Eating in Salem - OMG French Toast

Guess where I went? Guess! Guess!

Yup, I finally went to Word of Mouth in Salem to try out that creme brule french toast. Let me tell you a story about that french toast.

Once upon a time, in every damn conversation I've had about food since I started working in Salem somebody has brought up the creme brule french toast at Word of Mouth. After gushing about its awesomeness, they finish the story with, "Too bad the lines are a million long and you'll never get in lololololol."

Fucking trolls.

Well, I had some time between meetings today so I optioned my lunch at 9:15 am and went for it. You'd think that any breakfast restaurant would be pretty much done with their breakfast rush by that time on a Tuesday. Not Word of Mouth. They had one small table in the corner available, but it had literally just opened up as I walked in the door.

Though they were busy, water came quickly and my waitress was there to take my drink order within 2 minutes. As I already knew what I was getting, no need for another wait. Wham, bam, thank you french toast.

My plate came out within 10 minutes; they've really got their shit wired tight back in the kitchen. The bacon was thick cut and probably from a butcher rather than Jimmy Dean or whatever. The eggs were eggs. But oh, the french toast. It was everything I had dreamed of and more. The rock sugar on the outside was caramelized (could have used another second or two to get really melty, but whatevs), the inside was moist with cream and soft and good. I was super pleased.

My check came, I paid, and I was in an out in about 30 minutes. Not too bad, Word of Mouth. I'll definitely go back, and next time I'll check out the Caprese omelette. It sounded nom.

Good: The french toast was as dank as I had been promised. Service was quick.

Bad: The sugar on the french toast wasn't quite melted enough. My guess from having made creme brule a time or two is that it needed another few seconds with a slightly less hot flame. They're the pro's, though.

Price: $13.00 for two slices of french toast, two eggs, two slices of bacon and a cup of coffee. I was looking to spend a little more in the $10-$11 range. For one person, it wasn't a deal breaker. If I had a family, the meals might be a bit expensive for Oregon incomes.

The Roxy or OMG my stomach, for why did I drink so much last night?

Normally I won't be posting, but in this case I thought I needed to jump in. Jeremy and I went to The Roxy this morning to recover from another night of drinking at BLOWN. The reason I am jumping in is because Jeremy and I had, I believe, a pretty different experience with the food. I'll let him speak to his noms, but here's what I've got to say about mine:

I ordered the Gigabit, which is two eggs over-hard, bacon and tillamook cheddar on sourdough toast with a side of hashbrowns, and Jeremy and I split an order of biscuits and gravy. The Gigabit was... awful. I'm pretty sure that the cook was new, so I'll give him a break for that. But dude. Serial. The toast was SOGGY with butter and grease. He must have put a whole stick of butter on it or something, I don't know. I couldn't taste the eggs or bacon because the butter and cheese were so overwhelming. It was like eating a grilled cheese sandwich with some other tasteless stuff in it. Not what I was looking for at all as I ordered an egg sandwich.

The hashbrowns were bland. BLAND. If you look up "bland" in the dictionary, there would be a picture of these hashbrowns. I don't expect a small place like The Roxy to go as far as grating the potatoes themselves or anything, but when you use a bag of frozen hashbrowns I'm pretty sure you're supposed to season that shit. Salt, pepper, something.

Now, the biscuits and gravy, that's another story all together. That shit was GREAT. The biscuit was light and fluffy and not at all grease/butter-soaked (which is more than I can say for everything else I ate). It came smothered in their super-awesome country gravy, which was just fatty, meaty and peppery enough to excite my taste buds. You know when your cat eats something fatty and they do that smacking their mouth thing to enjoy the fatty goodness? I was doing that. I wanted every part of my mouth to enjoy what had just been put into it - and it did. The meeting of a dry biscuit and the fatty, moist gravy was perfect; the gravy lubed the biscuit up enough to not suck all of the moisture out of your mouth and slide down your throat easily, and the biscuit held up against sitting under all of that gravy without becoming mushy.

Next time, I'll stick to the biscuits and gravy and maybe an over-easy egg.

- Sam

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