Toast

Holy craptown y'all, this place is amazing. 

Toast

746 W Webster Ave, Chicago, IL

Sean and I were on the prowl for some brekkies late on a Saturday and stumbled upon this place pretty much by accident, having ruled out places that had lines going out the door. But when we got inside, a very nice man told us the wait was 45 minutes. Sean grumbled a lot and wanted to leave, but I persuaded him not to, and told the nice man we'd be happy to take a seat at the counter if that would speed things along. Sidenote - I don't generally give my name at restaurants, because I hate dealing with pronunciation issues, nor have I patented a fake restaurant name yet (despite being told by a very drunk man at the Hideout Block Party last summer that one simply MUST have a fake name for restaurants), so I got to be inordinately amused by the fact that the guy assumed that I was Sean. I'm Sean! heh heh. woo-boy. Anyways.

The wait turned out to only be about 15 minutes, and we were given some very nice coffee in the meantime. I got a kick out of the music. It's not everyday you hear Melissa Etheridge followed by old school hiphop. What fun! The decorations were whimsical and the interior was sunny and pleasant. 

We settled in at the counter and opened the menu, and my god. Normally one has a hard time deciding between a few things, perhaps, but this time, I found myself contemplating just how much food I could possibly cram into myself. Could I actually order everything in the first column? I settled on the eggs benedict, Sean went for the omelet Lorraine. By some strange twist of fate, omelet lorraine sounded like apple crepe to Jill, the lovely woman who took our order. If you happen to be into yelp.com, you may have read some very vicious things about Jill. They're lies. She's a peach. She was chatting it up with everyone at the counter, and she's awesome. Upon realizing the error in the order, she immediately put out the call for the omelet and told us to enjoy the crepe on the house. We offered some to our fellow counter-sitters, but they declined, citing satiation. 

The apple crepe was lovely, apples and gruyere wrapped in a well-made crepe and garnished with apple slices and powdered sugar. It's the kind of thing I would probably never have ordered on my own, but it was quite tasty. 

But my god. My eggs benedict. Toast does its eggs benedict with prosciutto and a truffle hollandaise sauce. The eggs were cooked to perfection and served on top of marvelously crisped english muffins. The prosciutto worked beautifully and the hollandaise was, quite simply, to die for. The home fries on the side were fantastic. It was damn near a religious experience.

Then, lickety split, Sean's omelet arrived - bacon, gruyere and chives, finely chopped so as to have each of the flavors represented in every bite. Delicious. Absolutely delicious.

The food was divine, the camraderie amongst those sitting at the counter was lovely, and all in all, it was a wonderful experience. I can't wait to go back and eat everything else on the menu. 

(Blogger isn't uploading pictures for some reason, so you'll have to wait to see Jill's smiling face, the sunny interior, and the inordinately attractive man who sat next to us at the counter.)