As if being stretched and crunched and otherwise whipped into shape by Sam the trainer wasn't hard enough, this past Saturday Chef Vinny and I did an hour of Pilate's after our session with Sam. Now Vin and I have been doing Pilate's since January and love it. What a great way to stretch and strengthen the core muscles. In our early Pilate's sessions the Reformer exercises never seemed that hard or that intensive. That is until we actually got up off the Reformer and tried to walk, or move. Oh, the pain and soreness of it all. But now, 8 months later we're stronger and Chef Vinny at least is leaner. So doing our normal Pilate's session after one with Sam didn't seem intimidating when the idea first saw the light of day.
But one thing, never, ever underestimate Sam. We did 500 reps on leg exercises and move on to abs where we did 1050 crunches. Yes, that number's right, I counted every single one of them. Then we moved on to Jill and Pilate's. If Sam is intense with his workouts, Jill is only slightly less so with her Reformer work. After 2 hours of being bended, folded, stapled, but not mutilated, Chef Vinny and I were still on our feet, still walking and ravenously hungry. Into the Jettamobile we piled and roared off in search of breakfast.
First stop was IHOP in Fenton Plaza. We didn't care that it was a chain where the food can be wildly inconsistent. We needed food fast and coffee, lots of coffee. But with a line out the door and down the sidewalk we were not willing to wait an hour to get in again this Saturday like we did the previous one at Richard Walker's Pancake House downtown. The line at Denny's was just as bad. Both of use are in the food business and were struck by the number of people lining up for mediocre food and decided we didn't need to be one of them. At that point we headed to Perry's Breakfast Cafe. Located kitty-korner from the transit center on the outskirts of Old Town, Perry's is a throwback to the 60's.........and it probably hasn't had a face lift since then either!
Perry's does two things, breakfast and lunch, and it does them well. Not fancy, just well. There were a lot of people waiting but hunger pangs are hunger pangs so we stayed put and signed in for a table. In less than 15 minutes we were seated in a booth with coffee (100% Colombian according to the menu) in our mugs and a large menu in our hands. Breakfast is the primary thing at Perry's and most of the menu is devoted to it. There are the usual eggs, pancakes and waffles, which were ably augmented by an extensive selection of Mexican breakfast plates and frittatas, or as the menu calls them fancy omelets. Nothing on the menu is over $6.95 and making a choice is the hardest part of breakfast at Perry's.
Chef Vinny, being famished, ordered 2 eggs, 2 bacon and 2 pancakes.
I made the mistake of ordering the Deluxe Fritatta
The frittata comes with a choice of potatoes (home fries or hash browns) and bread (muffin, toast or biscuit), a baked apple or Mexican beans. I opted for the hash browns and a biscuit
Everything was served on 10" dinner plates, portions are enormous. And America wonders why there's a crisis with obesity. Other than the fact there was too much cheese on the frittata I loved it. There were nice large chunks of onion, bell peppers, sausage, bacon and fresh mushrooms in it and those vegetables still had a pleasant crunch to them. But thank god I had done 1050 crunches earlier that morning!! The biscuit was okay, not nearly flaky enough and I ended up leaving most of it on the plate.
There is not a potato on the face of this Earth that does not have my name on it. In fact, family lore has it that my first word was a variation of the word potato. The star of my breakfast was, indeed, the hash browns. Hot and crispy on the outside, they were buttery soft on the inside. A little salt and little catsup and potato nirvana soon ensued.
Eggs are eggs, and bacon is bacon and Chef Vinny loved both, but the winner in his breakfast were those large and luscious pancakes.
Made even better by the liberal use whipped real butter and maple flavored syrup.
Perry's is housed in what was probably an old Sambo's restaurant at the intersection of Taylor St. and Pacific Coast Highway and would probably be considered a truck stop diner if it weren't for the fact there are usually no trucks to be seen. It's open 6 AM to 2 PM . It's loud, it's a lot of food for a reasonable price and it's a fun place to watch people and see the greatest cross section of diversity in San Diego.
Aaah Perry's, one of my favorite breakfast places...nothin' fancy, just good grub. We call it the "Truck Stop".....
Posted by: kirk | August 15, 2006 at 09:22 PM