Camacho Watcho

Yesterday I met a friend for breakfast at the Cobblestone Cafe in White Bear Lake. Located right on Washington Square, this timeless diner was right up my alley for a good Saturday morning breakfast.

I love the straight up bacon and eggs breakfast. Sure, I do like creative breakfasts too, but the key to my heart lies in the following order: 2 eggs over medium, crispy bacon, and toast (buttered). A diner that can cook eggs over-medium and understand the true meaning of crispy bacon is hard to come by. I’m not sure why that is, but rarely do people truly understand that order and I usually get eggs that are too runny or overly hard and the bacon is usually greasy and limp. But yesterday morning, Cobblestone got it right and it was downright tasty. I also went for the American fries, which were crisp and light, not soggy and greasy like some diners serve. Really, I was quite pleased.

Best of all was the carafe of coffee that arrived alongside my mug. I just love that. I’m not really one for letting my coffee cup run completely dry between refills, rather, I like to let it go until about a fourth cup is left and then refill. So having a carafe right there at the table with me indulges my need to refill often. Even better, however, was when my friend ordered coffee upon the arrival of her meal, another full carafe arrived with her coffee cup. Truly a lovely thing.

If you’re in White Bear Lake and looking for a good diner, I would recommend the Cobblestone Cafe, a solid breakfast right on Washington Square.

The topic of breakfast greens has been discussed a time or two among a certain group of my friends. This discussion is heavily centered around one question, “Breakfast greens: are they a do or are they a don’t?”

We met some friends at the Birchwood last week. Straying from my typical breakfast scrambler order, I was tempted by the breakfast frittata sandwich – foccaccia bread piled high with a fluffy egg frittata, thick-cut applewood bacon, earthy mushrooms and chevre. Delicious. All of this accompanied by a side of fruit and breakfast greens. There in lied the controversy…were the breakfast greens a do or a don’t?

Now, don’t misunderstand me; I like salad. In fact, there are salads that I have been known to crave. A good crisp romaine lettuce topped with grape tomatoes, grilled asparagus, and steak with a blue cheese vinaigrette…oops…that’s a dinner salad. Or maybe a good cobb salad with crisp bacon, avocado, red onion…dinner salad. How about a lemony caesar salad with fresh romano cheese and large cut croutons…dinner salad…again.

So, my thoughts on breakfast greens? It’s not that I think salad greens don’t go with eggs, I just don’t believe that salad greens belong at breakfast. In fact, I have served up my own version of the breakfast scrambler with potatoes, toast and breakfast greens for dinner. In that situation, I think it works. But, that’s dinner. It’s different.

So, breakfast greens…are they a do or a don’t? My opinion – they are a don’t. If there’s any doubt about how I feel, see the ‘after’ picture above of my breakfast frittata sandwich at the Birchwood. Loved the sandwich, the fruit eventually got eaten…but the breakfast greens? Well, ’nuff said.

The Birchwood Cafe has long been serious about their food. With organic ingredients and homemade dishes they have lived up to their “Good Real Food” motto. Breakfast specialties like free-range egg scramblers, homemade organic granola and other sweet treats such as poppy seed waffles with fruit toppings have set them apart from the rest. Lunch and dinner specialties, although I have not frequented the Birchwood for these meals as often, have also proven to be top notch. To complement their first-rate food, last year they also got serious about their service. Whereas in the past you bussed your own table at the end of the meal, one day they began performing this service for us. A nice, albeit not necessary, touch.

So what is this about “serious” coffee? If there is one more improvement to make to Birchwood Cafe it is with their coffee. Certainly the quality of coffee is not an issue, but rather it is the service, or lack thereof. The Birchwood is the kind of place where you order your coffee at the counter and return back up to the counter to pay for and receive a refill. I don’t really mind paying for refills, but what is annoying is that the thick-sided ceramic mug that holds virtually 4-5 drinks of coffee is inevitably empty by the time my food arrives. The result is that I am always either out of coffee when I begin to eat or I have to go back up for a refill while my egg scrambler awaits me at the table. I am a coffee lover, so this is a problem. Typically I resolve this by quickly drinking my first cup, just so I can get a refill before the food arrives; certainly not the leisurely pace that I’m looking for on a weekend morning.

That was until today. We hadn’t been to the Birchwood for a while, but we could feel something was different as we sat down. Looking around us, we discovered that people had small, silver carafes of coffee at their tables and they were pouring their own refills while they ate. That was it; that was the difference. Kyle and I were just glancing down into our mugs of disappearing coffee, wishing we had known about this when we ordered, when a waitress appeared with a carafe of coffee and poured us refills. Fantastic! Of course we asked what was up with the coffee situation, to which she replied, “We are getting serious about our coffee service.”