Common Place Eatery - 9

Date: 07/04/10

Restaurant: Common Place Eatery
Address: 11 Main St.
City: Bennington
Phone: 588-6888

Breakfast Hours: 7-11am

STANDARD - 2 eggs OE, potatoes, bacon, toast

Eggs **
One egg was great, but the other was way overdone with no runny yoke at all. This is the second time I have gotten eggs like this. Not sure how it happens, aren't they cooking at the same time? Most likely next to each other?


Potatoes ***+
Kind: Home fries
They were just OK. there was no crisp to them. I noticed some herbs on them, which I thought was nice. Unlike me, Sven doesn't usually put salt on his potatoes but felt these needed it due to the lack of flavor.


Toast ****
Kind: Marbled Rye
Homemade? N


Bacon ****
 


SERVER RECOMMENDATION **+ Blueberry Pancakes
Our server recommended the blueberry pancakes, mainly because she doesn't eat eggs. We didn't feel like eating a whole order of pancakes, so we ordered one to try it out. Well, would have been fine without it. It didn't have even close to enough blueberries and due to the general lack of flavor it just tasted like the table syrup that we put on top.


OMELET/OTHER **** Huevos Rancheros
Kidney bean chili in a large flour tortilla topped with 2 poached eggs, a side of salsa and sour cream, and served with home fries. The salsa tasted fresh and homemade with chopped cilantro. The eggs were poached perfectly. It was a very large dish and our server said that it was the first time she had seen anyone eat the whole thing! Sven, you make me proud.

SERVICE ****
We believe that no impression is better than a bad impression and this was how our service was. She did her job well. Nothing else to say, good or bad. 



DECOR ****
Wooden beams throughout, old photos and a country feel made this place feel homey and comfortable.


BATHROOMS ****+
Clean, hand soap and lotion on the vanity and a box of tissues on the back of the toilet. A nice touch.


NOTES
We almost went with one of their specials which was prime rib (left over from Friday night's dinner) and eggs, but felt that was a little too extravagant for our research purposes. Prime rib for breakfast can't really be a bad thing, can it?

SVEN'S TAKE

What better place to kick off the Fourth of July than the Common Place Eatery in the heart of the "Live Free or Die" state? When Olga and I were escorted to our table, we couldn't help but notice the well-appointed older couple sitting at the corner table, dressed to the red-white-and-blue-nines. The guy had on a stars and stripes tie and a blue blazer; and his wife looked liked a direct descendant of Betsy Ross. It was good to see, and made me proud to be an American, where Olga and I can saunter into a cafe in our Birkenstocks, baggy shorts, and t-shirts and dine with the rabble-rousers.

For some odd reason, all that patriotism made me want to eat Mexican food . . . so I passed up the American corn-fed prime rib and opted for the Huevos Rancheros. The last time I had Huevos Rancheros this good, I was sitting in an outside brickyard cafe looking over Boulder, Colorado — one of the few distinct memories of my four years in college. The only minor drawback to this East coast version was the flour tortilla — which would have been absolutely amazing had it been a corn tortilla warmed up a little more. Black beans would have been a sweet touch, too. Other than that, though, this was some stellar grub. I'd go back to the Common Place Eatery in a heartbeat, and I believe I might even be willing to march up from Lexington or Concord to do it.