I love... Ralphy Goodness

Ralph & Sons Diner,
Carling Ave, Ottawa,
Crystal Beach area

I love breakfast. It's my favourite meal. I especially love going out for breakfast. You can get a pretty impressive breakfast at some fancy-schmancy $20 brunch place with champagne orange juice and caviar sprinkled smoked salmon omelettes. But most of us are more familiar with the average $6-$8 breakfast that you can find all over town. For the most part, I can't really say that one spot outshines the others to any great extent. Most of them are pretty good, but they're not spectacular.

But my family's favourite breakfast spot has a secret weapon that is so great, my mother has been going there every single morning for the past three years, and every morning she has the exact same dish...eggs over easy, bacon well done, toast and coffee.

Like my grandmother, who had a breakfast ritual of her own (half a bowl of corn flakes or rice krispies with half a bowl of all bran on top, drizzled slowly and very meticulously with honey from a yellow plastic honey dipper), my mother also has her own ritual. One slice of toast goes on the plate, and each half gets one egg with lots of salt and pepper. Two pieces of bacon are eaten along with the eggs and toast, all using knife and fork. The other two pieces of bacon and the second slice of toast are set aside until the eggs are finished off. Then, the bacon sandwich is carefully assembled. Each extra crisp slice is broken by hand and stacked meticulously on top of one half of the remaining toast slice. Ketchup is then liberally squirted over every square centimetre of the top layer of bacon and then the munching begins.

The amazing thing is, even with all the ketchup she uses, I've never seen her get any on herself.

Okay...so what's so special about all this? Well, there's the comfortable always-busy family atmosphere (go on the weekend and you may need to wait for a few minutes for a table...but stick it out, it's worth it), the friendly service (my folks are on first-name basis with everyone who works there) and the good prices. But the one thing that really shines, the thing that keeps me dreaming about Ralph's all through the week is.... the bacon.

Oh. My. God. You've never had bacon like this in your life. Perfectly cooked on the grill with some kind of weight that keeps the whole strip against the heat so the entire strip cooks evenly. And the taste is amazing. Juicy, salty, bacony goodness that just makes my mouth water thinking about it. It's specially ordered from a local supplier - and you can order a box for yourself if you want! I've never had such delicious bacon in my life, and it truly has ruined me for bacon anywhere else. Those greasy, fatty-looking curled-up blobs of half-cooked or over-cooked cheap bacon really turn me off now. I pretty much stick to sausage everywhere else because casually cooked average bacon just doesn't do it for me anymore.