Dearborn Restaurant - 105 Lexington Rd, Waterloo

4		4	4	3.5

Dearborn Restaurant - hidden away in darkest Waterloo - is a former frequent-breakfast-haunt of mine. Dave and I went on November 1st, since apparently Benny’s is packed on Saturday mornings at 10:30. Dearborn claims “Best Breakfast in Town” on its sign outside, which is how we first discovered it a few years back.

Dearborn offers a family-style atmosphere in one dining room with semi-open kitchen, carpets and wooden booths and tables, and an all-table tiled second dining room. They were doing steady business when we went in, but there were also plenty of tables available for a Saturday mid-morning.

Dearborn offers a pretty comprehensive - if standard - breakfast menu. It doesn’t offer much in the way of unusual items, but there were a good number of options for benedicts, omelettes, and breakfast sandwiches. We sat ourselves, and coffee was served almost immediately by an extremely friendly and efficient server; she also visited a number of times to see how we were doing and fill coffee.

Dave ordered a Peameal Breakfast ($8 plus $0.50 charge for rye), which he thought was pretty great - especially on the peameal end of things, as it was super thick and delicious. He commented that the toast was good (“definitely worth fifty cents”), eggs cooked fine, and the potatoes - slices of real potato done on the grill - were not as bland as some, but still underseasoned.

I ordered chocolate chip pancakes ($5.95 plus $1.00 for chocolate chips), and they were pretty good too - good texture, quite fluffy and flavourful - although I would have liked to see the (plenty) of chocolate chips spread through the pancakes a bit more, rather than concentrated in the middle of each. Neither of us liked their coffee at all, but, you know, it wasn’t poisonous.

The bill brought almost immediately after we were finished, but we were told to “take as long as we wanted” and brought more coffee. Overall, Dearborn served good food, but the standout for us was the extremely efficient service - our drinks, food, and refills all came in a crazy-timely fashion.

SCORECARD

Atmosphere	Price	Variety	Taste	Flexibility	Service
4	3.5	4	3.5	4	5
Cleanliness	Special		Flavour		Courtesy
4	$4.95 weekday/ $5.95 weekend		3.5		5
Ambience	Coffee		Cook		Speed
4	$1.95		4		5
	Pancakes		Coffee
	$5.95		2.5
	Omelette		Potatoes
	$8.50 (several items)		3.5

TOTAL SCORE: 4

Frieda's Place - 210 Pinebush Rd, Cambridge

3.5	71%	3.6	4	3.5

Frieda’s Place is an old-school diner, and has been a fixture in Hespeler for over 20 years. Based on their professional and informative website I was excited to visit, and tried out their breakfast on Hallowe’en with my aunt and grandmother, both Cambridge residents.  At Frieda’s you order at the counter and pay immediately (tip in the tip cup at cash); condiments, coffee, and water were all self-serve. The tables and decor were what I expected at this kind of place - sparse and utilitarian - but the place was clean and accessible.

Frieda’s prices were all very reasonable, and they offer all the standard breakfast things, with the addition of “bologna steak” as a meat option. The employee working the counter was slightly curt with us when we ordered, and while I understand that the self-serve nature of the diner can be a perk, having to jump up and down for everything including water, jam, and creamer got to be a serious hassle, and my food ended up colder than it might otherwise have been.

My grandmother and aunt ordered identical breakfast specials ($3.99) - eggs over-easy, rye toast (choice of white/brown/rye), bacon, and hashbrowns. Frieda’s provides generous servings, and this is particularly noticeable in the huge piles of potatoes! They both thoroughly enjoyed their breakfasts, (but also: criticism is not a strong point for either).

I ordered the breakfast slam, which included pancakes (or french toast), hash browns, toast (rye for me), eggs (scrambled), and meat (which I substituted for tomatoes, but was offered an additional egg as a substitute as well). It was okay, although I found it kind of bland - the scrambled eggs were weirdly light-coloured, the pancakes were fluffy but firm, the hashbrowns were the cubed-frozen-deep-fried kind, and the 3 tomato slices that were my sausage-substitute were verrrry thin cut.

At the end of the day, I kind of doubt Frieda’s “best breakfast in town” claims, but it was a perfectly adequate meal, and great for those who value quantity and price over quality.

SCORECARD

Atmosphere	Price	Variety	Taste	Flexibility	Service
3.5	4.5	3.5	3.75	4	3
Cleanliness	Special		Flavour		Courtesy
4	$3.99		3.5		3
Ambience	Coffee		Cook		Speed
3	$1.50		4		3
	Pancakes		Coffee
	$5.50		4
	Omelette		Potatoes
	$6.95 (several items)		3.5

Total Score: 3.75

Sunset Grill - 235 Ira Needles Blvd, Kitchener

2.5	69%	3.8	3.5	3.5

The Sunset Grill is an Ontario restaurant chain that has been serving fresh breakfast and lunch since 1985. I breakfasted at the Kitchener location on Sunday, October 26 with my friend Kayleigh. The restaurant itself was fitted out like a corporate diner - shiny wooden tables and trim, high, industrial ceiling, faux-tiffany-style ceiling lamps, open kitchen filled with shiny appliances and clean, uniformed cooks, and a cash desk clearly labeled with a big “pay here” sign. The big windows, high ceilings, and bright interior made it a friendly place to eat, but all the hard surfaces reflected sound from the dining room and kitchen and made it a bit too loud for breakfast-conversation comfort.

The Sunset Grill boasts a fair variety of breakfast foods, including grilled chicken breast available as a breakfast meat and a large assortment of breakfast sandwiches - which makes sense with their all-day take-out breakfast service.

(I have to say, learning that there is a place with a take-out breakfast that is not fast food thrilled me to my boots.)

In spite of running a brisk trade on a Sunday morning, service was very friendly and reasonably efficient. 

Kayleigh ordered Eggs Florentine ($10.99) - a Benedict with swish cheese, hollandaise, spinach, and eggs on an english muffin, which she said was very tasty. The Sunset Grill’s standard egg-breakfast includes three small eggs rather than two large ones (“the same amount of egg, but more yolk,” explained the waitress). Kayleigh found the cook on the eggs a little odd, since 2 were poached hard and 1 poached soft - and she wasn’t asked how she wanted them after switching their usual sunny-side-up cook for poached. She liked the potatoes, which were real potatoes, sliced and cooked in-house on the grill. 

I, however, found the potatoes I received with my no-meat-special ($5.49) to be a bit bland. My eggs (over-easy) were cooked well, though, and the toast (choice of white/brown/rye) was a nice quality dark rye.

Our server continued to serve us coffee after bringing the bills to the table, which was nice, and made us feel like we weren’t being hurried away. It was similarly nice to know exactly where and how to pay. Overall, pretty good!  I will definitely be trying this whole take-out breakfast thing sometime soon.

SCORECARD

Atmosphere	Price	Variety	Taste	Flexibility	Service
4.5	3.5	4	3.75	4	4
Cleanliness	Special		Flavour		Courtesy
5	$7.49 (3 eggs)		3.5		4
Ambience	Coffee		Cook		Speed
4	$1.99		4		4
	Pancakes		Coffee
	$5.49		4
	Omelette		Potatoes
	$6.99 (plain)		3.5

Total score: 4