September 25 2010

Alley Cats

(in St. Vital Bowling Lanes)

540 St. Anne’s Road

Hours of operation:

Monday:

9:00 AM til 12:00 AM

Tuesday:

9:00 AM til 12:00 AM

Wednesday:

9:00 AM til 12:00 AM

Thursday:

8:30 AM til 12:00 AM

Friday:

8:30 AM til 1:00 AM

Saturday:

8:00 AM til 1:00 AM

Sunday:

8:00 AM til 12:00 AM

Wheelchair accessible.

Alley Cat Breakfast - $5.95, bottomless coffee $2.00 (interestingly, chocolate milk was one penny more)

The St. Vital Bowling Lanes’ electronic reader board issued a challenge to us. This 13-year old haven for the asymmetrically-fit said they had “Winnipeg’s best breakfast.” Who better than us to test that claim?

So do they?

No, they do not; but neither do they have the worst.

This restaurant-disguised-as-a-bar gave us no warm feeling or joy from the décor. From the outside, the building is a box of squalid. On the inside it is plain as a suburban bowling alley can get. (what a coincidence).

The menu only offered up one inappropriate apostrophe from what I could tell (“Appetizer’s”), and the rest was slathered in a generous cat theme (see picture).

We ordered our coffees and regretted doing so almost immediately. The coffee was bad. Ghost coffee, the kind that you can’t tell just passed over your tongue when sipped. So of course the server dropped a full carafe off for us. After regretting our coffee, we gave our food orders. The server told us that the cook could not do over easy eggs. Why, you ask? “Because they keep breaking.” It’s not often that servers so freely reveal the inadequacies of the cooking staff.

The food was certainly better than I expected from a bowling alley, though was still far, far from the best we’ve had. The potatoes were deep fried (points off) in the skin (points on) and were garnished with parsley (neutral points). The bacon was cut thick and tasty, while the vegetarians at the table were able to get sliced tomato instead of meat. Standard choices of white/brown/rye toast. My rye was as the eggs were – as rye and eggs are.

My “Kitchen” omelette was stuffed with full strips of bacon, sliced ham, tomatoes, green onions and real cheddar cheese. Leif had the pancakes, and said they were slightly better than Aunt Jemima out of the box, so good for them.

Really, there isn’t a whole lot of breakfast competition within walking distance, but if you’re in this area of town, chances are you’re not walking. Even the people begging for change on the boulevards have cars parked at St. Vital Centre. If you’re bowling a few frames, go ahead and try their brek. But if you’re just looking for somewhere to go, head over to Maxime’s or George’s on St. Mary’s instead.