Al's Breakfast

Minneapolis

While I am back in Minneapolis, there are still places to see and things to try that may be unknown to others living here. I've been living in the twin cities for nearly two years now, and it took a year for me to find a decent restaurant. It took so long partially because I was living in Eden Prairie for the first year - a beautiful suburb with nothing but chain restaurants scattered throughout - and partially because I really liked the food in Rochester, NY. Rochester really has nothing going for it; it's cloudy, dreary, cold, snowy, and dying. The only way people enjoy themselves in Rochester, it seems, is with food. And they do a great job with food. It's hard for any other place to live up to the restaurants in Rochester.

Now when it comes to breakfast food, the east coast usually wins out because of the abundance of diners. Diners are simple, cheap "restaurants" that may qualify as "dives" anywhere else, but on the east coast - and Rochester is no exception - they are great places to get simple, consistent foods made right. Hence, they're great at breakfast.

So I was skeptical when I heard about Al's Breakfast.

You'll find Al's Breakfast in magazines and on Food channels. But as you drive by the place, you'd easily missed the damned thing. The restaurant is located along a set of strip stores that use awnings to distinguish themselves from one another. Al's Breakfast has a 10 foot awning. Al's Breakfast is literally 10 feet wide inside, maybe less.

I walked into the restaurant about 40 minutes after it opened. Well, I tried to, but the line of people waiting already flowed outside the restaurant. The restaurant consists of a long bar table with 12 bar stools. Everyone else has to wait, and at no time were there less than 15 people waiting while I was there.

So there are all of my first impressions. My wife and I ordered tex-mex hash browns (some sort of spicey sauce with chicken and hash browns) with poached eggs, eggs benedict, and two blueberry pancakes with walnuts. And honestly, everything was delicious. What makes this place so good is quite simple - fresh ingredients, and unique foods like the tex-mex hash browns, and walnuts in pancakes. It's fairly cheap too, since you can eat a full meal for under 6 bucks. Our bill came to $21.

So not only is Al's Breakfast an interesting experience while you wait, it's food makes it worth the wait.