Bryant Lake Bowl

Paul’s take:

By Jonathunder

Again this is one of those places I’ve heard about for years and always planned on going but, I never quite did. Maybe there was a little voice in the back of my mind saying, "it’s not your kind of place".
The place isn’t the cleanest place around but I can overlook that if it’s good. I mean I used to go to the Uptown Bar for breakfast. (You really didn’t want to look into the kitchen there) but, I used to drink a half a dozen Bloody Mary’s too.
The waiter greeted us quickly and very shortly I had my Organic Fair Trade coffee in front of me, the coffee was good. The ice water tasted like old pipes again. And it had some specks in the bottom (could the specks be actual pieces of old pipe?)

Specks.

The menu didn’t have anything that stood out for me. I settled on a chorizo, red pepper and gouda cheese scramble. The server told me my choices of sides and one was dirty rice. I just made some dirty rice a few days ago and I really like it. A couple of the menu choices also had red beans and rice. I ended up with beans and rice but I’m sure they just use for both options.

I’m not a big bean fan and this was not dirty rice as I know it. My eggs and chorizo scramble was kind of dry and lifeless. My sourdough toast and jelly was probably the best thing I had along with my fair trade coffee.
The place is small and fairly dirty and the menu did not interest me at all.
I won’t go back
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1 out of 4 stars
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Jeanne's Take:

I had been to BLB a bunch of times while I was married, which was a long time ago. I have seen a lot of comedy shows there as well as taking advantage of the Cheap Date Night and bowling. I had never, strangely, had breakfast there. Paul and I agree that Uptown Bar had some really great breakfasts, even if the place was filthy.

We arrived at about 9am and got a seat by the window. Our server greeted us quickly and I asked for a Cold Press. I was told they don't have Cold Press but they do have Iced Coffee. I ordered it but feared it would be hot coffee poured over ice. When it arrived I was pleased to see that it was indeed Iced Coffee. Pretty tasty.

Iced Coffee. Yum.

I wasn't taken by anything really on the menu, so I opted for French Toast. It was pretty good, made with thick slices of cinnamon swirl bread. I covered it with butter and syrup and dug in. It tasted really great, but the insides were a little under cooked and custard-y, but not in the good way. This is a huge extreme from the barely soaked French Toast at the Lucky Oven. Something inside of me told me to just stop eating it because the eggs haven't been cooked all the way, but it was really good and I was hungry so I ate the whole thing.

It took about 3 minutes after we left BLB for my spaghetti house to start churning. Not totally blaming it on the food as strong coffee will mess with my stomach too, but I was in bad shape for a bit there. But I recovered and moved on with my day.

This was a pretty good serving of French Toast with a pretty smooth Iced Coffee. If we go back I will make sure the toast is cooked all the way through.

Oh, one last thing: I also had specks in my water, but I tried to convince Paul that it was just specks in the glass. It didn't work.
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2.5 stars out of 4 - might go back again
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