James Brown's Place

A dreary Saturday morning and I have no eggs, bread, or cereal in the house. Guess I have to go get an egg sandwich. James Brown's Place is about a mile from my house and actually was one of the tipping points in buying a house in this neighborhood. It's a blue collar foodie diner in the era of extreme eating. What does that mean?! You don't just get French toast you get cranberry-apple French toast or instead of just ordering a breakfast sandwich you choose from the menu of over twenty breakfast sandwiches.

The special sandwich this weekend was the Three Little Pigs: Grilled French Baguette topped with smoked pork, ham, bacon, a fried egg, chipotle mayo, and cheddar. This sounded like more than I was ready for first thing so I just went with a breakfast sandwich with andouille chicken sausage. Unfortunately they were out of the chicken andouille and offered turkey sausage instead. I ordered it to go with some home fries and a few minutes later headed home with my styrofoam container and stack of napkins.

The container managed to encapsulate the whole James Brown experience: kind of dark, a little messy, warm, and filling the air with the steamy smell of grease and grilled meat. The next thing I noticed was the frickin' Rochester hard roll. It seems that Petrillo's Bakery has cornered the market on restaurant rolls. Not to pick on them, but these dinner rolls just don't hold up in a greasy sandwich, especially one with a slab of sausage in it. Take a look below, the roll just condenses into nothing; The sausage is thicker than the roll!

But this is also the problem with this sandwich. Instead of a breakfast sandwich with sausage this was pretty much a hunk of meat, albeit delicious meat, with some cheese, an egg, and bread surrounding it. It almost felt more like a job to finish it than a meal and on Saturday morning I don't want to go to work. The egg and cheese got lost in the fracas and the untoasted roll, as I mentioned, just buckled. I've been eating at James Brown's for over twelve years and I've rarely been disappointed, so this was a bit of a surprise. Even the home fries were off - cooked fine but lacking in seasoning, and I don't think I can blame the styrofoam for that.


James Brown's Place
Sandwich cost: $4.49
Rating: A sausage sandwich not fit for the meek

Spiro's Family Restaurant

I've driven by Spiro's on State Street for over a decade and assumed it was out of business -  a casualty of Kodak's decline - but to my surprise they showed signs of life with some new Specials signs in the parking lot a couple of years ago.

Breakfast to-go on the way to work today: "Breakfast sandwich with bacon, please."

As my sandwich was being made I looked around. The place seems relatively untouched since it's Kodak heyday with the overall beigeness suggesting the cloud of cigarette smoke that used to hang in the air. A few regulars at tables and the counters doing crosswords, contractors coming in to get sandwiches to go, and what I'm guessing are sisters behind the counter and grill.

Sandwich, ketchup, salt and pepper packets in a brown bag and I'm off to work.

The glassine wrapper showed grease in the creases but it didn't worry me. I unwrapped it: another Rochester hard roll, buttery scrambled egg, real cheese, and two strips of bacon. Overall a little greasy, which suited it well.

Spiro's Restaurant, 490 State Street
Sandwich cost: $4.00
Rating: That's a pretty classic breakfast sandwich

Comfort Diner

Of the many diners on East Ridge Road the Comfort Diner was the easiest one to get to at the moment, so that is where breakfast in bed was coming from. 

"Two egg and cheese on rolls." 
"You mean like a breakfast sandwich?"
"Yup."
To my chagrin the ordering took much more conversation than this but I typed it out, reread it, got bored, and deleted it, though it did include the phrase "over-easy" as the one time I like a runny egg is on a sandwich. A couple minutes later I got my three cartons (two sandwiches and home fries), paid my $7.99 and hit the road.

It never fails - if I don't order an egg hard I get it over-easy and today I ordered them over-easy only to get them well-done. Karen suggested the cook figured we wouldn't notice since the American cheese would be oozing all over our fingers anyway. Karen might be more generous than me. 

I chose "hard roll" from the list of choices I didn't tell you about and it was what I've come to expect in Rochester: a very soft dinner roll type of thing (A "hard roll" is soft, a soft roll is a hamburger bun. Don't ask me, I just live here). Don't get me wrong, it works fine for a breakfast sandwich, I just have no idea why you would set up the disappointment of not getting a crusty roll in the first place. Moving on...

Long and short of it, a totally average, adequate breakfast sandwich. Not bad, not to die for, but I will say that it was not greasy, nor was it made with margarine. 

If you were wondering about the potatoes, they were quite flavorful though styrofoam containers are the devil as I assume that is what made them so sad and soggy.

Comfort Diner
Sandwich cost: $2.95
Rating: It's a breakfast sandwich