Snooze, Denver

Most people rave about the pancakes. But who wants pancakes when there's a signature house-made English muffin to be had? A rare treat and one that didn't disappoint. I am now thinking of every reason I can to spend more time in Denver. Because more time in Denver means more visits to Snooze, an "eatery" singularly devoted to breakfast...

Henrietta's Table, Cambridge

I wonder if the Winklevi ever did brunch at Henrietta's Table? Nice and close to Harvard. World class hash browns. What better place to load up on carbs before a big boat race? Or a big law suit for that matter...

Dottie's True Blue Cafe, San Francisco

Next time you're in downtown San Francisco, and the smug levels are safe, get yourself to Dottie's True Blue Cafe, 522 Jones Street, Tel +1 (415) 885-2767. Don't be put off by the line running out the door and down the hill. Breakfast at Dottie's is awesome.



I'm not sure how much the specials menu changes each day, but on my visit (the day after election day) it was dripping with options, and my mouth was dripping with drool. Pumpkin chocolate chip French toast with toasted pecans and pure maple syrup ($10.95). Smoked salmon, caper, tomato, scallion and cream cheese scramble with house-baked toast and potatoes ($12.95). Pulled pork, roasted sweet onion and jack cheese scramble with flour tortillas and potatoes ($10.95). And Prius drivers, who like the smell of their own emissions, will find it hard to resist a serve of black bean cakes and eggs ($8.50). That'll keep you fueled up for a whole day of sulfur-sniffing self-satisfaction.

My smoked whiskey-fennel sausage and mushroom scramble was magnificent. The service was great, with frequent top-ups of decent coffee. And from my bar-side perch I had a bird's eye view of the kitchen action. This was indeed a day of hope.

19/20 "scrambelicious"

Brookline Lunch, Cambridge

It wasn't in Brookline and it wasn't lunch, but I still managed to enjoy myself at Brookline Lunch, 9 Brookline St, Cambridge, MA, Tel +1 (617) 354-2983. Because they serve a very respectable breakfast, and it's cheap. Sorry... not cheap... inexpensive... affordable. Cheap sounds so... cheap.



I had an omelette with fat chunks of ham, sliced mushroom, cheese and a tasty side of home fries with a bit of veg mixed in. The trouble and strife had the eggs benny and was full of praise. And Mr Smith had an excellent egg and bacon muffin with cheese and crispy bacon. Happy campers all round.

Glo's, Seattle

Slow food is all hip and trendy these days. Not at Glo's, 1621 E Olive Way, Seattle, WA, Tel +1 206 324 2577. It's just classic diner food that happens to come out slowly. Very slowly. So come early and be prepared to sit around and wait. Because breakfast at Glo's is worth the wait.



Despite being a humble diner, Glo's is most famous for eggs benedict, the show pony of the breakfast world. They serve five different breeds of benny: classic Canadian bacon; smoked salmon; Florentine (with spinach); Californian (with Avocado); and Blackstone (with strip bacon and sauteed spinach). Most importantly, the house made hollandaise is very good, and the hashbrowns are delicious: soft and crispy cakes of shredded spud. Yum.

NZ008, Somewhere Above the Pacific

Normally I would be slagging off another airline about now. You know the drill. Crappy food. Crappy movies. Crappy seats. Blah blah blah. But not this time. Air New Zealand tramples on airline tradition and serves a very respectable breakfast of scrambled eggs with hot smoked NZ king salmon, chives, baby spinach and a potato cheddar cake. Fancy.

Rose's Cafe, San Francisco

They serve a very impressive chicken and tarragon sausage at Rose's Cafe, 2298 Union at Steiner, Cow Hollow, San Francisco, Tel +1 415 775 2200.

Mr Tulk, Melbourne

Let's face it, if you're not in rehab, or recently out of rehab, you're nobody. Robbie. Pete. Britney. Keith. Lindsay. Jesse. Courtney. Even Ben Cousins. It was almost enough to make me down a bottle of Jack, score some ice, and do a few lines of coke for breakfast. But then I discovered the hash at Mr Tulk, 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Tel +61 3 8660 5700. Corned beef hash, to be specific.



First impressions are a bit confusing, with the sign outside instructing me to order at the bar. Then, when I rock up to the bar, they tell me it's table service if you eat inside. Oh... I guess I'll go find a seat. Service, it seems, is not a strong point.

Food, on the other hand, is a whole different story. Put simply, the corned beef hash with poached eggs was brilliant. Take a big fat cake of soft spud and finely diced corned beef and fry till golden and crispy. Top it with a pair of soft poached eggs and season lightly. Serve with a generous blob of mustard. Very, very yummy. Not very healthy. But much healthier than crystal meth.

Mr Tulk is also a very slick venue. It reminded me a bit of The Wolseley, with low leather banquettes, airy feel, high ceilings and buzzy vibe. Except that The Wolseley doesn't have a communal table surrounded by stools.

16/20 "best hash in town"

Wild Flour, Fitzroy

If you're feeling anti-social, it's probably a bad idea to have breakfast at Wild Flour, 422 George Street, Fitzroy, Tel +61 3 9419 1391. You can sit on this communal table. Or you can sit on that communal table. Or you can sit outside (where they have two small tables for two). If, on the other hand, you're on the pull, Wild Flour is a winner. Let's face it, the communal table is a great place to chat up complete strangers. And since no-one expects to be chatted up over breakfast, you can mount a surprise attack.



The first thing you need is a good opening line:

"Please pass the salt" is no good. You'll get salt but no conversation.

"How do you like your eggs in the morning?" is a tiny bit presumptuous. Don't be surprised if you're shot down in two words... "Unfertilized, thanks."

"Is that on your diet?" is an excellent line if you enjoy being kicked in the nuts or stabbed in the eye with a fork.

"You clearly have good taste, is there anything on the menu you'd recommend?" is perfect. Soften them up with some flattery. Then pretend that you care what they have to say.

Actually, opening lines are much less important to the whole flirting process than you might think. According to this BBC story, you should really be tuning into 5 secret sexual signals that someone is flirting with you:

1. they spend a large amount of time looking at your mouth
   
2. they mirror your moves, as in, you sip your latte, they sip their latte, etc
   
3. they flash their eyebrows at you
4. they point their feet at you, not to be confused with kicking you in the nuts
   
5. they blink more than usual, although it doesn't count if you just flicked hollandaise in their eyes

So... what do you say when someone sits next to you on the communal table at Wild Flour, blinking like crazy, staring at your mouth, and says "You clearly have good taste, is there anything on the menu you'd recommend?"



Easy. You recommend the hand made potato cakes topped with poached eggs, spinach and hollandaise sauce. Or the scrambled eggs and bacon on Wildflour toast. Or the white sourdough French toast with grilled figs, whipped cream and maple syrup. Or the omelette with provolone, tomato and basil (although I wish they served it with toast, not bread). Or pretty much anything else on the menu. It all looked good. Very good coffee too (when they remember).

16/20 "communal"



Eggs & Bacon $12.50 BB100 +25%

Madame SouSou, Fitzroy

It's a dangerous time to be a cartoonist (especially a Danish one). So I wonder how the French will feel about the female caricature adorning the menus at Madame SouSou, 231 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, Tel +61 3 9417 0400.



Dressed in period gear, with one hand up in the air, the other hand appears to be wedged firmly up her derriere. Are they trying to imply that French women have worms? Is that the dirty little secret behind French Women Don't Get Fat?

Assuming it doesn't get ripped apart by rioting Frenchwomen in the weeks ahead, one thing's for sure... this is a good place for breakfast. My SouSou breakfast was anything but so so. Firm, buttery scrambled eggs. Delicious double-smoked bacon. Golden, crumbling, house-made hash browns. Roasted tomato, fresh avocado, and crunchy sourdough toast. Yum yum.



Other interesting items on le menu du petit dejeuner include ricotta pancakes with warmed strawberries, honeycomb, and vanilla bean butter; Madame SouSou's toasted fruit and nut muesli with apple and berry compote, and sheep's milk yoghurt (no, Yoplait isn't really French for yoghurt); and sweet corn fritters with smoked salmon, avocado, tomato salsa and creme fraiche.

Or, if you want to get all French, there's a selection of croissants, with shaved ham, cheese, blah blah blah... and a rather fancy sounding pear, fig and walnut "French" toast, with cinnamon marscapone and clover honey.

The venue is stylish without being stuffy, and the staff look very snazzy in their white aprons and black pants. But if you're on an outside table (as I was), there's a risk of being out-of-sight, out-of-mind. It took me a while to order a second coffee.

My only other comment relates to price. At $17 for the signature breakfast, it's just a tad too expensive to be good value. This is, however, a close call. And I will come back for more.

16/20 "mmm... double smoked bacon"



Eggs & Bacon $11.50 BB100 +15%

Galleon Cafe, St Kilda

If there's one brekky spot that's old school St Kilda, it's the St Kilda Galleon Cafe, 9 Carlisle Street, Tel +61 3 9534 8934. It's been there a long time. It's sufficiently "Off Ackland" to prevent tourists stumbling in by mistake. It's decked out in antique laminex. And it's veggo-friendly. So I gave the pig a day off, and tried my luck with the sweet-potato, basil and fetta hash browns. Not bad at all.



Which got me thinking. There's something quite wrong with the term "tree-hugging veggo". I mean, if you're a tree-hugger, and therefore a plant-lover, how is it that you can rip an innocent bunch of spinach from the ground, starve the poor fellas till they die, or worse, slice them up and boil them alive. It's barbaric. A true tree-hugger really ought to stick with the stuff that falls off the plant through natural causes. An apple lying on the ground, for example. Or some peas that fell from their pod.

Speaking of veggos, most people already know that Moby and Gwynneth are plant-murderers. You may even know that Einstein and da Vinci were too. But guess who else has gone veggo? Meatloaf. It's true. I read it on the Internet. Coming soon to a record store near you... "Nutloaf's Greatest Hits".

Anyway, back to my hash browns, which were served with spinach (sauteed alive), an excellent poached egg, and a splodge of house-made relish. The presentation was excellent, and the flavours worked well. But (for me) the hash browns were a little disappointing. It's not that I didn't enjoy them (I did). It's just that, on the inside, the grated strands of sweet potato were still a little crunchy, and not all soft and mushy (my personal preference).

If hash browns aren't your thing, don't worry. Since the 189 Espresso crew took over at the Galleon, the menu is oozing with excellent options for veggos and meat-lovers alike. There's vegan beans or Jonathan's snags. Scrambled tofu or meatballs on toast. Banana bread or Benedict. The list goes on. One of the best menu's I can remember, and I've seen a few in the last 12 months.

About my only complaint is speed. When the place is full, service is slow. But good things are worth waiting for.

17/20 "Moby friendly"