That being said, my husband and I are currently taking a four week wine education class which happens to be located in Downtown Los Angeles. Since we live about an hour north of Downtown L.A., we don't generally make it down there as much as we would like. Therefore, we are taking this opportunity to visit one new restaurant each week in the Downtown L.A. area.
This week, instead of dinner, we opted to go out for breakfast before our class. We decided on a place called the Nickel Diner. I had read about Nickel Diner in Los Angeles Magazine, and then it was highlighted on Guy Fieri's show, "Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives." It's a retro diner, but with gourmet flair. The menu includes classic diner fare, but with some unique and creative twists.
Now, the Nickel Diner does not take reservations, and the inside is fairly small. We heard that there is often a long wait to get a table for breakfast. We arrived at about 9:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and we were seated immediately. By the time we left, about an hour later, there were a lot more people outside waiting to be seated.
We started our breakfast off with a house "specialty", the maple bacon donut. Now, I've tried a few different maple bacon donuts in my time, but this one would go right to the top of my list. First off, the bacon was crumbled and spread all over the top of the donut. Other ones that I have tried have just put a whole piece of bacon on the top of the donut, which makes it nearly impossible to eat. Also, with that method, you don't get bacon with every bite. With Nickel Diner's version, I got a good amount of freshly made, crumbly bacon in each bite. Second, the maple glaze over the top had just the right amount of sweetness, and wasn't overly sugary or mapley, like others I've had. Finally, the donut itself was super fresh and had an almost cake-like texture. The balance of flavors was a flawless mixture of sweet and savory, and my husband and I devoured it!
Nickel Diner is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but we were only focused on breakfast. Their breakfast menu includes a variety of innovative and tasty sounding egg dishes, along with pancakes with homemade fruit compotes, and french toast made with homemade cinnamon swirl brioche. Everything sounded delicious, but after thoroughly reviewing the regular menu, we each decided on one of the daily specials.
My husband loves a good Mexican breakfast. We had heard that Nickel Diner had a pretty
solid huevos rancheros, and he makes a point to try the huevos wherever he
goes. But as fate would have it, the
morning we visited the Nickel Diner, they had chilaquiles on the list of
specials. In general, chilaquiles consists
of crispy tortilla chips, topped with eggs, and mixed with salsa and beans. We've had chilaquiles before, but noticed that everyplace does them differently, and none of our staple
breakfast joints regularly offer chilaquiles.
For these reasons, he immediately switched his choice to the
chilaquiles.
As hoped for, the chilaquiles boiled down to the match
between the egg yolks and the tortilla chips.
The eggs were perfectly poached.
Cutting in to them released the rich, oozing yolk to mix in with the
dish, and the remaining whites had perfect texture. The tortilla chips maintained just the right
amount of crunch after soaking up the fresh, tomatillo salsa, beans, and egg yolk. Basically, he ended up with scrumptious breakfast
nachos. The perfect forkful
had some egg white and some chips, and was mopped with the soupy, eggy mixture on the
plate. This was Mexican breakfast at its
finest. My husband thoroughly enjoyed the chilaquiles.
I decided on the Daddy's Breakfast Burrito, which consisted of eggs, chorizo, mushrooms, pepper jack cheese, and potatoes. Everything was wrapped in a giant flour tortilla, and smothered in fresh salsa verde. It really should have been called the "Big Daddy" burrito, because as you can see below, the burrito was the size of my plate.
Daddy's Breakfast Burrito (before):
The burrito was a delicious combination of a lot of high quality components. The chorizo had a good amount of heat, and the potatoes inside were somehow able to maintain their crispiness. The salsa verde was fairly mild, but very fresh. I actually added a bit of Tapatio hot sauce to give everything a bit more kick. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed my burrito, it was so big that I was only able to get through about half of it, before giving up on the rest.
Daddy's Breakfast Burrito (after):
By this point, I was completely stuffed. I was a bit disappointed, because Nickel Diner is known for their desserts. Unfortunately, I could not manage another bite. However, I did get a good look at their mouth-watering dessert tray on our way out. All of their desserts are homemade, including several different types of cakes, cobbler, and even homemade Pop-Tarts, shown on the right side of the tray below.
For you chocoholics, they even make their own homemade version of a Ding-Dong.
All of the desserts looked fantastic.
We both said we would definitely return to Nickel Diner. My husband wants to go back and try the huevos rancheros, and I'll probably have a breakfast consisting of nothing but Pop-Tarts and Ding-Dongs!
See Guy Fieri visit the Nickel Diner on "Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives".
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