Get Cracking!

Breakfast of Champions or Champion of Breakfasts

There is nothing like an egg. It satisfies most carnivores and low key vegetarians, is cheap, easy to cook, versatile and with the right accoutrements, it’s mmmmm tasty. Especially a few, with some say, bacon or smoked salmon, with a nice dash of HP Sauce.

Eggs are the mainstay of restos that serve brunch or all day breakfast and there are more of these in TO than sugar hits in a box of kiddy crunch. I like eating, breakfast and being with friends, but I find the places that specialize in this fare sort of lacking. The price is usually not bad, but the meal lacks, some je ne sais quoi. Like a genuine cook who knows how to do more than crack a shell and put pre-cooked piggy in the micro.

Luckily, I had a great breakfast/brunch experience recently at an unexpected place: a fake British Pub, right in the heart of waspy Yonge and St. Clair. The Fox and the Fiddle has been through some interesting transformations, and those with long memories remember it was Shopsy’s for a while. Well the help’s still there, at least our waitress is a transition survivor, and the food still schmecks. We didn’t have anything too remarkable: lots of eggs in various ways with side dishes ranging from bacon to baked beans and also tomatoes with the familiar, you guessed it, home fries.

But first of all, it was all tasty! Including a spinach and feta cheese omelette that sounded just weird on the menu. My husband’s easy over eggs were just runny enough (no slimy uncooked white) and good and hot, with home fries, but not so many you needed a forklift to get out of your chair after. The toast was real bread, not alien slices so thin as to qualify as melba toast wannabees.


And the tables – they’re nice and spacious, so ppl can all sit, winter storm gear beside them, and have room to eat. Comfortably!


Our waitress was friendly and happy, not all fake bubbly, and even offered her take on movies as we debated what to see that day. BTW she liked the King’s Speech. We had a great meal at a good price and felt happy and not rushed either. Will we go back? Yes, with a side of you bet!