Jalopy's Drive-in - Review #13

Another Saturday and another breakfast!  Today we stayed local and went to Jalopy's Drive-in located about 3 miles away in the small town of Perkins, south of Stillwater. Since we stayed local today, we were joined by Mike and Greg which changed things up a bit.

Notice the automated ice machine to the left of the sign where you can purchase ice by the bucket!

Jalopy's definitely isn't much of an impressive site, with a blue metal roof and sign that appear to be dated by back the 60's or 70's.  For a long time I avoided trying it, but as we've learned on this breakfast tour, you can't judge a book by it's cover.  The parking lot is often full, especially in the mornings, and so about a month ago we tried it for the first time.  Unfortunately, I forgot to write it up; however, on the bright side that meant we got to go back again!

Similar to Grammy's that I wrote about in review #9, you order your food at the counter, and pour your own coffee.  The menu on the wall is hand written, and made for a great picture, but sadly the picture I took didn't come out.   Like the first time we were here there was a large table full of old white guys, that I think must have included every 70+ year old man in Perkins.  Another table had a single very large middle-aged guy  in overalls and a brown leather hat who had been there last time, and seemed to be the only person who could regularly get the staff to refill his coffee.  I wonder if it's because he couldn't get out of his chair to refill his coffee?

Greg's breakfast!

Today, BJ and I both had eggs over easy, pancakes and sausage.  Mike had bacon, hasbrowns, eggs over easy and toast, and Greg had eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy.  This was definitely one of the best breakfasts we have had.  The pancakes were soft, yet had a slight crispiness which was excellent, and the sausage was spicy.  And this one is for you Tamara, the eggs were excellent, probably the best I've had.  The egg whites were thick, and overall they were very light brown, and lightly crisped, yet by no means burned.  With just a touch of pepper added they were fantastic.   The coffee was also unlimited and good, with the only complaint being the lack of real cream.  Artificial dried cream just isn't the same. 

Those were some good eggs Tamara!

Probably the most unusual moment of the morning was when Greg ordered a glass of milk and they said they had to run and buy some before bringing him his glass about 10 minutes later!

And overall.......

Food: 4.5 of 5 pancakes
Cost: $$ (out of 5 - more dollar signs = more expensive)
Overall: 4.5 of 5 cups of coffee

Jalopy's really has been a great local find. The food is very good and the price of $5.99 for most breakfasts is tough to beat.  The atmosphere is pretty nice inside with pictures of lots of old cars, and the people watching is tough to beat out side of the Icehouse Bar (Review #2).  If they could just get some real cream the place would be almost perfect for a quick, good, local breakfast. 

Until next time, keep on eating breakfast!

Kelly's Cafe - Review #12

This week took us on our longest journey yet in search of a good breakfast, to the town of Crescent, approximately 45 minutes southwest of Stillwater.  The main problem we have been having is that at this point we have been to all the nearby restaurants and each week we are having to travel farther and farther.  Granted, I have two blogs from more local restaurants that I haven't written yet (Jalopy's in Perkins, and Katie's Diner in Guthrie) even though we've been there. Luckily both of those places were top notch so I personally don't have a problem going back to either restaurant again.

The one blinking stoplight in town.  Old bank building on the distant right that is now an antique shop.

Crescent is a tiny town in central Oklahoma on highway (or more like road) 74.  It is about 5 blocks long and 3 blocks wide, with highway 74 acting as Main St.  Once a prominent wheat and cattle town with a skyline of tall silos, but like so many other towns we've visited it is dying.  The majority of the shops on main st are boarded up with only a single restaurant, antique store, post office, gas station and the VFW still in operation.

The restaurant we went to was Kelly's cafe that was about a third to half full by the time we left, filled with locals.  BJ made the comment that it must have been a requirement for men to have beards in order to eat there as not a single guy had a smooth shaven face.  It was definitely where the locals came for breakfast, as multiple large groups seemed to be meeting for their weekly meal. 

The menu was small, but more than adequate with excellent prices.  Although the eggs, hashbrowns, biscuit and gravy with ribeye steak for $8.50 was tempting, I stuck to my usual and had sausage patties, eggs overeasy, hashbrowns with a biscuit and gravy, and BJ had the same. The sausage was excellent, flavorful and spicy.  The hashbrowns were good, but definitely would have been better if they were crispier.  In an effort to be more detailed with the egg quality, these were very good, but probably more on the less rather than well-cooked side for eggs overeasy.  The biscuit was good, definitely better than what we had a Red Rock last week, but the gravy lacked any sort of zestiness.  If they had put minced pieces of the sausage patties into the gravy then I think it could have been excellent. The coffee was very good and refilled consistently as it must be for breakfasts!

And overall.......

Food: 4 of 5 pancakes
Cost: $$ (out of 5 - more dollar signs = more expensive)
Overall: 4 of 5 cups of coffee

Kelly's Cafe was definitely an improvement over Red Rock Bakery last week, and it was good to get back to a more normal breakfast.  While there were definitely areas where the breakfast could be improved, it was very good and only needs one or two minor tweaks to make it great!  One of the best parts about this blog is trying new places each week and the travel that goes with it.  It was a perfect day for a drive and it is always fun to drive down the old farm roads to get our destination that hopefully has a great meal for us upon our arrival.  Until next week, keep on eating breakfast!

Red Rock Bakery - Review #11

Well it has been a month since the last post, and that is far to long.  We've actually been to a couple of places during that time and I've basically been to lazy to get them written up.  So either I will have to do it by memory or heaven forbid we'll just have to try them again.  Luckily they were pretty darn good places, Katie's Diner in Guthrie, Jalopy's in Perkins, and surprisingly pancakes and sausage at Applebee's for a Boy Scout fundraiser last Saturday!

This morning though we went to Red Rock Bakery in Stillwater which was a bit of a change of pace for us.  Traditionally Red Rock has only been a bakery in the mornings providing what some would say are the best donuts and pastries in town, but recently they've added a more significant breakfast menu that includes egg scrambles, sausage/bacon biscuits and the more traditional biscuits and gravy. Most of my experience has been going there for lunch though as they do excellent soup, salad and sandwiches, the highlight of which is the sandwich bread which is fresh, warm and phenomenal!

The outside with drive-thru window!

With a relatively limited no pastry breakfast menu BJ and I ended up getting the same thing, the Red Rock Scramble with Biscuits and Gravy, and coffee.  The Red Rock scramble is essentially scrambled eggs mixed with thickly diced deli ham and cheese.  Somewhat surprisingly it was the highlight of the meal.  While it wasn't great it did have a decent taste especially when topped with a little bit of pepper, but overall it was barely something to write home about.

The Red Rock Scramble.

I think we both expected the highlight to be the biscuits and gravy for two reasons.  The first was that they are what was recommended to me by some friends as being really good, and second we expected Red Rock to be able to make some killer biscuits since their forte` is baking.  Sadly we were both disappointed as the biscuits were soft, but extremely doughy and the gravy while decent lacked any kind of significant flavor or zestiness (is that a word??).

The oh so doughy biscuits and gravy!

The highlight was definitely the coffee because although you poured your own, you had 6 different flavors to choose from which was a really nice treat.  They also kept to the breakfast mantra of making the coffee unlimited which was a good choice on their part.

And overall.......

Food: 2.5 of 5 pancakes
Cost: $$$$ (out of 5 - more dollar signs = more expensive)
Overall: 2 of 5 cups of coffee

I think this was by far the  most disappointing breakfast we've had since we started the blog.  The food just wasn't all that impressive, and although the choice of coffee flavors attempted to save them it wasn't enough.  Also, the quality and quantity of food wasn't very good considering the almost $8 price.  I would much rather drive 15 miles out to the Smokey Pokey and get a real breakfast for $6 than do this again.  Sometimes a place should really just stick to what they are good at rather than try and expand their menu.  There definitely is no question that they have great pastries and that their sandwiches at lunch are top notch, but we wouldn't recommend Red Rock for their breakfast menu.

The beauty of this blog though is that we have to take the good with the bad, and it's really all about experimentation and trying new things.  Until next time, keep on eating breakfast!