Ardmore Tea Room

6499 Quinpool Road

Halifax, NS            May 21 2009

7/10

Breakfast Served All Day - $5.65 w/coffee.

The Ardmore Tea Room was rated by The Coast as the 2nd best diner in town, 2009. I got the Lumberjack’s Combo Plate, which gave me all three greasy meats, bacon, ham and sausage. The slurge factor was immense.

The coffee was awful. It smelled good, but was sour upon tasting. On the second sip, I think my taste buds were in shock and it wasn’t nearly as bad as the first. Still not great. The taters were deep fried chunks. They were plentiful and tasty, but deep-frying is still an unfortunate shortcut in my book. The breakfast links were deep fried as well, nicely melting the gristle, but adding to the slurge significantly. It was an early slurge, too. Usually it waits until you’re nearly done, but this one showed up at the beginning. The bacon tasted like grill.

The Tea Room resembles a cozy diner more than a dainty tea room. Don’t ask me about the name. It was a fairly standard diner, with just enough of a grimy feel to make you feel at home.

Best part: the menu offered up “Newfoundland Steak,” which was bologna. Was that humour or an insult?

The Armview Family Restaurant

7156 Chebucto Rd.

Halifax, NS               May 25 2009

7.5/10

Breakfast - $6.60 w/coffee.

The Armview was The Coast’s choice as Best Diner 2009 and 1st runner up for best breakfast place, 2009. This was vastly better than the Ardmore, but the Special was still not great. The rest of the menu looked very interesting (which can be read in entirety here: http://thearmview.com/) From AM cocktails to fruity Lassis, eggs benny and a milkshake description that’s quoted from Wikipedia, the menu smacks of a yearning for a younger crowd.

The rest of the menu looks great, but the breakfast special was pretty unexciting. Standard bacon, potatoes and eggs, but good multigrain toast. I was left wondering what the baked eggs with goat cheese was like.

The menu featured a little soliloquy about breakfast, reprinted here:

“Sometimes diners are called ‘greasy spoons’, and sometimes diners can change the way you think about simple, good food. There are several ways to start you day and it doesn’t have to include an egg. At The Armview we’ve taken into account what you may need in your quest to take on the world and that’s why we’ve got a diverse menu to help you up. Enjoy locally sourced yogurt topped with the freshest berries, honey and fresh mint. We also bring in our chorizo sausage, eggs and smoked salmon from Nova Scotia’s finest producers and we’re committed to using 100% real butter. That’s why our Eggs Benny is topped with the riches, creamiest, Hollandaise and our toast has a golden glisten. They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day and we agree and that’s why we can offer you the best, so you can start your day right.”

Check it out, but I wonder about The Coast’s 1st place breakfast, the Coastal Cafe. Maybe there’s a bit of nepotism as far as names are concerned.

May 2009

Slickety Jims Chat n Chew

2513 Main St

Vancouver, B.C.

This place was awesome. Crazy crap all over the walls and homemade sour cherry and rhubarb jam. Yum. The clientele was a healthy mix of elderly Chinese, lefty looking college students, and baby boomers.  The seats look like they came from old busses.  I will definitely go back.  9/10  -Leif

Slickety Jims sadly burned down In Nov 2009.

We hope they come back to us in a new and freshly resurrected form soon.

Avenue Diner

222 Davenport Road

Toronto, Ontario     May 20 2009

7.5/10

Breakfast Special - $10 w/coffee.

Avenue Diner is a hot, tiny-ass place just brimming with kitsch. The fiery old lady behind the tiny counter was energetic, and probably treated everybody equally with her mind bending mix of equal friendliness and disdain. She had been in the presence of the great and the small, evidenced by the plethora of celebrity photos on the walls. Any one of these pictures eclipses what Winnipeg diners have. Such visitors included Margaret Atwood, Micky Rourke, Milla Jovovich, Paris Hilton, Eugene Levy, Jane Siberry and Mike Bullard.

The breakfast was ready in about a minute flat. The over-salted tater tots were dry, but the bacon was just salty enough. The eggs were as ordered, and the rye toast was tiny but fine. A decent breakfast, but not great.

The greatness lies in the diner setup. A very thin restaurant; there’s barely enough room to have someone sitting at the bar, the perpendicular booth and have a server squeeze by. The bathrooms are in the basement, and the precarious stairs with low ceilings made me duck my head.

Hey Google! Breakfast reviews in Winnipeg Manitoba Canada by Leif Norman and Andrew McMonagle. We are the  Breakfast Connoisseurs Join us for Restaurant Reviews!

Weekly breakfast reviews in

Winnipeg Manitoba Canada

since July 2007