These are the hash browns that elicit paragraphs of purple prose on the art of the perfect hash brown: crispy outside, creamy inside.
The bacon is pretty damn good, too,
It's important to remember that Mel's is not a loving, Disneyfied, hipster recreation of a vintage dive diner. It is an actual dive diner, divey continuously for however many decades, originated in the era when Phoenix was the spot on the highway where your radiator blew.
As a genuine dive. It's quite magnificent. Service is quick and unpretentious, food is good, prices are low, and you can have gravy on your biscuits and salsa on your eggs.