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

Balsam Bagels

Although this is the first breakfast sandwich I'm posting in 2014 it's not the first I've had. I made myself a fried egg and muenster cheese on a toasted onion nan the other day which was grand and also reminded me that switching up the bread is very rewarding. To that end comes today's sandwich: How do you avoid the Rochester hard roll? Go to a bagel store.



Sunday morning: Hungry, don't feel like sitting down anywhere pre-shower (especially Pittsford, though the promise of "whisked eggs with avocado pico de gallo" sounds fancy and delicious), so we're just gonna head over to the local bagel store which has some pretty decent bagels.

Karen ordered first: "Egg and cheese on an everything with veggie sausage, please." The bagels were still hot out of the oven but they offered to toast it for her. "Yes, please. With butter!" As they started her sandwich I realized that the eggs were pre-made, perfectly round scrambled patties grabbed from a bin, put in a microwave with the sausage patty on top. After deciding not to risk disappointment with microwaved bacon I went with the same order as Karen. We both opted for cheddar.

Coffee and juice in tow we headed home. A too quick photo session (which yielded the above blurry pics as I was very hungry), and we dove in.

What can I say, it's hard to fuck up an egg sandwich. Bagel was good- warm, soft yet yielding, egg, although made earlier in the day, was fluffy (a little salt and pepper in the preparation would've helped), and the veggie sausage was pretty good, too. Karen appreciated the vegetarian option offered and was very pleased with the sausage but for me the sandwich lacked the greasy saltiness that pork imbues. We both agreed that the cheddar was unidentifiable as cheddar. As chewy as the melted muenster I mentioned earlier and no discernable sharpness.

Balsam Bagels
Sandwich cost: $4.29
Rating: A hearty, no frills breakfast sandwich