Montgomery Court

 

Montgomery Court is a new coffee shop on the corner of Park and Colby (that east section of Park past Culver that’s mostly residential). I don’t drink coffee but they kept posting pics of breakfast foods so I started following them on ye olde IG. 

A while back I stopped in to try the one egg sandwich they had on offer so far - bacon, egg, and cheddar on a cheddar biscuit (left photo), but was unpleasantly surprised to find out that #1, it cost nine bucks and #2, the biscuit was generously flavored with thyme. The biscuit was large which I appreciated for a sandwich (most are tiny and makes holding it as a sandwich impossible) but this bigger size just threw the BEC ratio off. Too much bread and instead of tasting cheddar or aioli I just got thyme. This was early on and I like to suspend judgement while places are finding their groove. 

Last week they posted about a new sandwich that said all the magic words I want to hear: six dollars, NYC style hard roll, bodega vibes. Although the accompanying photo didn’t look like a NYC bodega sandwich I was intrigued! 

Yesterday I was out running errands with one of my kids so we worked a stop into Montgomery coffee to get breakfast. We each ordered The NYC, one with bacon and one with sausage. A few minutes later we got our food and headed to the tables outside (the booths were taken and although there is a bunch of tall tables in place, there is a zoning issue with allowing more indoor seating at the moment).

First impression was good: bacon hanging out the sides, cheddar melting everywhere. The roll still not looking like a hard roll, especially with the lil flat toasted cap, but I can appreciate stylistic differences. We dug in. Bacon was not too salty, a lil chewy, but flavorful. Hallie said the sausage was nothing fancy but good. Cheddar had some sharpness to it, and the egg was…well, a fried egg. Halfway through I wondered if they had forgotten the aioli but Hallie said she had just gotten to the aioli side of hers. I opened mine up and saw that the dollop was squarely in the middle, like a jelly donut. I kept eating and enjoyed the garlicky center. The roll was solid but but not stodgy and held up to breakfast sandwich standards. But this is no hard roll; Instead of a crusty outside (they don’t call them hard for nothin’) this seemed more like a butter soaked dinner roll. It was downright oily. If you can get past that, it’s a solid sandwich.

Montgomery Court

1241 Park Ave, ROC 14610

Sandwich cost: $6 for the NYC, $9 for the OG biscuit

Sandwich rating: You really can’t complain about a $6 sandwich (but that ain’t no hard roll)

DiPaolo Baking Company

Whelp, it's been a few years since I stopped posting and people keep asking me where to find the best egg sandwiches so I figured I'd get back to it. I've been eating and taking photos for the last couple of weeks but I figured I should anoint the return with something iconic, something notable.

If you've read the older posts you know that I am not a Rochester local (though I have lived up here for over 20 years now) so there was a steep learning curve to the differences in bread readily available in WNY as opposed to the greater NYC metro area I grew up in. After figuring out that a hard roll was a soft roll and that bagels (sometimes pronounced bag-gulls instead of bay-gulls here) were not a reliable commodity (more times than not a bagel is usually a breadel: a soft roll in a bagel shape, lacking any heft or shiny, chewy crust) I finally started to adjust to the local culture and see that I was looking for something that didn't exist - a bodega/deli egg sandwich on a kaiser roll (despite beef on weck being popular in these parts decent hard rolls are available, just not at breakfast time). Anyway, once I accepted that the standard roll for an egg sandwich was a hard roll made by DiPaolo's or Petrillo's bakery - a soft, twisted roll that can make a decent sandwich if it's grilled or toasted (but can compress down to a pancake if not) - I stopped my whining and embraced the local standard. 

Which brings me to today. I wanted to show my support for my adopted city and it's cheekily named hard roll and go right to the source for an egg sandwich. What a story arc! What a triumph! What a joke!

I was out bright and early this morning so I made my way over to Plymouth Ave shortly after seven to grab myself an iconic egg sandwich from the DiPaolo Baking Company. After circling the block and finding a seemingly legal spot to park I made my way inside. They supply numerous businesses with their baked goods and there were bags and bags of rolls and loaves waiting to be picked up. They have a bakery case and small counter for walk-ins and a sandwich board advertising an egg sandwich for $5.50 with either bacon or sausage. I was greeted warmly by the woman behind the counter and asked for a bacon, egg, and cheese, please. She walked back to a warmer holding a dozen foil wrapped bundles and asked me if I wanted a bagel or croissant. Bagel or croissant?!? I hesitated as I was dumbfounded that their signature roll wasn't on offer and before I could answer someone walked out of the back and said "Croissant!" The woman behind the counter chuckled and I panicked and said "bagel?" The guy proceeded to walk out the door and said, "See, I told you!" I was so confused. I paid my $5.50, grabbed my foil bundle and was wished a great day.

Once home I unwrapped the suspiciously light foil bundle; No bagel this size should weigh this little. The bread was so big that no egg, cheese, or bacon stuck out to tempt me. I lifted off the top half and saw that there was indeed a tidy patty of egg, cheese, and bacon in there. I put the lid on and took a bite. I was not feeling it; The bagel was not just a classic breadel but a mediocre one at that. I debated for half a second and realized life is too short to eat bad bread and lifted the melded contents off the sandwich and just ate that because I was hungry, not because it was good. The egg was a hard puck, probably microwaved. The cheese looked like white American (of which I will defend to any foodie) but lacked the usual oily creaminess. The bacon was the only thing that made this congealed pancake palatable: crispy and salty (and I probably would have just eaten the bacon if it wasn't glued onto the rest with the plastic cheese). So, bread was a confusing disappointment, egg and cheese were hard and dry, but the bacon was edible. Damn, not the triumphant return I imagined. 

DiPaolo Baking Company

598 Plymouth Ave, Rochester, NY

Sandwich cost: $5.50

Rating: Pure disappointment