#16   ALABAMA – Chicken and Waffle Whiff

Anthony Bourdain:  “I like chicken and I like waffles but I don’t understand them together.”
Questlove:  “You don’t want your food integrated?”

-                  -  CNN’s  Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown – Miami

Chicken and Waffles have recently become a trendy  thing in Washington DC as well as in other major urban areas.  I agree with Bourdain. I like chicken and I like waffles but what is the appeal of eating them together? In Alabama, I got my chance to find out.

Warehouse Bakery & Donuts
Fairhope, Alabama

AMBIENCE:  The Warehouse Bakery & Donuts has only been open less than a year. It is located in a refurbished building that I could intelligently guess was once a warehouse. (Put me on Jeopardy!). The room is large and is presented as, what I would term, warehouse chic – lots of brick, industrial lighting, and a shiny cement floor. In the front were two large garage style doors which were open on this warm, sunny day.

We ordered our food at the register, went to the coffee dispensers, filled up, and then found a table. Next to us was a table filled with five or six chronically gifted men discussing Bama football, how the fish were biting, and who had what malady.

5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  So there it was, staring at me from the menu; chicken and waffles or in this case waffle. The restaurant had named it “Fry Fry Chicky Chick and Waffle”, a cute name for maybe an ugly idea. Fried chicken and waffles became prominent in the 1930s, when all-night diners in Harlem NY started serving the dish to the jazz musicians coming off their gigs at three or four in the morning. The combination worked, no doubt, because these guys were high as a kite and craved both breakfast and dinner. 

The almighty internet was unable to answer why this particular combination of foods evolved and not some equally as bizarre combination like pancakes topped with macaroni and cheese or catfish on french toast.

The Warehouse’s rendition of fried chicken and waffle came with whipped Sriracha butter and Alabama cane syrup.

I was faced with a number of options:

1) I could eat the chicken with the Sriracha sauce separately from the waffle with the syrup.

2) I could eat the chicken covered with syrup separate from the waffle spread with Sriracha.

3) I could take a little piece of chicken with Sriracha and a little piece of waffle with syrup and eat       them as one bite.

4) I could just pour the syrup over the whole thing and go at it.

Trying to establish some common ground for the chicken and waffle I chose option number four. It wasn’t very good. The fried chicken tasted like the oil in the fryer had not been changed in at least a week. The waffle tasted a bit stale. The syrup was good but couldn’t save the main ingredients.

The Healthy One ordered the Warehouse granola. On the granola scale she gave it a 7 out of 10.

2 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  Finally! A great cup of coffee was served in the South. It certainly helped that Fairport Coffee Roasters was in the back room.

5 stars out of 5

SERVICE: The staff was helpful and had their act together taking orders and delivering food.

COST: $20.48 with tax.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT FAIRHOPE: 

Fairport has a population of about 16,000 and is one of the most rapidly growing towns in Alabama. It reminded me of an affluent Coastal California town if you substituted Mobile Bay for the Pacific Ocean. The beautiful central business district is filled with boutiques, art galleries, and restaurants. Flowers abound in public spaces. A large park follows the Mobile Bay shoreline giving walkers and bicyclists great views of the diving pelicans.

Fairhope was established in 1894 by a group from Des Moines, Iowa who wanted to establish a colony based on the social and economic theories of Henry George. Remember him from your Economics 101 course? He is most famous for believing that people should own the value they produce themselves, and that the economic value derived from land should belong equally to all members of society. The government should finance all of its projects, he argued, with proceeds from only one tax. This single tax would be on the unimproved value of land—the value that the land would have if it were in its natural state with no buildings, no landscaping, or other improvements. 

The Fairhope Single-Tax Corporation still operates, with 1,800 leaseholds covering more than 4,000 acres in and around the current city of Fairhope. It is one of two single tax colonies remaining in the United States (the other is in Arden, Delaware).

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We hiked the alligator trail in Fontainebleau State Park, Louisian but only saw squirrels. We also did a five mile walk through Fairhope and along Mobile Bay.

November 2, 2016

NEXT UP: Florida

#15  LOUISIANA – Where Y’at, Y’all?

After a five day respite from breakfast restaurants while visiting our daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren in Texas, I decided it was most practical to hit Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida via the Gulf Coast. This would take us enticingly close to New Orleans where I am sure you can find 30 or 40 restaurants serving a fantastic breakfast. Since I had been to New Orleans on 12 different occasions, I stuck to my criterion of choosing a restaurant in a town I had never before visited. That town was Mandeville which lies on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain and is just a 35 mile trip to Bourbon Street, including traversing a 24 mile bridge over the lake.

In Mandeville, Liz’s Where Y’at Diner was the obvious choice for breakfast given the great reviews I found on Yelp and Tripadvisor. I was curious about the diner's name. Was Liz someone who was always missing? Perhaps the owner’s wayward dog?  After a deep dive into the internet, I discovered that Liz is Liz Mundy who owns the restaurant. Liz is a Yat which is a true native of New Orleans. According to her bio, her introduction to the food industry began working at the Foxy Balls Snowball Stand in the West End of New Orleans. Liz then waitressed for 15 years before she realized her dream of owning her own place.

Yat is derived from the greeting “where y’at”. You may meet a Yat in New Orleans who could very well say to you “where y’at”.  If you know what you are doing and want to act like a native you reply “what it is”. You can also respond with “alright”. I was prepared.

Liz’s Where Y’at Diner
Mandeville, Louisiana

AMBIENCE:  You can’t help but feel happy after walking into Liz’s Where Y’at Diner. The beach colors, quirky furniture, checkerboard floor, and cute sayings painted on the wall can't help but make you smile and clear the cobwebs from your mind, even before that first sip of coffee.

5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  We both ordered types of “scrambles”. A scramble is essentially an omelet without clothes. All the ingredients are hanging out there for you to see. I got the “Cool Brees” named after the New Orleans Saints quarterback. It just hit me now as I am writing this why the “Cool Brees” is one of the scrambles – because that’s what quarterbacks do when defensive linemen get close. Good one Liz! The “Cool Brees” contained bacon, ham, sausage, bell peppers, spuds, and pepper jack cheese or just about everything in the kitchen. It came with a biscuit and I ordered a side of grits because one review I read said they were the best in the United States.

My scramble was very good, the biscuit was tasty, but the grits were disappointing even with my supplementing them with a healthy splash of Louisiana hot sauce. As opposed to the grits I had in Tennessee, these had a soupy consistency. I am by no means a grits expert, but it seems to me that they should be eaten with a fork rather than a spoon. Although there are five more southern states to visit, I intend to go grits-less for the remainder of the trip.

The Healthy One ordered the vegetarian scramble with spuds, and a biscuit and declared it excellent.

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  The coffee was better than what we had been getting elsewhere in the South but still not great.

3 1/2 stars out of 5

SERVICE: As I wrote above, I was totally prepared to answer the waitress when she asked “where y’at”.  It didn’t happen. Instead we got a “how Y’all doin?.” This made me believe that "where y'at" is strictly a New Orleans thing and that Mandevillians are in a different colloquialism sphere.  It turned out that “Y’all” was her go to word. “Y’all want some coffee?”  “Y’all ready to order?” “Y’all doing okay?” “Y’all finished?” “Y’all want the check?” Nevertheless, she was very friendly, didn’t screw up the order, and kept our coffee cups filled.

After breakfast, we left the car parked in front of the restaurant and took a 90 minute walk around the immediate neighborhood. Upon our return, the waitress came out to the car and asked us if “Y’all are okay?” because she noticed our car had been sitting in its space for a long time and she was worried. The Healthy One and I had different interpretations of this encounter, which points to the fact that our perspectives on a situation are not always Sympatico. The Healthy One thought our waitress was truly concerned that we had been kidnapped by Cajuns or been eaten by an alligator or something, while I thought she was just pissed that we had monopolized a parking space for a good chunk of time.

5 out of 5 stars

COST: $33.12 with tax and tip – our most expensive breakfast in the Southeast.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT MANDEVILLE:  

Mandeville is a small town of about 12,000 but is said to be rapidly growing. We walked about a mile from the restaurant to the Lake Pontchartrain shoreline through an evolving residential neighborhood. The first couple blocks held a few rundown houses but then we started to see more neat little “double shotgun” houses (i.e. two houses sharing a central wall).

The farther we walked the more the environment became “Old South” with huge moss-draped oak trees, mature gardens, and elegant 19^th century mansions. The Lake Pontchartrain waterfront was a gorgeous green space with a long walking/running path. On our walk back to the restaurant we were reminded how little mileage laid between us and New Orleans.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

We followed two historical walking trails in Natchez, Mississippi and took the bluff trail along the Mississippi River. Curiously, we saw many more Hillary for President yard signs in Natchez than in any other town we visited on the entire trip.

November 1, 2016

NEXT UP: Alabama

#14  MISSISSIPPI – A Diamond In The Rough

 

What do you eggs benedict me to do girl? I got muffin left to say

(You butter come up with somethin'.)

What do you eggs benedict me to do girl? I got muffin left to say.

You left such a waffle toast in my mouth. You biscuit out of town today.

-           - From The Breakfast Blues as recorded by Trout Fishing in America

We arrived in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the birthplace of the blues. Clarksdale lies in the Mississippi Delta region, one of the poorest areas in America. I didn’t expect much in terms of finding a decent breakfast place. Maybe a small diner where you could get grits and a biscuit covered with gravy. What we did find was an amazing establishment that exceeded all stereotypical ideas about backwater Mississippi.

Yazoo Pass
Clarksdale, Mississippi

AMBIENCE:  Yazoo Pass is named after a small waterway leading from the Mississippi River to the Coldwater River, just north of Clarksdale. It played a part in General Grant’s attempt to capture Vicksburg during the Civil War. Grant had the not so brilliant idea of bursting a levee on the Mississippi, flooding the Pass, and allowing his warships to proceed to a number of connecting rivers that led to the eastern outskirts of Vicksburg. The Union didn’t go very far before arriving at a hastily built Confederate fort made of cotton bales. There they met an ignominious defeat and retreated back to Arkansas.  This Northerner was hoping for better luck at the Yazoo Pass restaurant.

The restaurant sits smack in the middle of a central city Clarksdale that has seen much better days. Upon first seeing the restaurant, it appeared to be an oasis surrounded by buildings that have lost their will to live. The first thing that grabbed our attention were the nice tables and chairs out front along with a few potted plants. This could have been a scene out of SoHo or some other hipster area of a major metropolitan area. The second thing that grabbed our attention was their storefront sign. Espresso Bar? Bistro? Really? In the Mississippi Delta?  Parking was certainly no problem as there were very few cars on the street.

I uttered a WOW upon entering the restaurant. The large space (which was a former Five and Dime store)exuded both class and comfort. The tables were accompanied by wicker chairs and there was a corner that could put many living rooms to shame. Large plate glass windows in the front allowed sunlight to accentuate the immaculately clean and handsome interior.

There were no other customers in the place! Where was everyone? I had read that the Yazoo Pass was a community gathering place but apparently the community was at work, sleeping late, or just doesn’t eat breakfast out on a Wednesday morning.

 5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  I went with the Custom Breakfast Sandwich where you could pick and choose the bread and ingredients. My custom is to stuff as much as possible into a breakfast sandwich. I asked for scrambled eggs, Applewood smoked bacon, and cheddar cheese between a cut biscuit. When it arrived on a china plate I was in awe. When I bit into it, I tasted perfection. It was the best breakfast sandwich I have ever had. I sincerely doubt, I will ever again have a better one. The bacon was plentiful and cooked perfectly, the melted cheddar cheese nicely permeated the fluffy scrambled eggs. It was the biscuit however that set this masterpiece apart. It was obviously fresh out of the oven. It was buttery, fluffy, and flaky all at the same time. I could have eaten three of these sandwiches with no guilt whatsoever. It easily deserved a Breakfast Across America Certificate of Excellence.

The Healthy One ordered the Breakfast Bowl which contained Greek yogurt, fresh berries and topped with house made granola. She absolutely marveled at the taste and declared it her favorite breakfast, to date, of the tour.

5 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  Since this was advertised as an espresso bar, we splurged and ordered cappuccinos. They were very tasty. I never thought that, one day, I would be drinking cappuccino in rural Mississippi.

4 1/2 stars out of 5

SERVICE: You ordered at the cash register and they brought you your food. The young lady at the register was very pleasant. She gave us a number to display on our table for the food deliverer to find us. It shouldn’t have been much of a challenge given that we were the only customers in the restaurant, but I guess protocol is protocol.

COST: $24.75 with tax. For someone from the Washington DC area, the prices were a tiny bit of a bargain, but I could see how most of the Clarksdale populace would see this as an expensive breakfast.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT CLARKSDALE:

“The land was perfectly flat and level but
it shimmered like the wing of a lighted dragonfly.
It seemed strummed, as though it were an
instrument and something had touched it.”

-         -  From “Delta Wedding” by Mississippi native Eudora Welty

I was fascinated by the countryside of the Mississippi Delta; so flat, with cotton fields extending far to the horizon. Clarksdale is one of a handful of agricultural and trading hubs of the region. It has a population of about 18,000 of which half live below the poverty line. The median income is $23,733 and the population has declined 15% since 2000.

Downtown Clarksdale


Although it is poor in monetary resources, it is rich in a cultural past. It is the birthplace of the blues. Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and Sam Cooke all lived in Clarksdale and Bessie Smith died in Clarksdale. Tennessee Williams lived here as a boy. The city is doing its best to live off its cultural tradition. It holds a number of music festivals during the year and maintains the Delta Blues Museum. There are a couple of juke joints and blues clubs, including Ground Zero, partly owned by native son Morgan Freeman.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

-          

      Walked through the William Faulkner home in Oxford MS.

-           Did a long walk through the Ole Miss campus in Oxford MS.

-          Walked through the fabulous B. B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center in Indianola MS.

SPECIAL MENTION:

I didn’t want to cover in this blog what we did for lunch and dinner. It was to be about breakfast. However, we had such a great experience in Indianola, Mississippi that I wanted to mention our lunch at Betty’s Place. You can get a delicious cheeseburger with fries for about $6. Our waitress treated us like her own grandkids. Mike, who is Betty’s brother and worked the cash register, has to be the most jovial man in the world. As we were leaving Mike pulled out his camera and said he wanted to take our picture. I said sure as long as he pulled Betty out of the kitchen and had a picture taken with my camera as well. He happily obliged.

October 26, 2016

NEXT UP: Louisiana

#13  TENNESSEE – Chattanooga Chew Chew

 

Lord preserve us and protect us,
We’ve been drinking whiskey ‘fore breakfast.

-             - Chorus from the traditional bluegrass song Whiskey Before Breakfast.

We asked a number of local Chattanoogans where they would recommend  having breakfast and they were unanimous in naming this restaurant located in the newly revitalized South Side neighborhood:

   

The Bluegrass Grill
Chattanooga, Tennessee

AMBIENCE:  The Bluegrass Grill is owned by a retired orthodox minister who opened it in 2007. Previously, he had owned restaurants in Memphis and Charlottesville VA.( I believe the current owner of the restaurant in C-Ville has kept the Bluegrass name.)

A large number of Yelp reviewers warned about the inevitability of standing in line for a good amount of time to eat breakfast at The Bluegrass Grill. They all added that it was worth it. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky because we were seated right away. Maybe this good fortune was due to it being a Tuesday morning and the sun hadn’t risen yet. 

The place is in a refurbished early 20th century brick building with its original wooden floor.  There are perhaps only about ten tables and five stools at a counter. Although there are few tables, the space seemed roomy because of the high ceiling and a magnificent mural of the Appalachians behind the counter. Bluegrass music played softly in the background.

The clientele seemed mostly made up of people catching breakfast before going off to work. I did not see anyone who appeared to have had whiskey before breakfast.

I felt very comfortable here. I could have lingered but there was a line starting to form and we had a long drive to Oxford, Mississippi ahead of us.

5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  I ordered the Denver Omelet, along with a biscuit and grits.

The omelet was very tasty; the ingredients very fresh. By the way, I learned that the Denver omelet didn’t originate in Denver CO nor was it named for Bob Denver. According to James Beard, it was a dish eaten by cowboys and Chinese immigrants and originally called a Western omelet. Beard said that when the railroads reached Denver it was then renamed for public relations purposes. 

The word grits comes from the Old English grytt meaning coarse meal. Many people think it comes from New English and means “particles of sand” which is appropriate to the taste.

When I saw my grits arrive at the table in a bowl, I had a terrible flashback of me as a young lad gagging on the taste of Cream of Wheat. Grits are not made from wheat but from corn. These grits were pretty good – creamy with a slight corn taste but still on the bland side. The Bluegrass Grill offered me three different house made hot sauces to add some pizzazz to those grits. I went with the tongue-numbing Garlic Habanero Sauce.  Mission accomplished.

The Healthy One ordered the Mediterranean Frittata, biscuit, and chose fruit over grits. I’m not sure, but I think frittata is Italian for “eggs mixed with a lot of other stuff”. She thought it was delicious. Both of us agreed that the biscuits were excellent.

5 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  What’s up with the weak coffee that we have had in the South? This tasted almost as bad as instant coffee. Maybe this is why Southerners speak slowly - not enough caffeine. I am also a little perturbed about the coffee cup they gave me. Was this intentional or random?

1 1/2 stars out of 5

SERVICE: Service was friendly and efficient. Only two people were working both the room and the counter which made them very busy. Nevertheless, they seemed to know how to handle the demands. The food came out quickly and we were offered coffee refills often. A half point deduction for giving me the “old person” coffee cup.

   

4 1/2 out of 5 stars

COST: $26.72 with tax and tip.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT CHATTANOOGA:

Chattanooga is the fourth largest city in Tennessee with a population of about 175,000. It may turn out to be the largest city visited on the Breakfast Across America tour. The meaning of the city’s name depends upon who you ask. It could either be the Cherokee word for “hawk’s nest” or the Creek Indian word for “rock rising to a point” (referring to Lookout Mountain). In 1969 Chattanooga was named America’s most polluted city. Since then it has cleaned its air, rebuilt its waterfront on the Tennessee River, added a world renowned aquarium, and became a hub for the arts in the southern Appalachians. It is also known as Gig City because it has one of the fastest publically owned fiber-optic networks in the world. Data is transferred at one gigabyte per second which is 50 times faster than the average household network provides. To put this in terms most of us can understand, it takes 33 seconds to download a two-hour, high-definition movie in Chattanooga, compared with 25 minutes for those with an average high-speed broadband connection in the rest of the country. On top of all this, Outside Magazine has named Chattanooga Best Town in America twice (most recently in 2015) bolstering its growing reputation as a haven for numerous outdoor activities.

We spent two days in and around Chattanooga starting with a very impressive farmer’s market that attracted a couple thousand people.  Because the weather was so nice, we felt the need to be outside rather than inside the infamous aquarium watching fish swim in circles so we spent most of our time just walking around the city. We especially enjoyed the public art which is pervasive across the city but seems especially prominent in the up and coming South Side. This is a copper sculpture we liked called “Party Dress” which was located right outside the Bluegrass Grill.

This breakfast appropriate mural was just around the corner.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

-           - Took a six mile walk through the city including crossing the beautiful Walnut St. Walking Bridge over the Tennessee River.

-           - Walked at the Chickamauga Battlefield where the Rebs kicked our butt and then did an extensive hike up and down Lookout Mountain where the Yanks had grabbed an impressive victory.

October 25, 2016

NEXT UP: Mississippi

#12 VIRGINIA – Veggie Manifesto

 

It was time to venture down South, the land of biscuits, sausage gravy, bacon, and grits. I felt that a lot of calories would be in my future so I thought maybe I should start healthy and then build momentum to the inevitable fat-fest. I found a Virginia restaurant to check out that emphasizes vegetarian and vegan meals. The Healthy One was both gleeful and a little worried about my mental state.

The Little Grill Collective
Harrisonburg, Virginia

 

AMBIENCE:  Karl Marx would be very proud of The Little Grill Collective.  It is a worker owned, democratically managed cooperative. I learned from their website that every employee can become an owner:

• ·         After working a minimum of 6 months.
• ·         After shadowing worker-owners to learn about different facets within the business.
• ·         After completing a self-directed project.
• ·         After buying into the cooperative to “solidify their ownership”.

Worker-owners meet a couple of times a week and all decisions about the business are made by consensus. Other statements on the website clued me in that this place was a throwback to the flower power days of the 60s. The Collective hires professionals to come in to work on the interpersonal skills of the workers. Dishwashing is done by hand to save on water and dependency on expensive technology.  All leftover food waste is used for compost at a local farm. Five percent of profit goes to charity. Napkins are optional and sleeves are encouraged. (Okay, I made this last one up.)

The restaurant sits outside downtown in a mostly industrial/commercial area. I knew I was really near when I spotted a number of cars with those bumper stickers that say COEXIST parked along the curb.

It was a Sunday morning and the place was very crowded. We were told that it would be a 20-30 minute wait and that they would text me when the table was ready. It was a pleasant morning so we lingered outside with others who were staring intently into their devices. I imagined that they were all reading the on-line version of Mother Jones or Organic Life magazine. I myself started playing on-line Yahtzee.

We got the text after about 20 minutes and were brought to our table. The place is small and loud but there was decent room between the 12 or so tables. I did spot a couple of young men with tie-dyed t-shirts. The décor was eclectic to say the least.

What do a giant stuffed catfish toy, a three speed bicycle, and a picture of Martin Luther King have in common?

Given what I read on the website about the Little Grill’s heavy focus on sustainability, I had to check out the bathroom to see if they had a composting toilet. Not to be, but they did have Dr. Bonner’s fair trade soap!

5 out of 5 stars.

FOOD:  The menu was chock full of “alternative proteins to help reduce meat consumption”. These included such scary sounding items as tofu scrambler, veggie chili over eggs, love burger, and groovy gravy. I decided to play it safe and ordered a tall stack (3) of Apple Cider & Oat Pancakes which was described as containing local baked apples, cinnamon, maple syrup, apple cider, whole wheat flour, and organic oats. I found it interesting that the menu stated a short stack (2) cost $6.50 and the tall stack (3) cost $9.75. That means that I saved exactly zero per pancake by “going tall”. I believe the traditional capitalist practice is that the more pancakes you order the price per pancake declines. For instance, at Dot’s in Vermont, one berry-berry  pancake cost $5.25; two cost $5.95 or $2.97 per pancake; and three cost $6.50 or $2.17 per pancake. These people are obviously not capitalists. All of their pancakes were priced this way. The Collective's pricing scheme seemed an egalitarian/socialist acknowledgement of the rights of each and every pancake.

The Healthy One ordered scrambled free range eggs, a whole wheat biscuit, and whaaaaaaaat?.  Is that bacon?

Me: “I didn’t see that on the menu”

Healthy One: “It’s up there on the chalkboard next to the soysage.”

Me: “I didn’t hear you order it”

Healthy One: “I think you were too busy trying to figure out the per pancake prices.”

The pancakes turned out to be delicious. At one point, while I was taking a breather, I think my stack appeared happy, thinking it was going to get a trip to the compost pile at a local farm.

I did rally and finished it off. Before it was gone, The Healthy One asked if she could have a couple of bites. “Of course”, I said, “just let me have a little of your bacon”. Ready to pounce, I noticed that there was no bacon left to be had. The Healthy One had engaged in a little bacon gamesmanship by finishing the bacon before asking for bites of the pancake!  This was terribly unsettling. The rest of the Breakfast Tour was in jeopardy. I should have refused to share my pancake, but in the spirit of the Little Grill peace, love, and harmony vibe inside and the COEXIST bumper stickers outside, I let her have a couple of bites.

5 out of 5 stars

COFFEE:  The fair trade coffee was, well, just fair.

 

3 stars out of 5

SERVICE: Our server was delightful. She was friendly, chatty, and answered all our questions. She showed no stress from having to cater to a very busy room. Those interpersonal skill consultations really paid off. It turns out that she was not a worker-owner but rather a “trial member”.  She said she still needed to come up with an idea for a self-directed projected. I suggested that she do an econometric analysis of the marginal cost, marginal revenue, and pricing of pancakes. She answered that she would be right back with our check.

 

5 out of 5 stars

COST: $26.00 with tax and tip. ($1.10 of that will go to charity.)

A FEW WORDS ABOUT HARRISONBURG:

Harrisonburg, a city of about 50,000, sits in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley next to truck happy I-81.

But what is that smell?  

Harrisonburg is home to two colleges: Eastern Mennonite University and James Madison University. One of them has a bit of a reputation as a party school. Can you guess which one?  There is an attractive downtown which had undergone extensive revitalization. 

The air sort of smells like dog breath. 

Travel and Leisure magazine picked it as one of America’s favorite towns.  The city appeared to be very bike-friendly.

I googled the Harrisonburg smell and most people likened it to the smell of dog food. Fair enough, dog breath is caused by dog food. Harrisonburg is famous for its poultry feed production. The process involving a mix of molasses, corn, and other organic byproducts gives of off an odor that is prevalent throughout the area on warm, humid days. The locals apparently can’t smell it.

BURN THOSE BREAKFAST CALORIES OFF:

-          Walked from the Little Grill through downtown Harrisonburg to the handsome campus of James Madison University and back.

October 23, 2016

NEXT UP: Tennessee