prairie point

breakfast

It is hard to beat the breakfasts that Tricia can whip up in our own kitchen, but sometimes we just like to get out of the house early and go somewhere else. We have a short list of three or four places that we usually pick from.

Tops on our list is Angela’s. We “discovered” Angela’s about six years ago when it was a tiny hole-in-the-wall with a half dozen tables. Evidently, lots of others discovered it about the same time because within a few months there was a line down the sidewalk to get in. The main attraction for me has always been the migas or the huevos rancheros, although the café has generally trended toward traditional instead of trading on it’s Mexican heritage. It was started by a couple of young latinas and named for a grade-school-age daughter, who used to sit behind the cash register on a stool Saturday mornings coloring or reading her school books. They have moved into bigger quarters now and kind of established themselves as the neighborhood café. There are prosperous-looking locals, some with children in tow, who greet one another, and men who sit together doing business deals of some kind, with looseleaf notebooks and papers on the table between them. There is a dapper little man who is always sitting by himself at the same table by the window every Saturday morning.

Another favorite is La Madeleine. It is a small chain with “upscale fast food,” the name I give to places where you go through a line to order instead of having a waitress come to your table, but with food a little more complex than a fast food joint. You can get quiche here or an “american breakfast” with scrambled eggs and hash browns, except with a croissant instead of toast. The decor is frenchified and has a crackling gas log fire in a stone fireplace. Actually it is misleading to call it fast food since the pace always seems rather leisurely. The customers at the one near our house are what I call the “NPR crowd” - older couples with European accents and young ladies dressed in black sitting alone with a novel and a cup of French-roast coffee.

There is also a pancake house nearby which we never go to, and a Jewish deli, which I like but Tricia doesn’t, and some kind of snooty, upscale place that just opened in the shopping center, the appeal of which so far has eluded us.

But today we felt really traditional, so it was off to the Mecca, an old-fashioned diner with a counter and booths and wise-cracking waitresses who can carry four plates at once.

The name of the place is ironic, being that many of the nearby businesses are discount fabric stores run by men with middle-eastern names, but I happen to know that the cafe was here long before they were. It is in a slightly seedy commercial area on what was once a major traffic artery before the interstate was built about fifty years ago. The road is called a highway and it runs parallel to the railroad and has no sidewalks or even curbs. It and many of the buildings were here long before the suburbs came and swallowed up the area.

This is the sort of place that only serves breakfast and a lunch special that is either chicken-fried steak or meatloaf with a choice of vegetables. I can remember when there used to be lots of places like this around town. Now they are an endangered species and people come from all over the city just for the experience of eating here. The walls are covered with memorabilia signed by local celebrities and sports heroes. It is always bustling with busy people who seem to be on their way to sports events and shopping and all kinds of activities. Today our waitress is singing Christmas songs while rushing around keeping everyone’s coffee cup filled, but no one is paying the slightest attention.

The special is huge, with three sausages instead of two to go with my scrambled eggs. By the time I finish them and the third coffee refill, I am ready for the day. There is not a cloud in the sky.

Posted by Bill Hopkins on November 27, 2004 10:45 AM