We woke up at seven this morning and after looking over the sixty new channels Honey traded for Showtime, we have come to the conclusion that there still isn't anything to watch on TV.  I convinced Honey to brave the elements and try a new place for breakfast.  Once again the local weather forecasters predicted the MOTHER of all snow storms dumping 10 to 12 inches on our area and issued a severe storm warning THURSDAY night for later Friday until 2pm on Saturday.  Oooooh, scary.  We looked out the window to assess the danger of our breakfast outing.  Huh, barely a smattering of snow.  Once the sun cleared the hill and naked trees the snow would be a distant damp spot on the cement.  Have I mentioned that the local forecasters suck?  Breakfast would be a relatively safe adventure.

This brings us to the continuing quest.  You can't get a decent breakfast potato in Johnstown.  It must be part of the current trend to offer everything quickly and deep fried.  Maybe I'm just spoiled from my years in Lakewood, OH, at The Place To Be .  I compare every breakfast, every omelet, every home fry to theirs.  They all come up lacking in some respect.  I didn't write that review, but that guy wrote it perfectly.  Not greasy.

Even the big chains have their home fries deep fried.  Honey wanted to do the old standby, Perkins.  There the choice is those crunchewy potato shreds or the deep fried chunks of "breakfast potato."  Their only redeeming qualities are those tender muffins and the breakfast bowl thingy.  That's the bowl with the "breakfast potatoes," scrambled egg, sausage, sausage gravy, and cheese melted on top.  As a connoisseur of sausage gravy, even deep fried "breakfast potatoes" become palatable when buried under other breakfast foods and smothered in sausage gravy.  Perkins has a passable version of sausage gravy though still not as good as the ultimate Bob Evans.  So, as tempting as the "bowl of glop" (as Honey calls it) sounded, I was still more interested in finding the perfect home fry.

Denny's wouldn't cut it this morning either.  We were down to two local places.  The Orange Blossom was on the other side of town which made it less attractive.  Then there was Valley Dairy Restaurant which was in our neighborhood.  We donned the winter apparel and slogged through the snow to the car.  Oops, that's right, we didn't get 10 to 12 inches of snow last night.  We walked over the now damp sidewalk to the car and drove the short distance to Valley Dairy.

Honey decided he didn't like the place when we were waiting to make a left hand turn into the parking lot and the SUV approaching us from the opposite direction crossed the center line to make his right hand turn into the parking lot.  It really didn't help that the old guy was on his cell phone, didn't signal the turn, then zipped into the spot right in front of the door.  "See," he said, "the place is attracting assholes."

Honey quickly picked from the menu, 2 eggs scrambled, sausage patty, hash browns, rye toast, coffee.  First thing I did was ask if the home fries were deep fried.  They were, but the waitress pointed out that you could still get the sliced potatoes on the grill.  They weren't on the menu.  You had to ask for them special.  So I asked for them special with a western omelet and a glass of Pepsi.  

Honey was just commenting that maybe it would all be OK because the coffee was good when "Mr. cellphone using SUV guy" sat at the table next to us and started a really loud conversation with another old guy sucking oxygen out of a tank.  Then the food came.  Honey's eggs were hard; the sausage patty was like something from Burger King;  the hash browns were those over sized oval deep fried tater tots like from MacDonalds.  My omelet was flat and tasteless, but the special home fries were pretty good.  It was disappointing and we won't go back. 

There has to be somewhere with a decent breakfast and good home fries in this town.  The quest will continue but I'll have to put in several appearances at Perkin's and Denny's before Honey will become brave enough to try a new place again.  I did point out that we probably wouldn't be running into "Mr. cellphone using SUV guy" at breakfast again because with gas prices as high as they are it's costing him close to $100 to fill his tank.  He can't afford eating out.  This made Honey giggle with delight. 

tags: breakfast  home fries  hash browns  restaurants  johnstown  food  eating  weather  tv  searching  

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