Grand Cafe

Yesterday morning, Jon and I ventured to my favorite restaurant. It is located on Grand Avenue. Its name has less to do with grandeur than that fact. There is nothing I don't like about this place. The cups and saucers are all mismatched. The decor is plain but graced with pleasantly quirky old things. The tables are big and wooden. The three booths along one wall are tiny- only comfortably fitting one person on each side. From there, you can peek back into the kitchen while you wait for your food and catch a glimpse of the owner. He is always present and always wearing a shy little smile. The menu is interesting but not extravagant. I have never experienced a moment of disappointment here.


Sometimes, I order the pile of toast and homemade jams. It arrives as a magnificent heap of thick slices of toasted country bread with golden butter melting into each slice. If I ever have two kids and no money and Grand Cafe is still there and serving piles of toast- I will order one pile for the whole fam and we will leave as happy as anyone there. My sisters would say this is not a far cry from the 'what if we all had to live in one stall of the horsebarn' quandaries of my childhood. I owe my preoccupation with thinking like a pioneer to Laura Ingalls Wilder. It's something I was hoping to grow out of.

On this occasion, I skirted the toast in favor of homemade biscuits with spicy sausage gravy, over-easy eggs and fresh fruit. Jon got the orange brioche french toast with salted caramel sauce and mascarpone cream. Both delicious- mine moreso. We agreed on this. The giant biscuit had been halved and pan fried so that, in addition to being wonderfully rich and fluffy, its edges were crisply caramelized with butter. Most biscuits should strive to be more like this one.

My mom doesn't know that she's taking me to Grand Cafe next Saturday.