I had played some pickup basketball after skiving off work and was going to meet some friends tonight at Mister Crepe in Davis Square.  I should mention that I was really dominant playing basketball (think Shaq on the Lakers, not Shaq on the Suns), so I was starving after playing approximately two hours of basketball.  I have been to Mister Crepe a few times, and have had several aborted attempts to go there on the weekend, but could never actually get a table, as the place was infested with hipsters.  I am what you would call a Francophile (part of my pretentious European-ness), and I absolutely love crepes.  When I would take my yearly trip to Paris in college (yup, that’s how pretentious I am), I would delight in my daily crepe.  Be it a savory tomato, mushrooms, and cheese or a sweet nutella crepe.  While the quality of crepe is pretty good in Mr. Crepe, they lack the European style that a true French crepe would have.

First of all the most appalling aspect of Mr. Crepe is that they do not have a tomato, mushroom and cheese crepe on the menu!  Though I suppose a place that calls itself Mr. Crepe instead of Monsieur Crepe should not be expected to be authentic.  I had to assemble my own crepe, and I could not assemble it in such a way that allowed me to have a tomato mushroom and cheese!  When you assemble your own crepe, you are allotted one cheese, one green (mesclun mix, arugula, or spinach), and one topping (tomato and mushrooms are on this group).  As a result, I had a tomato, spinach and swiss crepe (which is pretty close, but not the same).  The crepe on its own is quite dry for some reason (the tomatoes and spinach were not heated enough to allow moisture to enter the crepe), though it is fortunate that it was not as soggy as you would expect a tomato and spinach crepe to be.  While the crepe did fulfill my desire for nostalgia, it was insufficient to actually fill me up.

As a result, I decided to get a caffe latte and heath cookie.  Neither of which was very memorable, and I don’t think they deserve much more discussion on their merits (what few there are).

After the cookie and savory crepe, I was still hungry so I spent a few minutes staring at my friends and reiterating that I had played A LOT of basketball, and my body needed more fat and sugar to recuperate (I don’t think that’s how it works, but my friends aren’t scientists, so they can’t disagree).  So, I decided to get a nutella crepe, which was also very dry and left me unsatisfied.  I think if perhaps they used a little more egg or milk instead of flour, they would have a better crepe, but I am hardly a crepe expert (or chef de crepe).

Overall, Mr. Crepe is pretty solid if you are a vegetarian who eats eggs and dairy (obviously).  There is a vegetarian super-crepe section of the menu (on top of the make your own crepe and other crepe sections) which has some pretty good crepes stuffed with loads of vegetables.  If you do not eat egg or dairy, there are non-crepe options such as salads or fruit cups; however, I wouldn’t recommend it, as that would be like going to a pizza place and ordering a burrito. Even if you could eat crepes, this is definitely not a great crepe place, but in the dearth of available crepe options in Boston, it is passable.  I give Mr. Crepe three cheese sandwiches.

Mr. Crepe
51 Davis Square
Somerville, MA 02144-2908 
(617) 623-0661

Au Bon Pain (ABP) - Jalapeno and Cheddar Egg and Cheddar Sandwich

Pictured above is my staple breakfast at ABP, an egg and cheese on a jalapeno cheddar bagel.  I figure by eating a jalapeno bagel, I am burning some of the exorbitant calories that I am getting from eating the rest of the sandwich.  Probably not.  Normally, I go to the ABP in Tufts Medical Center, where my lovely sandwich preparer Yngrid makes the sandwich with spinach and tomato (I have to specifically request this).  This is a lot more demanding than you would think, as Yngrid has to pick out each spinach leaf from a bucket of salad mix.  So for that alone, I’ll give ABP one cheese sandwich.  Otherwise, there are a few options available to you at ABP, the bagels are quite tasty, and come with a wide range of cream cheeses.  Unfortunately, if you’re vegan, there aren’t many options (you could get the overpriced oatmeal that is also available).  The coffee is also pretty good, especially if you manufacture a blend of the hazelnut and french vanilla.  I give ABP three cheese sandwiches overall for breakfast.

Boloco - Huevos Rancheros Burrito

I am a huge fan of breakfast burritos, and Boloco is a restaurant that serves them.  Unfortunately, the market for breakfast burritos is pretty saturated downtown between Herrera’s, Qdoba, and even Mike and Patty’s.  Unfortunately, Boloco falls into the lower quartile of these establishments (if you’re keeping score at home, that means it’s the worst of the four).  However, a mediocre breakfast burrito is still a pretty darned good start to your day.  While I feel Herrera’s, Qdoba, and Mike and Patty’s has unique qualities that make their burritos stand out, Boloco does not, which is ironic since their tagline is “inspired burritos”.  Boloco has two vegetarian breakfast options - an egg and cheese with salsa or an egg, cheese, salsa and beans burrito.  Pretty standard (same as what you’d get at Herrera’s).  However, the scrambled eggs were premade (possibly 15-20 minutes earlier), and have some weird pepper flavor (possibly pepper), which makes it inferior to Qdoba and Herrera’s.  Nevertheless, a breakfast burrito and Jimmy Carter smoothie is a good quasi-nutritious start to your day for under $7.  Two and a half cheese sandwiches.

Bruegger’s Bagels - Egg and Cheese on Rosemary Olive Oil

It is difficult for me to give an impartial viewpoint on Bruegger’s Bagels, as I have recently been spurned by them.  Here is my story: almost every day for several months, I would go to work stopping by Bruegger’s Bagels to get an egg (it’s not really egg as much as slices of a pre-made egg loaf), cheese and tomato sandwich on rosemary and olive oil bagel.  During this time, not once was I treated like a regular (something that I aspire towards in most establishments that I like), and was treated only slightly better than a human being.  My ideal breakfast bagel would be egg, cheese, tomato and spinach for under 3 dollars (available at ABP if Yngrid is working).  However, Bruegger’s refuses to pick out spinach from their salad mix (an acceptable refusal), and they have since also started charging 30 cents for tomato!  I am now paying roughly the same for two measly slices of tomato as somebody who gets sausage or bacon (or whatever other portion of pig they want to stuff in their disgusting mouths).  This to me is unacceptable behavior, reprehensible, and they should be punished for such a betrayal to a regular customer.  I don’t care what the corporate office tells you to do.  I have since boycotted Bruegger’s bagels, and suggest you do the same (shouldn’t be too hard as their bagels are not that great, outside of the rosemary olive oil).  They also have muffins that look more like souffles, and for some reason rice krispie treats.  If you’re so inclined to ignore my appeal for boycott, and actually want to get food from this fecal edifice (yup, thesaurus works), I give this one and a half cheese sandwiches, if only out of nostalgia.

Burger King - Croissan’wich

An breakfast chain that I am sure will not stab you in the back would have to be Burger King.  Of course, when you are a King, you cannot afford to betray those loyal to you, lest you face a serf rebellion.  What I most enjoy about Burger King is their pretension.  They insist that they have vastly improved the French croissant and finally made it great by putting egg and cheese (and sometimes meat).  As someone who has spent some time in France, I think they actually have the croissant down pretty well.  Whatever improvements Burger King has made by putting in industrial eggs and American cheese slices I would argue are trivial at best.  However, getting a croissanwich, hash browns and a gas station quality cup of coffee for under $4 ($3.80 to be precise) is a pretty good deal, and explains why so many people go to Burger King and McDonald’s when it is obvious how terrible the food is quality as well as health-wise here.  The breakfast combo is pretty good (the hash browns are definitely a highlight), and it is nice that Burger King has a lot of other breakfast options for vegetarians (including cinnamon buns, french toast stix, etc.).  Because of this, I’ll give Burger King two cheese sandwiches.

Dunkin’ Donuts - Flatbread Sandwich

Normally when I go to Dunkin’ Donuts I get an egg and cheese on an English muffin.  Again, like Bruegger’s Bagels, Dunkin’ Donuts uses slices of egg-like loaf and American cheese.  But the more distinctive breakfast meal at Dunkin’ Donuts would be the egg white flatbread sandwich.  While places like Subway have perfected the art of making bread-like bread, Dunkin’ Donuts has nailed bread-like cardboard.  The flatboard sandwiches an egg white-like triangle that has red and green peppers embedded within it.  The sandwich is pretty terrible, and should probably be avoided.  However, the combo meal comes with hash browns which are actually pretty good.  They are spiced with some sort of generic industrial spice, but nevertheless, they are superior to both McDonald’s and Burger King’s hash browns.  I give Dunkin’ Donuts one and a half cheese sandwiches, primarily for the hash browns.  However, if you get the egg and cheese on an English muffin, that deserves two and a half cheese sandwiches.

Finagle a Bagel - Egg and Cheese Sandwich

I am slightly indifferent to the bagels at Finagle a Bagel, as they don’t really taste very good.  However, if you go to the FaB in Park Street, you get treated to one of the greatest bagel showcases in the world.  I am talking about the conveyor belt that slices and flings a bagel upwards of 10 feet to be toasted and made into sandwiches.  I do appreciate that they will partially make my ideal breakfast sandwich by putting in tomatoes for free.  However, they will not pick out the spinach leaves to make it complete.  The cheese is slightly better than an American cheese slice, yet still not as good as a real cheese.  While the basic egg and cheese sandwich is average, I would recommend the Phoenix Press sandwich (egg, black bean salsa, avocado and cheddar cheese) as a delicious, yet slightly more expensive ($5) alternative.  Overall, unless you go to the Park Street location, there are plenty of better breakfast alternatives.  But if you enjoy seeing bagels fly at 100 mph, then get a sandwich here.

Herrera’s - Breakfast Burrito

Simplicity is the cornerstone by which many outstanding meals are made.  If you have ever watched a cooking show related to improving restaurants, they always encourage making meals more simple.  Herrera’s breakfast burrito is as simple as you can get - beans, salsa, cheese and eggs.  However, it is the ingredients that make this burrito so outstanding.  First, unlike other breakfast burritos, Herrera’s fries and scrambles the eggs fresh to order, the salsa is also very fresh tasting, and the bean puree provides a good base that flavors the entire burrito (rather than having whole black beans falling out of the burrito - a common problem).  Unfortunately, they don’t have coffee, so if you’re really tired in the morning, you’re not going to get that caffeine perk.  Also, there are a few options for vegetarians (huevos rancheros, ranchero-style burrito) if you ask them to leave out the meat, which they will do, and the price is reasonable enough that you don’t feel like you’re paying so much extra for the meat.  Nevertheless, I would argue that this is my favorite breakfast burrito (and possibly sandwich) from the chain restaurants.

McDonald’s - Egg McMuffin (without meat)

This little known chain restaurant could one day make it really big if they catered to vegetarians a little more.  There are no dedicated menu items that are vegetarian at McDonald’s, yet there are several options available if you ask for it without the sausage, bacon or ham inside.  You could get a McSkillet or breakfast burrito without the meat (though both of these burritos are awful).  Alternateively, you can try one of three formats for an egg and cheese - english muffin (Egg McMuffin), biscuit (egg and cheese biscuit), or pancake (McGriddle).  I was not interested in an egg and cheese sandwich on pancake, so I went with the next best thing - English muffin (my pretense to being British/European outweighs my ironic pretense to being from the deep south).  I am not a big fan of the way places like ABP, McDonalds, and Finagle a Bagel make their breakfast sandwiches.  While they use “real” eggs, when they fry them, the yolks become hard-boiled somehow.  This is heavily unappetizing, and for those places that offer egg whites only, I get that option primarily because of the disgusting fried/boiled yolk center.  You can’t go wrong with an egg and cheese on and english muffin, with hashbrowns and Paul Newman’s coffe, you’ve got a pretty good breakfast (even though it’s McDonald’s).  I’d give it 3 cheese sandwiches if they only had ONE vegetarian specific breakfast option.  Yet, since they don’t, I’ll give it one and a half cheese sandwiches.

Qdoba - Breakfast Burrito

Completing the third breakfast burrito of the triumvirate on this list would be Qdoba’s breakfast burrito.  Qdoba has two options - the breakfast burrito or quesadilla.  Either of which can be made vegetarian or “animal killer”.  As I have iterated before, I love breakfast burritos, and Qdoba has a very unique style to theirs, as they have eggs, potatoes, 3-cheese sauce and salsa (no beans!).  I have no evidence to prove it, but I am fairly certain that one of the cheeses in the 3-cheese is in fact opium (or other highly addictive narcotic).  If you go late in the morning (as I did), the ingredients become dried out or stale from sitting in the food buckets all morning.  Nevertheless, the flavor lubricant of this meal and saviour would have to be the 3-cheese sauce.  The carbohydrate rush of this burrito is pleasant, but slightly unfulfilling compared to the burrito of Herrera’s which takes the perfect mixture of beans, eggs, cheese and salsa of any good breakfast burrito.  The taste and originality of this burrito ranks it second on this list, just ahead of Boloco.

Rosie’s Bakery - Egg and Cheese Bagel

Rosie’s Bakery is one of those classic eating establishments whose greatest weakness is the actual description of its name (like Burger King).  If you ever go to Rosie’s bakery, probably the worst thing you can get there is a baked good.  Rosie’s is one of the most overpriced breakfast you can have on this list.  An egg and cheese on a bagel with a caffe latte costs over $7!  The coffee prices are standard, while the egg and cheese is an appalling $4.  For that price, they should have actual chickens laying eggs and homemade cheddar cheese (just so you know, they don’t).  While the egg and cheese is of really high quality (the cheddar is the sharpest I’ve had of any cheese on this metareview), the sandwich falls apart in its bagelocity.  Good bagels should be crispy on the exterior, and soft on the interior (like a falafel), while this is soft on the interior and rubbery on the exterior (like a car tire).  The cheapest baked good they have is $2 for a oatmeal raisin cookie, which is more than the universally defined as overpriced Au Bon Pain.  Even their biscotti (which should be under a dollar) is sold at $18 a pound!  Who needs a pound of biscotti?  For its ridiculously overpriced baked goods, mediocre sandwiches, and their awful coffee, I have no choice but to give Rosie’s one half cheese sandwich (only because they have a few vegetarian options that are passable).

Starbucks - Spinach Feta Eggwhite Flatbread

I don’t know what possessed Starbucks to think that they should enter the breakfast sandwich game.  Is it not enough that they make suboptimal coffee, overpriced espresso drinks, and horrible industrial snacks/pastries?  Well, now they also make awful flatbread breakfast sandwiches!  There was a brief period where Starbucks was making piadina sandwiches, which were so salty that they were inedible.  Well, Starbucks has realized this mistake and made a regular flatbread sandwich that is still so salty that it is inedible.  I got the spinach feta egg white wrap, which I assumed might be slightly healthy (it really isn’t).  This wrap tastes like something you would get for a breakfast meal on a transatlantic flight.  However, I think this was something that American Airlines (or United, etc.) said to the SYSCO: “This is terrible, our passengers won’t eat this crap”, followed by Starbucks saying “That looks pretty good to us.”  So, I would avoid this if at all possible (as well as avoiding most things at Starbucks except for the coffee/tea drinks).  Since nothing is worth eating at Starbucks, even if it is vegetarian, I have to give it no cheese sandwiches.

While I was born and raised in America, I have always felt myself to be more European than anything else.  Some people say this is because I always smell bad or because I am rude, but I like to think it is because I enjoy the European lifestyle.  When I first moved to Porter Square, I was very excited to find a European style cafe right down the street from where I live in Cafe Rustica.  When you walk in, the first thing you notice is the cozy atmosphere, with two church pews serving as benches for faux-marble tables.  The regular patrons are in every morning reading the paper and sipping their various coffee drinks.  There is a wide selection of pastries and breakfast sandwiches to choose from, as well as serving Seattle’s Best and Lavazza coffee drinks.

I got a bagel and cream cheese sandwich the first time I ever went here, which was possibly the finest bagel and cream cheese I’ve ever had.  That was, until I discovered that the bagels came from Iggy’s Bread shop.  Then I discovered that Iggy’s Bread makes the best bread in Boston and therefore any place that serves Iggy’s bread is automatically fantastic.  The fact that Cafe Rustica does not bake its own pastries/breadstuffs makes it lose the European quality that it otherwise imbues.  Not having baked goods made in-house is disappointing, but it is nice that they use the best baked goods that you can have not in-house (in the form of Iggy’s Bread products - croissants, bagels, etc.).  Furthermore, the bagel and cream cheese is one of the cheapest you can get in the area, and is only slightly more than if you just bought an Iggy’s bagel and made your own using Philly cream cheese (or other non-Kraft cream cheese).  Their espresso based drinks use Lavazza coffee, which is from Italy and therefore pretentious and delicious - I highly recommend the caffe latte here.

The egg and cheese bagel sandwich uses real eggs, which is an important aspect that breakfast chains like Bruegger’s and Dunkin’ Donuts deem unnecessary.  For the same price you pay for a breakfast sandwich at the chains, you can get a double egg and cheese on a bagel.  While that sounds like an outstanding idea, no bagel is prepared to hold the contents of what is essentially a two egg omelet with cheese, so expect a big mess when eating the sandwich.  However, this is a very filling breakfast sandwich, so come hungry and leave happy (apologies to IHOP).

Overall, I enjoy coming to Cafe Rustica, and getting the various breakfast bagels they offer.  They also have lunch sandwiches, but unfortunately, only one is vegetarian.  It is a tomato, mozzarella, and pesto sandwich, and while I have not had it, it is probably delicious.  They also have a couple of salad options that are also vegetarian.  The hours are very European (they close at 4 pm), as is their ability to nickel and dime you (they charge 50 cents to press a sandwich)!  Soy milk is available for coffees and/or teas, and if you get a bagel with peanut butter instead of cream cheese you can get breakfast for your vegan friends (or yourself if you are vegan).  While Cafe Rustica falls short of being a true European-style cafe, they are a great homage to what European-style cafes are, and I appreciate their efforts.  So, I’ll give it three cheese sandwiches (they would have four if they had longer hours or more vegetarian lunch sandwiches).  Let me know what you think of the new cheese sandwich icons, please.

Cafe Rustica
356 Beacon Street
Somerville, MA‎
(617) 491-8300‎

Mike and Patty’s is a little hole in the wall sandwich place in Bay Village.  Unless you’re a resident or know where you’re going, it’s very easy to miss it.  This is yet another sandwich place that you have to take away your meal, as what little space that is available is usually filled by the patrons.  I have seen port-a-pottys that had more space than Mike and Patty’s, and at least you can relieve yourself in a port-a-potty.  While this is a detraction, it is perhaps a miniscule defect on an otherwise outstanding establishment.  The centerpiece of Mike and Patty’s would have to be the 500 sq. inch griddle (it sounds big, but it’s not really).  On this griddle, there are a wide variety of vegetarian sandwiches available - the torta, fried green tomato and grilled cheese all make outstanding lunch options, although the price is friendlier to the Bay Village residents rather than those of more plebeian neighborhoods (such as myself).

I decided to go to Mike and Patty’s for their Breakfast Torta ($8), which was touted to me by my friend Rashad as being the best thing since sliced bread.  If you’re a vegetarian that doesn’t eat eggs (i.e. a real vegetarian), then the Breakfast Torta could probably work on its own without the egg.  While it may look in the picture like a disgusting Big Mac, it actually is quite tasty.  Inside of a freshly baked roll is fried potatoes and poblano peppers, a fried egg, salsa, cheese, avocado and refritos.  The refritos are fried black beans and are also vegetarian.  There is a lot of effort put out in the menu to emphasize vegetarian options, so for that I will have to give them brownie points (or I guess for this blog it’d have to be cheezie points).

The breakfast torta is a pleasant change of pace from my usual Dunkin Donuts breakfast egg and cheese sandwich.  First of all, having an egg that I’m pretty sure came from a chicken was a pleasant surprise, if not slightly offputting.  I feel by eating artificial eggs from Dunkin Donuts makes me more vegetarian, as I can imagine that the “eggs” were generated in a chemistry lab, rather than a terrible industrial henhouse.  Moving away from the egg portion of the torta is an outstanding blend of flavors.  The poblano peppers, potatoes, and refritoes are filling and work as a solid base to which the avocado and cheese and salsa flavors are interwoven.  The roll is a bit chewy, but it remains to be seen if that is because of the long haul from Mike and Patty’s to my work, or if the bread is naturally chewy.  Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed this breakfast sandwich, so much so that I decided not to work the rest of the morning to savor that meal (yeah, that’s the reason…).

Many vegetarians may be put off by the griddle, as one would imagine the possibility of meat contamination would be very high if meat and vegetables are all cooked on the same hotplate.  Well, while cooking my sandwich, there were several strips of bacon on the left side of the griddle.  I was informed that they cook the meat and non-meat items on different sides of the griddle, which in theory should minimize meat contamination, but who knows how grease diffuses?  Again, if you are a strict vegetarian/vegan the griddle sandwiches are probably not a good choice for you, but I would still consider supporting this place, primarily because of their considerations towards vegetarians.  All sandwiches can be made without meat, and probably without cooking anything on the griddle.  From the sampling that I have had, I would imagine all sandwiches from here would be delicious.  I highly recommend the fried green tomato sandwich on pain de mie.  Besides this, it’s definitely worth coming just to see 15 people trying to squirm around in a room suited for 7 (no backpacks please!).  It’s eerily reminiscent of an industrial henhouse, except no beaks are melted.  While the price is a little steep for a sandwich, the friendly service, outstanding quality of food, and wide range of vegetarian options forces me to give out the first 5 cheese sandwich rating!

Mike and Patty’s