Exploing the Neighborhood: Middlesex Diner

As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, Aaron and I grabbed some breakfast on Thanksgiving morning...  I knew of a local spot that is supposed to have good breakfast, but when we called, no one answered.  We found out that Cracker Barrel was open all day, but I'm not a Cracker Barrel fan...  So I used Yelp to check for local diners, figuring they would be open (I mean, when isn't a diner open?).  Anyway, we found that Middlesex Diner had pretty good ratings, wasn't too far away, and was open (we called to be sure). 

We arrived around 9am and were seated immediately.  Our waitress came right over to get our drink orders; she was quite peppy but a little odd (not in a bad way, just in "huh? what was that?" kind-of-way).  I ordered coffee and Aaron got a lemonade.  My coffee was a regular ol' cup of joe - nothing special but nothing wrong with it, which is exactly what I expect from diner coffee. 

Because it was Thanksgiving, they also had some related specials... I checked these out and was thinking about some of them at first, but I really wanted something with eggs in it to keep me full until our turkey dinner (we were eating breakfast just after 9am and weren't eating turkey until around 3pm). Anyway, I need to mention the Thanksgiving specials because they did sound tempting! They had two baked oatmeal specials: apple pie and pumpkin pecan. They had stuffed french toast as another special, along with two delicious-sounding pancake specials: pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin roll pancakes! (I'm not sure makes them pumpkin roll pancakes but I'm guessing it was either pancakes stacked with the cream cheese mixture in between or pancakes rolled with the cream cheese mixture inside.) I didn't get any of the specials, but I seriously considered it...

So I scoped out the regular menu and was debated between several options.  They had S.O.S. (also known as creamed chipped beef over toast) which I love.  They also had Eggs Benedict which is one of my favorite breakfast foods...  I was also drawn to a scramble (I forget what they called it) but decided it was a little much since it had four eggs in it; it was four eggs, ham, green peppers, onion, American cheese, and hash browns all scrambled together.  I ended up getting something similar - it was called the Hungry Man Omelet.  The Hungry Man Omelet was a three-egg omelet that had ham, onion, green peppers, tomato, mushrooms, and cheese in it; it also came with a side of hash browns and toast.  Aaron got his usual diner breakfast - 2 eggs (scrambled),toast, bacon, and hash browns.

The decor was pretty typical for a diner, lots of booths!  There was a counter where you can sit and you can see into the kitchen...  Nothing unusual there, but it was pretty large for a diner, which must be nice when they are a bit busier.

Let's start with Aaron's meal...  Aaron said that his meal was fine; he didn't care much for the hash browns because they weren't very crispy and the spots that were crispy were actually slightly burnt.  It looked to me like he had a decent amount of bacon which is good because some places skimp on the breakfast meats... 

Now for my food!  My hash browns weren't as bad as Aaron's; that said, I had some over-done potatoes left on my plate at the end of the meal.  My omelet, however, was delicious!  It was cooked perfectly and wonderfully full of all the goodies (lots of ham and veggies!); I hate when restaurants barely put anything in the omelet...  Anyway, the onions and green peppers were slightly sauteed but still had enough "crunch" to add some texture; the tomatoes were cooked just right so that they didn't turn to mush.  All-in-all, I would order this again and again!