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Me, I like the Monte Cristo sandwich. Nothing is more decadent. A great cheesburger (with pickle spear) is another standby. For breakfast, I used to be a French Toast girl, but these days I gravitate toward the egg-and-toast thing.
Some great things about diners:
-How they spread the butter on the toast for you, getting it all soaked and melty
-How they serve sodas in tall red plastic glasses with lovely crushed ice and a straw, with a little torn-off 'straw condom' still on, for your sanitation
-How the menus contain unlikely things that you wonder if anyone ever orders (red flannel hash, liver and onions)
-How they are a Jersey kid's home away from home, in the days before you come of age and can go to bars
I usually get eggs of some kind as most of the stuff there isn't vegetarian...When I was vegan...I'd get a plate of fries and a lettuce and tomato sandwich. And I always get my toast dry...always have and always will!
A turkey club and coffee. For breakfast, chicken fried steak, burn the potatoes please. Diners are one of the things I really miss about living on the east coast (actually, food in general). California has great ethnic food, but generally sucks for fattening American comfort food (and pizza and sandwiches).
Wino, do you pour ketchup on your corned beef hash as well? If you do, I'm going to have to insist you provide proof that you are not my dad's secret love child.
Wino, do you pour ketchup on your corned beef hash as well?
The blood test is in! I put ketchup on the home fries and if a little touches the hash I don't freak out, BUT, in general I practive ketchup sequestering. I like to moisten the hash with the egg yolk.
Coffee with sugar and cream, and more coffee. Coffee after that. In the morning, sourdough toast with butter and jam. In the afternoon, cheeseburger or a tuna melt.
At night, pie pie pie and pie.
Apple or cherry. And more coffee.
2 eggs over medium, sausage, hashbrowns AND grits please, biscuit and gravy or in the benighted north, just hashbrowns & whole wheat toast and please, a little foil container of mixed fruit jelly. Coffee. Or a cheeseburger plate. Or at the Silver Dollar here, a vegetable plate with collards and beans and red rice. And at the Sip N' Bite in Baltimore, the best crab cake sub in the whole entire world and fries with gravy. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
It's been many, many years since I've been to a diner, so we're going to have to meet again tomorrow, and the day after, and then maybe one more day, to get my whole order in.
I'd like white beans and rice with a porkchop and soggy salad, please, then chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy and coleslaw, then a cheddar cheese omelet, with grits and biscuits. Finally, I'd like a hubcap cheeseburger, fries, and a frosty, frosty coke with way too much crushed ice.
Eggs Benedict, please. With hashbrowns and toast. Lots and lots of coffee. Maybe some tapioca pudding, with the whipped cream, of course.
(My 90-year-old adopted mom who I've spoken of before was born in a diner, by the by. Well, actually, there wasn't a diner there yet, but where there is one now, there once was her parents' apartment building/grocery store. She loves to tell the waiter/waitress, "I was born here, you know." Booth 12. As Einstein said, it's all relative.)
-How they are a Jersey kid's home away from home, in the days before you come of age and can go to bars
Ain't that the truth. Thank you Olga's Diner for being my faithful high school hangout. I spent so much time there growing up that I still remember that they close for an hour on Mondays at 3 am, which seemed like a total bummer at the time. My order of choice back then: 75 cent bottomless cup of coffee. Then for a while, amidst outrage, they tried to institute a $2 minimum order policy, and I would get fries with gravy, too (these were my pre-veg days).
Nowadays, I'm probably most likely to order an omelette any time of day at a diner.
I am surprised that there is a strange dearth of information on the Black and White shake on the 'net. It's such an institution that I never would have thought it'd be so little-discussed. It does seem to be an East Coast thing, maybe even just a Mid-Atlantic thing, so that's part of it.
It's a milkshake made with vanilla ice cream, milk, and chocolate syrup. Aficionados swear that you get a distinct contrast between the two flavors; that they are both well expressed.
This reminded me that occasionally, I'll use a diner to get an ice cream soda. A real ice cream soda: made with seltzer, milk, syrup, and ice cream. All chocolate for me.
Breakfast: two scrambled eggs, extra crispy bacon, extra crispy hash browns, white toast dripping with butter and strawberry jam, large orange juice.
Lunch/dinner: cheeseburger (well done) with double cheddar cheese and grilled onions, extra crispy french fries, Coke in little green bottles and a chocolate malt.
I used to eat at the sip n bite every fucking weekend. They had the best hot roast beef sandwiches in the history of the universe. And the best everything else. Hot damn, motherfucker!
Zack-Replica, I remember going to the H&H automat in NYC when I was a kid, before it closed. The funniest part of the automat idea, to me, is that it's not really all that 'auto'. There were still lunch ladies preparing individual foods behind the vending walls. It was an expression of a time period when the illusion of automation was more important than real automation. A modern McD's is wayyyy more automated than an automat ever was!
Yeah, I realize that, Miko. It's unfortunate, as I like the chrome /glass/formica look much better. It's probably one of the main reasons I'd like to eat at one. That and it's so very futurist/retro.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
