Liberty Family Restaurant

Yesterday Karen and I headed to Liberty for a quick pre-work breakfast. Let me say right off the bat they get points for not even having hard rolls; The breakfast sandwiches come "on toast" and you can upgrade to an English muffin, croissant or bagel. Karen went Anglo with egg and cheddar on an English muffin and I, being at the Liberty, got mine with American cheese and bacon. On a bagel. What can I say, I'm a mutt. Oh, and of course there was a plate of home fries.

More bonus points for Karen's coffee never getting less than an inch below the rim without a refill and my massive iced tea getting half empty before our waitress brought me a second full one.

Our food came quickly and looked pretty good. I have lived up here long enough not to expect a bagel store bagel at a diner and was prepared for what we used to call in college a "Breadle" (bread in the shape of a bagel, which come to think of it resembles the rolls I grew up with). As you can see it was well toasted. I put it together and dove in. Tasted like an egg sandwich. Bacon provided salt and grease, American cheese added more salt and gooeyness, and the egg was neither hard nor soft. Just fine. Karen was disappointed with hers, though. Cheddar cheese was flavorless leading to an overall bland sandwich. I've also come to expect that cheddar is not going to be sharp or flavorful unless they're bragging about where it came from and who made it. Home fries tasted good and had a nice grill crust on top but were still a little wet everywhere else.

Liberty Family Restaurant
Sandwich cost: $4.15 (egg with meat and cheese on toast is $3.85, add 30¢ for the bagel)
Rating: A breakfast sandwich if ever there was one

Atlas Eats

March has been busy, busy, busy but Karen and I took a moment to have breakfast out a couple Sundays ago at Atlas Eats in West Irondequoit. Actually, we were just stopping in to check out the baked goods but decided to stay when we saw they had a breakfast menu ready to go. The breakfast sandwich was bacon and a fried egg on a cheddar biscuit. The cheese is IN the bread! So, that's what I ordered.

Situated on a residential block of North Clinton, Atlas Eats is an odd little oasis;  Fairly unassuming from the street but bright and cheery inside. With a hot cup of tea in hand and breakfast on the way, looking out the large front windows at the gray landscape of suburbia trapped in perpetual winter didn't feel so bad.

Our food arrived and I was a little surprised to see spinach instead of potatoes next to my breakfast but I didn't let it shake me too much. I put the top of the biscuit over the generous amount of bacon and picked up the sandwich, egg and bacon hanging out of all four sides. This might be the best bacon I've had on an egg sandwich; Thick, salty, cooked to perfection - not too chewy and not overdone and crunchy. The egg oozed a little yolk onto the plate with the first bite and the biscuit was flaky and delicious. However, flaky also means it doesn't hold together so well. After a few sandwich bites I decided to just have at it with a fork which worked just fine.

Atlas Eats
Sandwich cost: $4.99
Rating: A delicious take on the breakfast sandwich

Cheese Masters (Park Ave)

So, there's a grilled cheese store in town called Cheese Masters. They've got two locations, the original one at Eastview Mall in Victor and now a store on Park Ave. I love a good grilled cheese (geez, who doesn't!?) so one Wednesday Karen picked me up from work at lunchtime and we headed over to check it out. Oh, hey, look, they do a breakfast sandwich! Might as well try it...

As we waited for a grilled egg, bacon, and cheese on sourdough, a three melt classic, and a bowl of tomato soup we took a look around. Despite stepping over frozen mounds of snow getting out of the car it felt (and smelled) like an oceanside resort town snack bar. The air was heavy with melting butter and cheese, indoor picnic tables, sparsely decorated interior with white wainscoting - I shut my eyes for a second and could plainly see Cheese Masters wedged in between a souvenir stand and a fudge shop on a boardwalk somewhere. And then our food was ready.

With the red and white cardboard french fry boats our sandwiches came in I guess the snack food stand vibe was intentional. I took a look at my sandwich - the sandwich press doing its job had compressed the bread, egg, cheese and bacon into a solid sheet. I took a bite. Hmm, tastes like a grilled cheese. I took a second bite.

I think you know what it tasted like.


Cheese Masters
Sandwich cost: $3.99
Rating: Hey, someone put an egg in my grilled cheese!

Red Front

I've always been curious about the Red Front - a seedy looking diner in a tiny plaza on the corner of N. Clinton and Andrews. Obviously because the name invokes communist revolution and secondly because it's attached to the liquor store next door. After years of curiosity I headed over for lunch. Most small diners have a collection of regulars who turn their heads when you walk in the door so it was refreshing to walk in at the tail end of lunch, half the tables full, and have no one take notice of me. I looked around: to the left, a small vestibule with a woman offering tax prep help. To the right, the dining area, a cigarette machine that time forgot except for the hand written cardboard signs updating the price and advice on making selections before putting your fives in, and against the far wall a Lotto machine. It was kookier than I expected, though nicer, too.

I walked straight ahead and looked at the menu board above the long counter (curiously covered in steel decking) and ordered a sausage, egg, and cheese but hesitated on what bread to have.
"Your hard roll the Petrillo's roll with the knotted top?"
"The Paulo?"
"The Paulo?" I reiterated quizzically.
"Yeah, that's what we call 'em. You want it on a hard roll?"
I didn't ask why and I'm not entirely sure I heard her correctly, so I proceeded: "Nah, those are too soft."
"But we toast 'em!" she enthusiastically threw back.
I smiled and decided to try something entirely different and went with an English muffin and added some home fries for $2.25.

I walked further down the counter to pay at the register (right next to what I think is a check cashing area) and waited a couple minutes for my food while continuing to take it all in. I was expecting another past-its-prime diner but instead was pleasantly surprised that it felt like it belonged in a big city. They didn't care who waked through the door because I'm guessing in the 41 years they've been in business they've seen it all walk through the door. There was banter. And the pragmatic combination of diner, liquor store, tax prep, cash checking plaza is pretty hard not to like.

I headed back to work and dug in. Egg, cheese, and sausage were good, though I kind of regretted the English muffin (After the first bite I was reminded how much I don't really care for them unless they are very toasted and covered in butter and jam). Not a disaster, just not a home run. The potatoes were curiously slimy but tasted fine. I look forward to heading back to try another.

Red Front
Sandwich cost: $3.00
Rating: A solid breakfast sandwich