Campus Caf
Lansdowne campus
Big breakfast (two eggs, sausage or bacon, two slices of toast, and hashbrowns)
$6.48
Presentation and service
Jason: The cafeteria in the morning can be a scary place with tired students desperate for their caffeine fix. Through the maze of weary miserable students, you can find the big breakfast, a safe haven for those who still like eggs, toast, and meat packaged in tubes.
Tyler: Like Jay-Z, what more can I say? Paper plates, but you get to watch your breakfast being cooked, so I guess it’s pretty much like Benihana.
Taste
J: The breakfast is actually pretty good. You get a lot of food, but the bacon and sausage tastes a little old. Like a Seth MacFarlane show, you’ll settle for it, but you look around for something better halfway through. The eggs are tasty, and if you like a runny yolk, they are usually already broken. The hash browns make up for the rest, though; you get a lot of the golden nuggets of delight.
T: Actually, the breakfast is pretty solid. It’s a big meal with tons of potatoes. But the sausages and bacon are precooked, so by the time they make it to the plate they’re more rubbery than my legs after I’ve been forced to walk for longer than 10 minutes. And these yolks don’t always make it off the grill intact.
The Village Restaurant
2518 Estevan
Healthy start breakfast (two eggs, 2 sausages, 2 slices of toast, and a side of fruit)
$11.20
Presentation and service
J: It’s a legitimate walk from campus, and if you go with Tyler you will hear about it the whole way there; he’s really not a morning person. The place is great, though, amazing people working there and the food looks delectable.
T: The plate came out beautifully, with those big orange-yellow yolks staring me right in my mug, next to a veritable fruit garden of kiwi, pineapple, orange, and grapefruit. The service was quick and friendly and the woman who took care of us was clearly a pro. No extraneous words, but not brisk either. Good job, mystery woman.
Taste
J: It tastes even better than it looks. The turkey sausages, killer; the eggs, perfect (and no broken yolks); the toast, fresh; the side of fruit, really refreshing. It might not be as filling as the caf breakfast, but it’s much more satisfying.
T: Michael Faraday famously said, “Nothing is too beautiful to be true.” Free-range organic eggs prepared exactly how I wanted them. Local sausages, one turkey-chorizo and one turkey-sage (The Village is a Jewish deli; they don’t dig on no swine), nice rye toast, and that fruit side I mentioned.
And the winner is… The Village
Verdict: Although it’s about a 17-minute walk from campus (Google that, it’s closer than you think) and more expensive than anything on the cafeteria menu, the Village Restaurant is really a great spot. The atmosphere is great, the service is better, and the food is best.