11th Street Diner
Coffee
French Fried French Toast with Strawberries and Condensed Milk Syrup
Belgian Waffle with Strawberries and Whipped Cream
Kentucky Bread Pudding with bourbon glaze and French Vanilla Ice Cream
Old Fashioned Carrot Cake
Targeting a trio of stops before heading northeast to Tampa, Wednesday morning began as one of only two occupied tables at 24/7 Eleventh Street Diner and seated in a cornerpocket booth amidst the shiny silver space breakfast was a carbohydrate heavy feast of questionable value considering the quality of the food, though the service and setting were a whole lot of fun.
Unabashedly ‘old-school’ with an all-day menu of diner favorites, breakfasts, pastry case desserts, and the sort of coffee that has been sitting on the burner for far too long, it was with menus in hand and a caricature laden placemat in place that the experience on the corner of Washington and 11th began and although several interesting appetizers and desserts called out the eventual order entailed a quartet of plates, all arriving simultaneously despite the fact that two were pre-made – an understandable decision, it seems, as those two were technically ‘desserts.’
Rapid fire from the kitchen and quick to refill water as acrid coffee caused regret for a wasted $2.50 it was only fifteen minutes after seating that plates arrived and setting aside an exceedingly small slice of Carrot Cake that proved underwhelming to focus on more temperature-sensitive options both the crispy malted waffle and the block of dense, lukewarm bread pudding proved run-of-the-mill – good but nothing to write home about, particularly given the price.
Moving next to the reason Eleventh Street had originally been targeted for breakfast, suffice it to say that the “French Fried” French Toast was exactly as decadent as it would seem and with soft, eggy bread standing up well to lightly sweetened custard followed by a dip in the deep fryer the only thing holding back the plate was the small packs of Kraft “Pancake Syrup” – the worst of the worst artificial maple products entirely eschewed making me wish the application of condensed milk syrup had been a bit more liberal, though the sliced seasonal strawberries admittedly complimented the golden, crisp Challah quite well.
