Broad Street Diner

Sunday morning breakfast is traditionally one of the most delicious meals of the week. Second perhaps only to the Sunday night dinner.

It was a quick breakfast. Here are the quick facts:

The place smelled delicious when we walked in. Some diners smell damp or just greasy, but this one smelled like sugar and spice and everything nice.

This diner is CHEAP! If you're looking for a bargain meal and you are in the Central Jersey area, you have got to stop by. Omelette breakfasts (made from three eggs, with toast and home fries) started at just $4.50! The rest of menu was similarly reasonably priced with the expected diner breakfast selections. The only thing more exciting than normal was the appearance of blintzes, which I have yet to try. Also, only two choices for your toast- white or wheat. Sorry, fans of rye.

Our waitress was fast and friendly, taking our order without a pen or pad and able to repeat it back to us. If that wasn't cool enough, less than five minutes later, barely after our first sip of coffee, our food was out to us!

The Good (the food):
Solid diner food (at least during breakfast) from a well-oiled machine (restaurant). The best part was the home fries that came out as a combo of crispy, slightly burnt on the ends, and creamy in the middle without me asking for my usual "well done, please". Mmh starch at its best.

My omelette was cooked/presented in a different way than others I have had. It was more like a fritatta, laid out very, very thin and then folded over several times to create its shape.Mushrooms were sliced so that cooking it that way was possible. I wonder what would have happened if there were bulkier ingredients. Perhaps this is why the Broad Street Diner doesn't offer a multi-vegetable breakfast.

The Eh:
The toast. Very forgettable with inconsistent buttering.
The decor/atmosphere. Everything was clean where we were sat (a step up from the last diner) but overall it was very loud which I wouldn't mind if it was because of the patrons, but I do mind when it's attributed to the staff. There were waitresses indulging the nearby booths about the details of the personal life drama.

The Bad:
The attentive, intelligent waitress turned negligent and somewhat snappish. As the meal went on, there was less personal attention and then a check that was thrown onto our table with a dismissive "Thanks guys" after we had asked for it twice. It took us only 10-15 minutes to have coffee and food, but about 20 minutes waiting and tapping our foot.

I'll use the above model for my meal as well since my two eggs with sausage and home fries had its peaks and valleys as well. Firstly the eggs were done pretty darn well. I ordered them over medium, and to my delight I had no runny whites and the yolks were perfectly creamy and rich. This was made even more impressive by the speed that the kitchen must have worked at to get our food out to us. I have to agree with Chi, too. The potatoes were some of the best I've ever had. A lot of diners struggle with making home fries that are crispy on the outside and light through the rest of the potato. I suspect that the chefs cook their potatoes (until fork tender) before they slice them to be fried up.

My sausage was the "eh" part of my meal. The three jumbo link sausage were definitely good, but I suppose I wasn't suspecting them to be so different in an establishment where their pricing looked liked the 1990s. The mean was tender, juicy, and a little salty, but the casing needed more bite for some more texture. After the initial bite, everything becomes mush (delicious mush).

Same complaint as above, but to put a cherry on top, as Chi and I walked back to our car and I spotted our waitress taking a personal call behind the restaurant while smoking a cigarette. Now, I don't want to rip the woman completely, there might be some unknown circumstances. What if someone in her family is sick? I just think it was bad form to present yourself like that right next to the parking lot where every patron coming in and leaving can see you.


Note: This is the Broad Street Diner on South Broad Street in Trenton, NJ. Please do NOT confuse it with the diner that is also probably on Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA.