Westchester Breakfast Club

Croton Diner
221 South Riverside Avenue
Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520(Map it!)

Attendees: Shelley, Pat, Reid, Sylvia

Shelley

We were going to meet at 9am on Saturday at The Tavern in Croton. The website said they open at 8am. Some members of the group arrived and discovered–oops!–the Tavern actually doesn’t open until 10am. Tavern, update your website!

Anyway, after a couple of coordinating phone calls, we all decided to simply head down the road to the Croton Colonial Diner. It was close, it was easy, it was cheap. And we were tired and cold.

The WBC felt a deep void since Jeffrey couldn’t join us this week. But hopefully he’ll be back and WBCing with the best of them really soon. Hi Jeff!

I looked at the menu, and although there was a statment begging patrons to have an omelette (“Please! Create your own omelette.”), I wasn’t really in an omelette mood, probably because I’d already had an excellent omelette the previous week at Clinton Street Baking Company. I didn’t know what I was in the mood for this morning. I was cold, and I was wishing I’d taken a coat with me instead of just my sweatshirt. And then Pat arrived with some hideous plastic creature, and I was just completely distracted. So when the waitress finally walked over and asked if we were ready to order, I said I’d go last. I listened to my companions order, but none of their choices inspired me. Until I heard (or half heard) what Sylvia was getting, and I decided to copy her (sort of). Where she got a short stack of wheat pancakes, I got a short stack of regular pancakes; where she got turkey sausage, I got regular sausage; but we both got regular scrambled eggs.

There’s not much to say. It was diner food, and I got exactly what I’d expect at a diner. Not especially flavorful eggs, pancakes served with the pre-packaged syrup, and a generous helping of sausage. My regular pancakes looked a bit fluffier than Sylvia’s wheat version, but it’s hard to be impressed by diner pancakes a week after seeing the pancakes at Clinton Street Baking Co. The regular sausages that I got were much heartier-looking than the turkey sausage, and were actually on the better end of diner sausages. The pieces of sausage I received seemed more like the kind of sausage you’d serve in a sausage and pepper wedge or casserole than for breakfast. They were well-spiced and juicy. The eggs were average; only somewhat fluffy and completely unseasoned. But it’s what you’d expect at a diner.

Sorry to be boring, I know this is not one of my more entertaining reviews. The food was fine. It was a diner. Not much more to say. The price was good, the food was fine. Everything was just fine. And that was it.

If you’ll allow me to digress just a bit, let me explain to you my gripe with diners: every single diner I go to leaves its odor all over me. On my clothes, in my hair, in my pores. It’s a smoky, greasy smell. Even though smoking in restaurants was outlawed years ago, at diners it’s like the smell of age-old cigarette smoke just stays in the ventilation system. Gross. (Fun fact: I can remember going to local diners as a child when there was still a separate smoking section. Kids these days will find that shocking.)

After breakfast we all enjoyed some cannoli cupcakes that Sylvia had purchased on Friday from Flour and Sun Bakery. They’ve had cannoli cupcakes several times before but I’ve never been able to get one because they sell out fast. So when I saw on the Flour and Sun website that the bakery would feature this elusive cupcake on Friday, I suggested to Sylvia that she use her day off wisely and round up some cupcakes for the WBC. Now I know why the cannoli cupcakes sell out so fast. It’s delicious, a vanilla cupcake with a ricotta filling and a ricotta frosting on top, with some chocolate chips sprinkled in. This cupcake actually seemed lighter than some of the other cupcake offerings at Flour and Sun. The next time they have this cupcake, I’ll be there bright and early to get one all my own.

Let me just say it’s a good thing I went to the health club following our meal. Between the pancakes, sausage, and cupcake, I needed a workout. But you know what, that’s what you do at a diner, you have an assortment of average-quality, greasy food. (Ok, maybe you don’t usually have cupcakes at a diner; but we’re the WBC, we have to have dessert after breakfast, and we all love a good cupcake.)

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Pat

What I Had: 2 eggs over medium with sausage, potatoes, toast, coffee
What It Cost: around $8
Worth It: Eh
The Rating: 3/5
The Details: I wasn’t planning on going to the Croton Diner for breakfast. Nor was I anticipating reviewing the Croton Diner for the breakfast club. As it happens, I now have to write about an experience that was exactly what anyone would expect from a diner breakfast. The eggs were fine, with a pleasantly runny yolk. The potatoes were a little greasy, but good enough. The sausage was sausage. The whole wheat toast was, well, whole wheat toast.

Maybe what I should do next time we wind up at a diner is to pick something way out of the ordinary off the breakfast menu and review that, rather than struggling to find new ways to say the eggs were fine.

The Bottom Line: It’s a diner.

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Sylvia

This week the WBC was all set to visit The Tavern in Croton-on-Hudson. However, due to some misinformation on their website regarding the hours of operation, we ended up at the Croton Colonial Diner down the street instead.

When I was training for the Westchester Toughman last summer, I biked by this diner many a times. Every time I passed by, it seemed pretty busy. I never gave much thought to the diner since my mind was usually preoccupied with either getting through the traffic light in one piece after rocketing down the hill at a good 20mph (coasting) clip, or mentally summoning every last muscle fiber in my poor legs to climb back up that same hill after logging 55 miles through the hills of Northern Westchester. So, today, I would finally eat there, arriving comfortably in my car.

So, the first question I ask myself is: what makes this diner different than all the other diners out there? I would have to say it’s the pancake selection. It isn’t as extensive as it looks because every pancake variation is offered in both regular size and short stack. However, I was pretty intrigued by the options; not just the usual banana and blueberry, but buckwheat, whole wheat, and cranberry walnut varieties also. I ended up ordering a short stack of whole wheat pancakes with two scrambled eggs and turkey sausage.

A short stack consists of two pancakes, but the pancakes were really big. They were thin and dark in coloring and even though they were whole wheat, they weren’t too dry. They were pretty good, with a nice whole wheat texture to them. I just didn’t care for the packaged syrup (complete with Propylene Glycol) I had to eat them with.

The scrambled eggs were decent, not overcooked, but you needed to season them yourself. The turkey sausages were a bit sad-looking and dry tasting. I’d just get the regular pork sausages next time.

The czar says: A nice solid breakfast and after our last few excursions, much friendlier on the wallet.

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