With a cherry on top

Maybe you noticed the Savoury Traveller has gone a tad quiet lately? Although we haven’t been doing any travelling worth mentioning, we have been on the move: we put our condo on the market and moved out while we wait for it to sell. Since then we’ve been over-stimulated by setting up new routines, finding new favourite places, and getting over our post-urban shock.

Sure, we are closer to some things we love, like the Rootcellar, a Red Barn Market and a winding system of regional running trails. I am loving the night time sound of crickets and little else. I never hear the wails of a drunk chick fighting with her boyfriend outside the neighbourhood bar anymore. Gone are the marijuana and cigarette smoke wafting in from the surrounding balconies or the nearby ballpark. But unplugging from all the conveniences and sights of downtown condo life has also been jarring: making coffee at home for the morning drive after years of a ten minute two-legged commute; humping the recycling to the top of the driveway on the right day. I shit you not fellow urban dwellers, there’s a RIGHT DAY for these chores, and no there is not an industrious person waiting to take our empties when we’ve screwed this up. Lastly, we’re living in an area where the food and beverage gems are not abundant – or easily found. So naturally, when we find a place we really like, there’s not just a sense of satisfaction and a desire to share with others, but a sense of relief, a feeling we are not crazy and that, perhaps, we are among our people after all. Cherries Breakfast Bistro is one such retro oasis.

It was a particularly difficult morning. I was squawking like a sap, coming to the cold realization that fuses throughout our current space cannot handle more than one hydro-sucking task at once. No more kettle plus toaster. No more blow dryer plus straightner. It was an unfortunate blow to the efficiency of basically all my existing routines. Instead of letting me squeal and stamp and ruin Sunday, Mr. ST suggested we try this new breakfast place (thank you urbanspoon geolocator!). What better way to work on my neurotic love of efficiency than by blowing off weekend errands and just brunching my face off? He rarely wants to go for breakfast, but I believe this was a case of strategy within the strategy

We shared a platter of breakfast sliders and these lemon ricotta stuffed crepes with fruit compote and whipped cream. Whoa, mama.If you think cream cheese frosting is good, if you’re a fan of mascarpone, if you have any dairy love in your soul at all, you will want to devour these, end of story.

The breakfast sliders were essentially Mennonite sausage BLTs on a dense and spongy cibatta but the real star was the bacon marmalade on the side.

Yes, you read that right and it’s ok if you’ve already left to get in the car. It’s sticky, and studded with extra crispy bacon bits and gave an unexpected lift to everything else in the dish. It brought out the sweetness of the tomato, it set off the saltiness of the sausage, and it was a decadent counterpoint to the crunchy fresh spinach leaves. Sorry for the blurry Iphone photo.

Since this first visit, we’ve also tried their bennies, breakfast pizza, banana muffins and a few bites of the peanut butter stuffed French toast when our friends were courageous enough to order it. Notwithstanding that the French toast nearly sent me into a diabetic coma, everything we have tried there has been nothing short of impressive and worthy of a visit from Guy Fieri or any other such obnoxious Food Network host who specializes in finding happening neighbourhood haunts.

The portions here are hearty, not heaping, and the prices are reasonable considering the freshness and creativity. Dotted around the restaurant are glass pedastals with sweetly decorated muffins and huge pans of iced sticky buns. And there’s something about counter service that’s refreshingly casual. Perhaps we’ve grown accustomed to avoid weekend breakfast outings because when we lived downtown it usually meant standing in massive lines of hung over hipsters and tourists for about twice as long as it takes to eat breakfast. Counter service automatically means this line is going somewhere, fast. Ok, clearly I’m not quite ready to let go of the neurotic love of efficiency……but I’m on my way, right?