What you get with the breakfast special is three eggs, three pieces of bacon (none of us could will ourselves to try the sausage), toast and potatoes. Already they’re up on quantity over last week’s breakfast at My Place Pie Place. Coffee and juices are extra, and juice costs about $2 so I’d advise against it.

The eggs were done well, to order but had a funny skin on them. Nothing foreign but the texture was interesting… Leif referred to it as looking like “shaved kitten belly,” which brings about images of veterinary services that I don’t usually like to get into when I’m thinking about food. Usually I wait until afterwards.

Regardless, the bacon was cooked until crispy and straight, which got mixed reviews. It wasn’t burned, it wasn’t raw; it wasn’t fantastic. The toast was lightly toasted at best, but the potatoes were actually pretty good. Real potatoes (evidenced by the skin) chopped into wee little bits and mixed with onion, a real crowd-pleaser. Overall, all the food was pretty greasy and I may regret it in a couple hours, but for now I feel full.

The coffee costs extra and really, is worth skipping. The state of the coffee was terrible. As Leif said, “Even if it were fresh it would still be bad.”

Junior’s is a staple for Fat Boy burgers and fries in Winnipeg. They haven’t changed their décor in decades, and while sometimes that lends itself to kitsch, we didn’t find any in this cafeteria-looking restaurant. Orange tables with hard, immovable benches and no table service makes it a less-desirable place to sit and eat.

[This is the same restaurant where, a few years ago, one of their servers was taken from the restaurant by knife-point by their ex-boyfriend and nobody did anything about it, nor report it for days. It was reported when that same girl turned up dead. Ever since hearing of that story there’s been an unfortunate stigma surrounding this location.]

I do enjoy Junior’s fries and their burgers are pretty good, but as for breakfast there are other places which will satisfy better.

Immediately after leaving, I went to the Soma Café at the UofW to get some good coffee. Their organic, fair-trade coffee is light-years ahead of the brown water we got at Junior’s. One of the breakfasters today compared Junior’s coffee to the jug of coffee that they serve on airplanes, only after 16 hours of being sealed up. If any portion of your meal is comparable to airplane food in any capacity, you may need to rethink the recipe.

March 15 2008

Junior’s

558 Portage Ave

This week we had to choose our destination based on necessity. This being Easter weekend, we didn’t trust anyone to be open on our usual days, forcing us to go during the week, and relatively close to the University of Winnipeg, where most of us Breakfast Connoisseurs are based out of.

So, Junior’s on Portage was our choice. I only noticed Junior’s served breakfast a few months ago when they were good enough to advertise it on their reader board out on the sidewalk. The price is right, under $5 before coffee and tax, but would the quality stand up?

The answer, quizzically enough, is yes. They were strong is areas where others are not, and weak in areas where most others are as well. Ergo, the coffee was terrible but the potatoes were good!

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Winnipeg Manitoba Canada

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