The Break n Egg Diner: The Review

Cream GravySoooo.... I know I promised that the Diner Review was dead but... I lied.  What are you going to do.  Due to my disabling, heinous, life threatening (well very inconveniencing) Celiac disease my dining career, or at least my diner , dining in diners, career.  Over.  Or at least side tracked.  I mean I can eat there but... I cannot eat...
Pancakes
Biscuits
Toast
A Slinger
Chili Mac
Basically anything I really liked to eat other than meat and potatoes.  So, I eat a lot of breakfasts at home.  I eat a lot of lunches at home.  I eat at home... a lot.

But my family has been on a church hunt.  A new place to gather on Sunday and our daughter was in town from college and we went to church in Clayton.  As you might or might not know, my family hates me.  Not just my wife but my children as well and because they hate me they decided to take me to First Watch.  I dislike First Watch.  I would just as soon eat at Dennys but everyone likes First Watch.  It seems painfully generic to me and the cheerful, well groomed young people they hire they make me tired.

The good news is that at 11 on a Sunday morning they had at least a 30 minute wait.  My wife explained to me that "you always wait at First Watch".  Not this guy.  I remembered a place I had gone with Mogerman some time ago also in Clayton and right on Forsythe called the "Break n Egg Diner"  There was a table for 6 open and unguessed.  We appeared to be at the end of the mornign rush and there were several unbussed tables (unlike First Watch where breakfast Nazis clear your table before you could sop up what was left of that runny egg) and it was pretty clear there were two waitresses and one guy in the kitchen. Perfect.  The place was packed.

We got our table after a short and much apologized about wait.  While our waitress was helping other people we were able to peruse the menu and we were ready to order.  They have the whole variety of breakfast products specializing in Omlettes.  I have personally, in a past life, sampled their biscuits and gravy which were very solid and well represented the genre though otherwise unremarkable.    Our wiatress could not have been more pleasant and kept water and tea filled up.  I would have to give her the dining review highest rating of CHARMING.

Everyone got bacon and eggs.  I had ordered crisp bacon and hashbrowns with my eggs.  They give you a plate full of foodMy scrambled eggs were a little over done (it is hard to screw up scrambled eggs and they were fine) and my wife's eggs were too runny.  My daughter in laws french toast looked good and the hash browns (shredded as God intended) were still not really brown enough though the portions were plenty.

Break n Egg is just what it should be.  Not a destination diner but a clearly reliable place where you can grab a little solid, rib sticking food when needed.  I did not originally think it would last (with the former chili mac diner still open as something right around the corner on Central) but the Break n Egg is clean, the food is hot, the service is respectful and it serves a need when you just CANT go to First Watch.  6 1/2 Slingers on the Ten Scale

We Are Coming To The End: The Book Of Drugs/Mike Doughty

Soooo... I love it when I can get a bunch of thoughts swimming and swirling in my head all at once.  I am up in beautiful Michigan (and if you have never done Michigan in summer I feel sad for you).  It is "vacation" which means I am away from work which means I think about work at a low hum in my head all day long which after the first day becomes a drum beat.  My client problems, how I can clean up my paperwork, how I can do what I do better, my client problems, research I need to do, how to do more pro bono, my client problems... on and on.  I also have the specter of vacation.  We go to this town called Arcadia and we have a house and there is a Lutheran Family Camp there and between the house and camp we have a constant parade of friends and family which is...nice and that vacation is thumping along like a bass line with the buzz of the work thing and then... we go to "Program" at the camp.  They bring in these speakers each week and they talk for an hour and a half each morning about God, life, the Bible, ministry, beauty, truth, how to live your life and that is this nice melodic keyboard... against the work... against the vacation and then if I am reading something good, if I happened to bring a good book to read and not just a throw away Jonathan Grisham book.  This week I am reading Mike Doughty's "The Book of Drugs" and it is great for someone like me (an asshole) who really likes indie music and stories about damaged people and redemption and that is like a fine guitar line going through all the rest... and it 70 and sunny with a breeze and I am laying on a couch typing and thinking about the death of this blog and the start of my new project and work, and family and vacation and god and art and nature and how absurdly kind God has been to me and my family and...well, I just love it when I get a bunch of thoughts swimming and swirling in my head.


Soooo... this Mike Doughty book.  He was the singer, songwriter, guitarist front man of a band called "Soul Coughing".  They were an indie rock band of some acclaim back in the day.  All of my music snob friends recommended them to me and I bought all three albums.  Hated them.  It was not music I could pigeon hole and had sampling and "beats" and for God's sake he was WHITE!. 

He describes his drug life as he grows up and becomes a musician and has some success and tours and eventually, as they all do, discovers heroin. Sadly it did not kill him or he might have been huge.  Seriously, it is a really good book.  He is clearly and fairly unrepentantly a huge ass.  He speaks of his band mates in ways my friends don't speak of their first ex wife.  They seriously sound like awful people who were getting noticed on his back and taking credit for making something of him.  The sound like pricks.  But nearly everyone in the book sounds like a prick. He clearly was going through life as the worst kind of smug, talented, insecure tool and the most striking thing about the parade displayed in the book is that it is a parade.  No one stays.  He is too much.

Before I read this book I had already become a fan of his solo work.  Brilliant, edgy singer songwriter with good guitar chops a great sense of melody.  I strongly recommend it.  Anyway, it is a very good read and a story really of the grace of God, bravery, luck and redemption and ultimately, and very unlikely, a source of hope.  And it is well written.  Buy it.

So that having been said, The Diner Review is in it's death throes. I would like someone to edit it, throw out the shit (of which there is a great deal) keep the diner reviews and keep the better (more readable) pieces and edit the shit out of them and then I would like to let it stand.  If edited it is not the worst body of work.  I am willing to pay for this service and if interested please email me at mab@mabeckerlaw.com.  I will not pay a lot but for someone who has a reasonable facility with grammar and the language (sadly I do not) it should not be that big a project and it is worth a couple hundred to me at least.  If you have an unemployed college graduate at home it might be perfect.

I will be rolling out my new project in the next few weeks if not sooner.  I am going to try and keep it smaller in scope and it is much more of a focused effort.  I might need to do two new blogs.  One for all the background noise in my head and one for this new jag.  It will be no surprise to most of my compatriots and I have touched on here as of late.  It is my hope that my next post in these pages will be my last.  On to more swimming and swirling.

American Music Showcase: Grand Center

Sooooo... those of us old people in the county who have not been paying attention  might want to start.   There are things happening in mid town at Grand Center.  I do not think you can give Father Biondi all the kudos for this but it certainly would not be happening without the revitalized, re-beautified, re secured SLU Campus.

The anchor of course is still The Fox.  One of the greatest landmarks in St. Louis and we can likely never be grateful enough for the rehabilitation of that building, great shows, beautiful facility, nice mix of entertainment there.  There is of course Powell Symphony Hall which I believe I was taken to once in grade school but other than that can voice no familiarity.  Jazz at the Bistro has soldiered bravely down there for years but with the addition of Kota, the new Dooleys and the City Diner there is some momentum being gathered.  Additionally on the southeastern portion of the area, there is Plush, Field House, Triumph, The Moto-Museum, Hotel Ignacio and Vitos.  It is still dead to the north but heading west you have KETC, and the new home of KWMU and now KDHX is moving in next to the park.  Directly south is the anchor of SLU.  It is starting to look solid.

So we did not have anything to do on Saturday night other than a forced invitation to go get drunk on a porch in Glendale which my wife was not enamored with.  I had read in the paper and then heard on KWMU about the American Music Showcase.  6 band in 5 venues.  Strauss Park kicked it off with the Thin Dimes.  Strauss Park is the little triangle across from the FOX bordered by Jazz St. Louis nd that big ass Baptist Church.  We were able to buy our wrist bands for 10 bucks each.  There were about 40-50 people in the park around 7:30 and we were able to grab a table at Jazz at the Bistro and have a little diner while the Thin Dimes did a nice country set with electric and acoustic and a nice female vocalist. It was a little loud.  Some people rode up on bikes and some people came with dogs and there was a nice mix of people.  The food was also good at the Bistro.  Urban Chestnut had a little stand giving away some samples with your admission and selling a few local brews.

We moved from there to a place I had never noticed before, the Hotel Ignacio.  I do not know what the rooms look like but they appear to be affiliated with (connected to? owned by?) the Trimph Grill/Moto Museum people.  We grabbed a cocktail at the hotel bar and found a cushy lobby chair to share and had the most pleasant surprise of the night with Beth Bombara.  She has a sweet voice and a nice little combo with a bass player and another guy who plays lap steel and then occasionally picks up the trombone to play a little as well and together.... a sweet sound.  I bought one of her Eps and will definitely go see her play again.  High point of the night.  Support local music, blah, blah, blah.

The Thin Dimes in the park at twighlight.

From there we walked up to Vitos and passed on the band playing outdoors there... no seating, before ending the night at Dooleys to see the Bottoms Up Blues Gang.  Everybody loves these guys.  I did not.  Dooleys basement seemed like it had potential to be a nice venue but... we had a drink and bailed. Still, it was an awesome night.

Soo... Grand Center, big potential.  Go out and check it out.  You also should check out the Thin Dimes and Beth Bombara.  Good music that makes you smile... it don't get much better.

This was a strong message from Dooley's bathroom.