rev:text
| - Or "Let's try breakfast from a different angle at Suncoast, Take TWO!" After Cafe Siena, I figured that breakfast anywhere else HAD to be better. I discovered that the Bagel Corner was open 24/7, and hey...because BAGELS. You can very rarely go wrong with a bagel breakfast...
Except. HERE.
Once again, the service was fast and friendly, but it doesn't seem like there's a single place where the food matches it. We both got bagel sandwiches and coffee, and the coffee was once again so weak, it tasted like it had been schlepped on over from Cafe Siena. (But we SAW them making it fresh, so maybe it's just the brand they're using). As for the sandwiches? If you are a fan, then you know that the base of the sandwich - the bagel itself - is THE most important part. Screw whatever goes on it. If the cream cheese was flown in fresh from Philly, it don't mean NOTHIN' if the bagel's not up to par. And these were NOT. Barely toasted, grainy and gravely, without the smooth "crun-CHEWINESS" of a world-class bagel like, say, Einstein's, even the butter wouldn't melt all the way into them, as if it were ashamed to have anything to do with a bagel that was so sub-par.
I ordered a sausage and egg on whole wheat, and a cinnamon-raisin with butter and honey. (I asked the guy at the counter if they had any honey-walnut cream cheese schmear, and he looked at me as if I'd just asked it in Bocchi.) I have already described the bagel consistency to you, but the cinnamon-raisin had only a whisper of cinnamon and raisin FLECKS in it, instead of big pieces of sweet, chewy raisins actually baked into the dough. And the honey? It came in packets, and when I tore one open, it looked as if it had been fresh when Carter was President. I was tempted with the other sandwich to just take the sausage and egg off and eat them 'naked', but I was hungry, so I choked it down with some hot brown water with cream and sugar.
Scratch yet ANOTHER Suncoast Hotel eatery off the dance card. I mean, do the staff actually EAT here? You would think they'd know...
|