Great Breakfast Challenge Round 1: Sandi-Rose Cafe

The Great Breakfast Challenge:
Round 1, The Sandi-Rose Cafe:

This morning, bright and early we stumbled from our house and into the car on the way to the Sandi-Rose pre-church and CCD.  We arrived at the quaint little bakery and saw that they had won the towns favorite bake shop, at that point I was not expecting much from breakfast.  Though to myself this was most likely going to be coffee and pastries, probably wont make it past round 1.  I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised, and actually owe them an apology for the thought.

We sat down at a table in what appeared to be just the front of a bakery, and glanced at the menus.  There were quite a few options for breakfast everything from omelets, to pancakes, to french toast, and egg dishes.  Our waitress came right over to greet us and offer drinks.  Coffee was immediate and drinkable, and she interacted wonderfully with our daughter, and brought over a very full glass of chocolate milk.  I am ashamed to admit that I did not write down her name, because she deserves special recognition here for her service.

So we spent some time looking over the menu and talking about what to get, there is a large chalkboard listing over the counter with the specials of the day, today including Peach Waffles that sounded very intriguing, maybe next time. (If they are still on the menu.)  I did order one of the specials, two eggs over medium with home fries and kielbasa, a tough find in most breakfast places.  My daughter ordered off the kids menu, a good variety, and chose 1 egg, 1 pancake, (she thought she ordered the M & M pancake, but no one heard her say so), and bacon, extra crispy, just the way I like it.  For some reason she doesn't seem to like bacon, there are times I wonder if we are really related at all....  But since that means I get her bacon I go with it.  And my wife ordered 2 eggs scrambled, extra crispy bacon, and 2 pancakes.  I also ordered a Razzamatazz muffin because how could I go to a bakery and not order one of their special baked goods.

When i ordered the muffin I casually mentioned that since this was our first time here, I couldn't not order it, so the waitress came back as we were waiting and described some of the bakery specials to us.  They offer a wide variety of cakes and pastries and can make most of them sugar free if requested.  That was pretty cool.  She came by to refill our coffee a  couple of times, not as often as I would like, but as anyone reading this will come to know, I tend to drink coffee quickly and want lots of refills.  No fault to her that she doesnt know me that well yet.  She may come to learn it in time.  Depending on the rest of the challenge plays out.

Breakfast arrives, My eggs are fine, one came out a little beyond over medium and the other over easy, so not ideal, but still quite good, a bit under-seasoned as well.  The bacon was perfect.  Nice and crispy, not too fatty.  Delicious.  Home fries were also in need of a little bit of salt, but good.  My daughters breakfast arrived sans M & M's (which we are pretty sure she never ordered) and she is a bit upset.  The waitress asked what was wrong and my daughter told her she ordered M & M pancakes, we told her that she didn't.  The six year old started eating and really enjoyed everything she had, a few minutes later our waitress came by with a small container of M & M's for her.  A very nice touch I thought.  My wife's breakfast arrived at the same time.  She told me that her eggs were a little under-seasoned as well, but the pancakes were delicious.  Light and fluffy, with a nicely browned exterior.  Her exact words were that they were among the best she has had.  The muffin was dynamite.  They were willing to grill it for us, and we split it.  I will tell you that I could have eaten a dozen of those, easily.  Very delicious.

Atmospherically, the restaurant was quaint.  Not too much in the way of decoration, but the large clock on the wall had my daughter fascinated.  The fact that there was a pendulum swinging where the VI should have been was a constant wonder to her.  As we were finishing up our waitress mentioned that there was a desert display in the next room down, just around the corner.  We hadn't realized that there was any more space but just down a short hallway, which my daughter was quick to point out hosted a rather large teddy bear, was another room.  The other was big enough to host our entire family if we should go back with extras in tow.  A big plus in my book.

Also, I was pleased to note, too late to order them, they had a special with a stack of Pink Pancakes.  In honor of breast cancer awareness month they were offering pink pancakes, a portion of the proceeds would be donated to the Susan G Komen breast cancer research.

Overall score on the great breakfast challenge was 39 out of a possible 50  Not bad, and probably scored a little tougher since it is first up on the list.  At this point I will be surprised if it doesn't make it to round 2.  Congratulations Sandi-Rose, and thank you for a great first stop in The Great Breakfast Challenge.

Prelude

Starting tomorrow morning my family is starting the Great Breakfast Challenge.  It turns out that in our town of West Bridgewater, there are five different restaurants that serve breakfast.  This does not include Dunkin Donuts, various grocery stores etc.  We have decided to start trying to figure out which was the right one for us.
How to do this?  Well we discussed and played with various ideas but the six year old daughter decided on the Great Breakfast Challenge.  We built a score card, each restaurant is going to be evaluated on five categories for a total point score of fifty points.  Fifteen points will be allotted for taste, ten points each for Value, Service, and Drinks, (Coffee is a rather critical component of breakfast in my opinion), and five points for Variety on the menu.  We are each going to rate the restaurants individually, and then average out the scores to give the actual final scores for each.  The bottom two scores will be eliminated in the first round.  The other three will have a second chance, with the lowest of the three being dropped, until we have reached the finale. 
All of our experiences will be available on yelp as well as here.  If all goes well with this challenge we will keep using the scorecard as we try out new and different breakfast spots around the country.

Should be an interesting trek.  First up:  The Sandi-Rose.