely tried, tested and true.
My mouth is watering already.
Thanks for the recipe Mummy! xo
Ingredients for Appam:
Preparation:
1) Wash rice and soak for 2 to 3 hours to grind.
2) SEMOLINA: Just before grinding the rice (in a blender), mix semolina in a cup of water and cook in low heat stirring constantly till it turns to a thick batter. Take off from the stove and leave to cool.
3) YEAST: Take litle luke warm water in a deep bowl and add the yeast and the sugar on top of the yeast and close it with a plate and leave it to rise for 10 to 15 minutes.
4) RICE: Drain water from the rice and grind the rice in a blender (USING ONLY MILK) little milk at a time to a smooth consistency. Batter should not become too loose by adding more milk (so be careful with that while pouring the milk). Divide rice and grind into two batches, instead of allat once. That will give more room to grind.
5) Add the cooled semolina mix and the risen yeast mix into the rice batter and mix properly and leave it to ferment for 6 to 8 hours. You may leave it in the oven, overnight. In warm countries it rises faster than in colder countries.
6) BEFORE MAKING APPAM: Take egg white and beat well with little milk and add this along with salt and one table spoon of sugar into the batter and mix well and keep it for another one hour before starting to make the Appams.
7) HINT: IF THE BATTER IS TOO THICK YOU MAY LOOSEN IT
BY ADDING MORE MILK AND MAKE THE APPAMS
THE SAME WAY YOU MAKE PANCAKES USING
A NON STICK PAN OR A CAST IRON PAN.
8) Don't FLIP the pancakes, just wait until they bubble and are cooked in the center.
CHICKEN STEW OR VEGETABLE STEW RECIPE:
(Ingredients are the same whether you cook chicken with potatoes or only use vegetables)
1) One small chicken whole or Only the chicken breast : 500gm.
2) Ingredients:
3) You can add any of these vegetables or all while cooking the
chicken:- Potatoes, Carrots, Beans, Cabbage, Cauliflour,
Peas, Tomatoes etc or just potato with chicken. I prefer that.
4) Preparation: Heat pan, pour oil and put the chopped oinions,
cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and let it cook a bit.
Then add the green chillies, ginger, garlic, curry leaves.
Mix and after a little while add the chicken, salt with little water to
cook the meat. (At this time, you can add the vegetables of your
choice)
Once the meat is cooked add 3cups of whole milk. If you want
more gravy add more milk.
Now add the black pepper powder, mix and boil again (not long
though) and serve with Appams either with Chicken stew
or Vegetable stew.
Options: Whole milk or 2% milk or Evaporated milk or Coconut milk.
You can use any of these of your choice.
Location:
896 Whalley Avenue New Haven, CT
New Haven for a day, how better to spend it than breakfast with my friend Dela Chic?
She also comes bearing gifts; awwww, thanks Christine!
You know how much I like it hot, right? And it's so rare that pepper jelly is actually spicy.
Stir It Up is something else entirely. Packs a punch!
Patricia Kiernan, the creator of the stuff, is a Jamaican native who has been using her family's recipes to offer deliciously spicy (or mild, there is also mild) catering. Their event planning is one aspect of Stir It Up, the retail side has this incredible pepper jelly, that even my Mom loved. The lime-zest may be for you if you like it a tad less hot. Great to try as a marinade, too.
I enjoyed it for breakfast one morning....
Location:
Makriyianni 3, Athens
It's time for breakfast + the Acropolis!
Who knew we'd have a view of the Acropolis from our breakfast nook situated on Makriyianni street?
Splendid. As was the sandwich and croissant. Greek coffee is going to take me some time getting used to though.
Great little cafe/deli, with a fantastic vantage point of the Acropolis. I'm happy to see the Nile Guide agrees!
Location:
1428 6th Ave, New York, NY
Sometimes you just want simple bacon, eggs n' toast for breakfast. Add pototoes in the mix and I'm in heaven.
For $6?
Can't beat that.
I love NYC.
Location:
20 Spring Street, New York, NY
We celebrated N's cousin's birthday with her friend at Bread in Soho. Great venue for brunch and, well, bread.
A very cosy spot that was fully jam packed. The service was excellent as were all the dishes. They even threw in a tiramisu cake on the house.
Location:
100 City Centre Drive
www.crepedelicious.com
If it's not pancakes or french toast for breakfast, it's crepes (from scratch) at our house, so to receive two packs of Crepes De Licious mix in the mail was quite refreshing.
That said, if you're not a crepes-from-scratch person, and you like a good crepe, these packages are worthwhile. Better yet, you can just go OUT for crepes and visit your local Crepe Delicious!
We did that, too.
There's a little kiosk of Crepe Delicious at the Square One Mall. With breakfast crepes, paninis, savoury andsweet crepes.
Ian and Michael were the talented young specialists on hand for whipping us up some yummy crepes: savoury and sweet!
I don't care much for savoury crepes in general, but the Caesar Chicken ($7.95) one made for us was quite good, and packed with filling.
The sweet crepes is where it's at. Nutella? Yes, please!
The Tuttie Fruitte ($6.99) was absolutely divine and made far better than even the crepes we had in Paris!
Nyum Nyum.
They use all fresh toppings, so much so, that they run out of popular ingredients such as apples and panini loaves. It's a kiosk afterall; it would be great to see this place get it's own restaurant as it was busy and has only a limited number of stools. Most customers got the crepes to go anyway, wrapped up neatly in foil. For the busy shoppers at Square One this type of kiosk probably works better than a dine-in restaurant, especially since you can smell the crepes a mile away and can have it as a snack or a meal.
We wanted the Crunchy Caramel $5.85 but they had run out of apples so Ian, who is the resident expert at that location, having been there two years, made us a custom super-duper, nutella-banana-caramel crepe!
I'll post up our own home-made crepe recipe, but until then, if you happen to stop by a Crepes Delicious, try the nutella/banana crepe! You shan't be disappointed.
Location:
756 Queen St W., Toronto
Cost: Under $10 for breakfast
It's almost refreshing to find a place in TO that doesn't cater to all your dietary concerns (ie. lactose-free and/or soy milk, gluten-free what-have-you).
It's plain white or brown bread.
Milk or cream.
Sausages or bacon.
That's what was so perfect about spotting the "ALL-DAY BREAKFAST" sign while driving around the Queen/King street area at 9am on Sunday in the search for breakfast.
ALL DAY BREAKFAST!
Peter Pan was closed, Brant Street Cafe was closed, Fusaro's was closed. Everything was either closed or only opened at 10:30am for brunch. The key was to find a place that served coffee.
So the "ALL-DAY BREAKFAST" sign was that much better.
The interior
Bellwood owner Tom Koulias has been in business for 40 years!
The first thing on the menu was simply: FOUR eggs with toast, bacon and potatoes.
DONE!
I believe French toast might have been the second thing on the menu.
"I am so happy right now."
FOUR eggs with bacon!
Ma French Toast!
BUTTER! Awesome.
Heavily buttered goodness!
COFFEE
We like to mix it up
There's a "Help Wanted" sign....any takers?
Location:
323 Kerr Street, Oakville
Cost: Sunday Brunch approx $9 per entree
After all the hoopla and hype over Stoney's; we finally made it for brunch on Sunday and I have to tell you...I am a little bit disappointed.
Okay, so you stand in line, make your order, get a number, pick up your own drinks, seat yourself and your food is brought to you. I get it guys, I get it. But I have to ask why.
Why must you make your own tea/coffee and gingerly navigate your way to a table through the throngs of seated patrons? Perhaps even spilling some hot tea on the way to the outdoor patio? I feel that if I have to make my own tea standing at the milk/sugar counter in a restaurant on a Sunday morning, I might as well have stayed at home and done the same. Likewise, having to clear dirty utensils from the table shouldn't be on my morning list of things to do...at a restaurant. And if you're already getting the food brought to your table; why don't they just take orders at the table?
Also, running out of soy milk/lactose free-milk is not really acceptable when you're only open from 9am to 3pm on Sunday.
Our meals took a very long time to arrive (and we came after the breakfast crowd) that by the time they did arrive our hot drinks were cold and there were no offers made for refills. And while the service is friendly, we still had to call out for clean utensils to our server as she walked away after plunking our plates down (without even a glance) and also requested salt and pepper which was forgotten until we asked a second time. We also had to return to the front counter to remind them about the forgotten banana bread we'd ordered (more on the taste of the banana bread later).
So, before you get your underpants in a knot, let me just say that I don't consider myself a brunch snob although I am somewhat of a French toast connoisseur having cooked variations of it myself since I was, maybe twelve, and with it usually being my sole order at breakfast/brunch places all over, I can confidently say this:
The French Toast at Stoney's is just...okay.
On the positive (or maybe for some, negative) side, it is massive. The presentation is nice and the price is good for that much French toast. The plate was literally stacked with three huge slabs of bread. I say bread because it was literally too thick for the eggy-ness to fully penetrate the bready centre.
I dislike cutting into French toast only to find dry bread staring back at me. Admittedly the coating of brown sugar and cinnamon was tasty, but it wasn't enough coating and the too few fruits (although I did like the surprise of star fruit) on top of the mountainous "slabic" toast and teeny cup of maple syrup on the side was simply unjustly proportioned to the bread. However, I will happily admit that the side of bacon I got was perfection, although it's hard to screw up strips of fried pork.
The frittata was good...I'm hugely into artichokes so that part was great. Ordering egg whites didn't make it any less greasy...(this coming from someone who ordered bacon on the side, I know) and the mixed greens salad might have been better with the dressing on the side, but I suppose we should have ordered it that way.
Lastly, having to brush away the wasps and flies at our table (even before the food came, likely because the table hadn't been cleaned before we sat down) we had to eat quickly when our food finally did arrive. Argh, certainly not very relaxing the way a Sunday brunch should be.
And that home-made banana bread ($2.50) I told you about earlier? Don't do it. Absolutely no banana taste and oily to the core. No nuts even! Possibly the worst banana bread ever (best banana bread is still the one from the road-side stall in Maui).
There you have it guys...Foodhogger's Stoney's experience.
Undoubtedly some people's favourite joint to brunch, but overall, I'm not a fan of the system they have there...too much work involved for a lazy Sunday morning. Perhaps I'd go again for a sandwich or pizza at lunch where their cafeteria system would work. It's a good thing it's in the 'burbs...a place like Stoney's wouldn't survive in the city on that sort of system. Fusaro's in Toronto also has a cafeteria style system, but it's during the week and for lunch...they know better for brunch on the weekend...it's full table service; just how people want to eat on a Sunday, otherwise what's different than cooking up some french toast at home?
I'm sorry, but this place is just begging for a text message review.
Something like this perhaps?
~
Loc:
400 Blor St W, TO
BTW, i wn 2 dis plc on Blr St W 4 brnch 1 Sat morn aftr yoga cls & ws plsntly surpsd by da cozy atmsphr & frndly srvic. Da scrmbld egs totly hit da spot.
but OMG u guyz Twngns Erl Gry rely sux!
~
Going to BTWC again this Saturday for a friend's birthday breakfast...will post more on that soon.
Location:
147 Spadina Avenue, Toronto
Cost: $10-15 for lunch
www.fusaros.com
This is a long overdue post; I guess because it's such a frequented lunch spot for me that I simply thought I was having a home-cooked meal at times!
If you don't get there by 11:45am at the latest, be prepared to wait in a long line up that runs out the door!
The pre-made pizzas, sandwiches, quiches etc are all very good - a pizza slice will only set you back a few dollars and is way better than Mama's Pizza. I really like the croissant with chicken, olives and feta (a bit o' cheese never hurt anyone)...although it's a tad salty.
The panini's and pastas are made to order and add $2 for a side salad...
Their daily specials are listed on the fairly new blackboard on the side (Fusaro's has undergone some interior design changes in the last couple of years - going from orange walls with black and white photography to plain blue walls with the menus on blackboards - for a more minimalist look or realistically, more spatially accommodating for the sheer volume of the lunchtime crowd.
I've had many a pasta dish here and I have never had a bad experience.
I have heard from my yoga instructor however, that she gained weight eating the salads here (So, note to self, and to you reader). It's all that dressing - which they actually do put a bit too much of .
I even hosted a birthday brunch here a few years ago (the Evite was aptly titled: "Let's get some f*****ckiin freeeeeench toast" a la 40 year old Virgin).
Someone else got the calabrese, like so:
Salmon & eggs:
Eggs florentin:
Not a lot of people know about the brunch on Saturday, but it's lovely and not at all like the cafeteria-style-lunch-time atmosphere. The food, on the other hand, is just as good :)
Location:
314 South Country Road, Palm Beach, Florida
Cost: $25 for two
Hamburger Heaven is a cute little diner in Palm Beach and one of two places suggested to us to get breakfast in the area - I'm sure there are more joints to grab freshly squeezed OJ, but HH was super close to our hotel and the beach which made it perfect.
We didn't make it in time for breakfast the first day...missed it by more than a few hours (breakfast is served until 11am and we were there around 3!), but our lunch consisted of what we considered to be makeshift breakfast dishes...ie. quiche (eggs and spinach) and fruits!
It was gloooooooooorious!!!! Ta DA!
And we thought we'd try the special of the day - Blackened tilapia on salad....my oh my was it ever delush! SO glad we missed breakfast! It was the perfect 3pm meal!
We did make it in time for french toast and eggs the next day though! And they remembered us and sat us in the same booth - so sweet! The service was amazing, they didn't make any fuss seating us in a booth even though there were just two of us and even though they had a lineup later for lunch with groups of four waiting. It just reminded me of horrible Mildred's Temple Kitchen and their huge a** fuss of seating us!
We had freshly squeezed OJ (how could you not?). Omg you guys, soooo good!
The eggs, toast, side of potatoes and....bacon....
I always get french toast for breakfast...and these were tasty (I have to admit Testa's was better, though especially with their serving of fruit on the top) but I was loving the giant Texas style toast.
The breakfast was all very good but I think it's called hamburger heaven for a reason and we really wanted to come back for one of their burgers but they were closed on Sunday, our last day there! Oh well, next time for the hamburger! We ended up jokingly calling this place Hamburger Helper but it truly is a little taste of heaven.