Going out for breakfast seemed like a great idea yesterday after Retired Guy finished stacking his pine logs and I figured out how to reset the clocks on all the electronics. RG has his rituals, and it's not easy to talk him out of going local for the first meal of the day, but he agreed to drive into the Great Metropolis to try Downcity.I must have eaten breakfast at the original Downcity a hundred times before it burned down, back when it had different owners and was located a few blocks west on Weybosset, opposite from Johnson & Wales - or, in Rhode Islandese - where the Outlet used to be. Back then, DC had the best breakfast around.
But soon after DC reopened in its new location about a year ago, I went with a friend and was impressed only by its stylish new look, the service being the biggest negative.
Now I had a feeling of deja vu as the same expressionless waiter seated RG and me at the same table I'd had before and left us there with drinks menus but no breakfast menus. After a few minutes, I went up to the bar to ask for menus. "They're on the table," the woman bartender said. I went back and looked again. "Those are drinks menus," I went back to explain to her. "We'd like to order some food."
"The menus are on the back of the placemats," she snapped, as if I were a fool not to think of picking up and turning over my laminated placemat!
Well, it went downhill from there. We last saw the waiter rubbing a waitress's shoulders at the bar and showing no sign of returning to us at all.
So we left. I'm one diner who never hesitates to bail when the winds whisper, "Bad dining experience dead ahead."
But by now we were really hungry. With the time change, it was an hour later than our stomachs told us it was, and every foodie-favorite breakfast place in Providence had a line outside its door. There was nothing for it but to join the masses at Bickford's in Seekonk, proving RG right that there's no place for breakfast like close to home. There were maybe a dozen people waiting in a comfortable area inside the door, but the place is so big and so efficient that we waited no more than five or ten minutes to be seated at a window booth.
Bang! there was the smiling waitress with our coffee, and Bang! RG was off to the $11 all-you-can-eat brunch buffet. His take is pictured below, topped with a pair of chocolate-covered strawberries that he smuggled to me. I ordered from the menu: eggs over hard, crisp bacon, and a waffle ($5.99) with real maple syrup for another $2.
It wasn't the best breakfast I've had, but it wasn't bad. And certainly it put a great big smile on RG's face. He just loves being proved right.
