Collingswood Diner

 

The Collingswood Diner is not my favorite diner, although I wish it could be. I feel like it’s a diner that I had to have been a part of growing up, and to suddenly enter as an outsider, I feel disconnected, and unaware of what’s ‘usual and customary’ here.

Collingswood Diner

Our waitress was kind and attentive enough, but had unkempt hair and makeup, with a distinctive ring around the collar on her white polo accented with a festive “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” pin. (We visited a few days before Christmas.) As she poured our coffee, I can definitely say it detracted from my appetite a little, although I tried to see past it.

This is not a shiny, new diner. It is large, kind of dark and impressing from the outside, located at a major intersection that connects to a highway, so getting into the actual parking lot can be a little daunting if you haven’t done it before. However, I am a fan of having diner at this part of time, simply because I think it’s as nice cross-section of diner-enthusiasts of all socio-economic ranges, since you get populations from the major towns nearby. Inside, there is a friendly, multi-cultural atmosphere- tables full, and big group tables of work buddies hanging out.

An Excess of Powders

My French toast was well intended, but overall not that delicious. I appreciated the extra cinnamon they sprinkled on top (quite liberally) because it gave an extra pop of flavor that can be missing from mass produced breakfast breads. However, because of this generous cinnamon, and the cold (and NOT plentiful) butter that was provided, my butter stuck to the cinnamon and to my knife, and not to my toast! As happens with French toast when it’s too thick- very little of the egg can even hope to get all the way through, so I felt as if I was eating a kind of bland cake. After dolling it up with the works, it was decent, but kind of disappointing.

Darn Good Omelet

As Chi worked her way through her French toast, I picked through my western omelet. It is my favorite of the omelet and I'm very pleased that the Collingswood Diner had one of their top chefs on the line that morning. One of the easiest tasks that diners can't get right is cooking an egg all the way through. I've had omelets, scrambled eggs, fried eggs, and poached eggs where In the middle is slimy, clear, raw egg. Too me, that's unacceptable. Collingswood Diner cooked the egg in the omelet perfectly. There was plenty of diced ham, onion, and green bell pepper. It was a great omelet. There was one small problem, and that was with the cheese. Cheese in an omelet costs extra, but I ordered it anyway. The slices of American were concentrated to one half of the omelet making it very globular and gooey on one side and flat and a little dry on the other. However, I'm not going to let concentrated cheese sully this omelet's good name.

The home fries were a bit on the lacking side. I'm starting to think I'm become more of a hash-brown  type of guy. There's more of an opportunity for crispiness and fluffy potato to live in harmony with hash-browns. These home fries met the same fate as other establishment's home fries. They weren't cooked enough twice. They weren't cooked down to an appropriate level of softness and then when they got to the grill or frying pan, they weren't cooked to the right level of crispy. This leaves the diner with kind of hot, kind of raw potatoes.

Rise & Shine: A Steak & Egg Place

Butter and Jam

On December 28th of last year I woke up in Las Vegas, Nevada absolutely starving. I usually eat breakfast at 6am on weekdays, so by the time I drive Chi and myself to the Smith's shopping center on Decatur Boulevard at 8am pacific time, we were famished. The shopping center (strip mall) was home to a sunny looking breakfast joint called Rise & Shine: A Steak & Egg Place. The name of the restaurant needs some work as does some of the decorating and uniforms, but the food (for me) was quite pleasant.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

I've been on a bit of a biscuits and gravy kick for the past month, so I thought it would be neat to try a southern standard in the great southwest. The meal consisted of two biscuits covered in sausage gravy, two eggs any style, and hash browns. Oh, and a pot of bread. "What is a pot of bread?" I inquired. I soon found out that it was essentially a cinnamon loaf biscuit baked in a tiny clay pot, fun. The entire plate was very good. I was surprised at how well they pulled off this regional dish. The gravy was thick and covered the biscuits like the Silver Coin's Hollandaise sause, except it was delicious. The gravy could have used a little more sausage, but what sausage was there offered a ton of zesty flavor. The eggs over medium were placed on top of the gravy and biscuits which made for a playful presentation that I have yet to see on the east coast. Also, the eggs were cooked perfectly. The hash browns were only kind of hash browns, but definitely good. Instead of shredding the potatoes, they made little potato pellets which created a high surface area to volume ratio and in effect crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The next time I'm visiting Sin City I'll make sure to stop by Rise and Shine.

A Potted Pot of Bread...

Now, let me preface this by saying that for the three years I lived in Vegas growing up, I hardly ever ate breakfast, and it was never impressed upon me that Vegas had any significant breakfast scene despite the famed $5.99 steak and eggs buffets at the casinos. So, to find a breakfast place that was so close to my family's house was a pleasantry in itself.

Inverted Flower Ceiling

Rise and Shine is a cute place, a bit too bubbly and funkily decorated for its own good, but perfect for a whimsical child at breakfast with his or her parent(s). I enjoyed the ceramic collage walls, even the umbrella flowers that made the ceiling of orange, pinks, purples. (Despite the fact that look kind of like jellyfish). A back wall occupied by an exposed kitchen and an organized prep bar was nice to see, but the cook did not work as fast as I would have expected a kitchen to run back home. (This being said, the restaurant was no where near being full).  I did NOT enjoy those uniforms- like a mix between pajamas and scrubs, and styled like the girls who wore them couldn't figure out what they were either.

Fluffed Up, West Coast Style

My Illy brand coffee was delicious, and for an extra fee they offered it double-pressed (!!) I made my own omelette, filling it with spinach, green pepper, avocado, etc. which came with a side of hashbrowns and a biscuit. These hashbrowns were not hashbrowns in the traditional sense, nor were they homefries...they were little somewhat crispy, greasy, highly flavored potato pellets that were unlike any potato breakfast food I've had before, but one that I would happily have again. My biscuit was entirely passable with its warm, somewhat dense softness, although not as tasty as the butter it came with. My omelette was also tasty- well done on the outside like I like it, although perhaps with too much avocado. The vegetables were a good size and were not overcooked. Overall, it tasted just as good as any veggie omelette I could have concocted back home, so nothing to complain about.

I would definitely try another dish the next time I'm in Vegas and need a breakfast near home (in Southern Highlands, Las Vegas). I will say, however, that Chris and I were definitely put off by how fast we were given our check. Even if you say "it's no rush", but you give us our check less than two minutes after you give us our meal, it's going to be rushed. Or, I may just get a side of those tasty potato hashbrowns and watch the young,awkward waitresses scuttle around. Total cost: $24.

By the way, the difference between breakfast on the East Coast vs. breakfast on the West Coast? The table settings:

Look at all that hot sauce!!

Red Wine Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Taken from a book I received for Christmas:

The Vegan Holiday Kitchen

Below is our take on the recipe, which we followed pretty well, all things considered. Makes 8 servings (seriously, a LOT of food). Ingredients below:

1 and a half to 2 pounds of  brussel sprouts (we used a packaged bag of 2lbs from Wegmans)
1 red bell pepper
1 cup of carrots (recipe calls for baby carrots, but we just sliced normal ones)
2-3 cloves of garlic
2/3 cup of Red Splash - a blended dry red wine (instead of 1/3)
3 tablespoons of maple syrup (or agave nectar, for a lighter/healthier feel)
1 and 1/2 tablespoons of soy sauce (sodium reduced as a the recipe suggested)
1/2 tablespoon of dried tarragon
1/4 teaspoon of dried thyme (or, fresh, since they're not that hard to come by)
and salt and pepper to taste

The pictures are pretty self explanatory- and the recipe is super easy! Prep and cook time took about an hour for us in execution, and we also reheated up some creamy wild rice soup we made the day before (pictured below).

Wash the brussel sprouts, take off the stems, and cut them in half.

Add brussel sprouts to carrots and peppers in a large mixing bowl.

Drizzle delicious maple syrup over the bowl of veggies.

Kikkoman is the only type of soy sauce that should be used.

We doubled the red wine because we could. Good choice.

Everything from the mixing bowl goes into a baking pan, we used a clay one.

The red wine made for an interesting color with a great rustic taste.

A match made in heaven (the salt in the soup balanced out the meal).