There’s something about eating breakfast in a diner that is genuinely magical . The servers have the attention of a 3 Michelin restaurant. The food is the most wholesome and heart warming that you can get. The hustle and bustle connects with me on another level entirely. There’s something about the relaxing moment of digging through your pancakes, breakfast sandwich or biscuits and then the caffeine push that everyone is getting for the first time that day. Everyone is on the verge of their day, everyone is moving or wants to move fast. It's the energy that I can so closely relate to. Being absolutely exhausted with the willingness to push to get it done and serve something delicious to people.
I feel as though breakfast was some kind of marketing scam in the 80’s or 90’s gone horribly wrong. I don’t understand why American’s eat the kind of breakfast they do compared to the rest of the world. We’ve been brain washed into thinking that we can only eat cereal, yogurt, a couple eggs, waffles, or pancakes for breakfast. This is not the way. There is such a huge world out there to be limiting ourselves to these options.
But, nonetheless this is what we are accustomed to and it’s what we have to work with and it’s what I must talk about this month. Have you ever eaten a truly delicious breakfast sandwich? Do you have any idea why it was so fantastic? I’m hear to tell you this and some of my guiltiest pleasures as a Michelin chef that I find stupidly delicious.
First, to explain why most breakfast sandwiches are usually god awful.
#1 The eggs are usually pre-made and reheated in a microwave which leads to terrible texture and no fluff. Fail.
#2 The meat is usually pre-made which isn’t always a terrible thing but, when cooked poorly originally all of the sausage or bacon being served the rest of the day is already overcooked before even being reheated.
#3 Nobody ever puts enough freaking sauce on the sandwich. You need some form of mayonnaise on every breakfast sandwich and if you’re toasting the bread in a toaster, something is probably wrong as well. Butter toast your bread.
#4 The other “vegetables” put into the sandwich are usually there because the sandwich artist felt no other options could make the sandwich more enticing except meaningless lettuce and/or tomato.
#5 There’s not enough workforce to spread the wealth around the country to make everyone care about the food they have to make at 6 am to survive and possibly go to a second nighttime job around 2 pm and then do it all over again. Sometimes people are just surviving and that’s okay. But there are mom and pop, brick and mortar shops out there specializing in breakfast sandwiches that people dedicate their lives to. These are the places that I love and adore and deserve more credit.
To describe my ideal breakfast sandwich we are taking a trip to Devil’s Tooth Bakery in San Francisco.
The bread is a biscuit made daily at the shop where they have speed rack upon speed rack of freshly baked biscuits. They use that mornings biscuits on all the sandwiches and repurpose all of the other biscuits. It’s an extraordinary challenge for a small bakery to execute this. They make all of their eggs to order, freshly scrambled with texture and consistency that just melts in your mouth. Pepper-jack cheese to give it a little spice. Avocado from California, which certainly has a purpose. Crispy bacon that has been cooked properly and has a ruffle like texture that contrasts the smoothness of the eggs and biscuit. Finally a thousand island type sauce that absolutely drenches the whole sandwich, making it impossibly to be dry.
Some of my guilty pleasures include Aunt Jemima maple syrup tossed in jimmy dean breakfast sausages. - Yikes
Anyways I could talk all day and night about why I love breakfast and why there is a certain magic about it. The aroma of a diner and the aura of a diner brings me a sense of bewilderment. I want talk this month about what makes breakfast so special and what draws us to the things we grew up with. Join me on the podcast this month and stay tuned for special updates involving breakfast and maybe even a blind tasting cereal contest….
Also should I include breakfast burritos in the breakfast sandwich category or do they belong in the burrito conversation?
