Breakfast Crawl...Restaurant Review: Blue Plate Diner

Date: October 11, 2008

Guests: Diane and Laura Cañate

Place: Blue Plate Diner

2041 S 2100 E

Salt Lake City, UT 84108

Phone: 801-463-1151

Hours: M-Th, Sun 7am-9pm; F-Sat 7am-10pm

Order:

1) Corned Beef and Hash, with eggs (any style), and choice of toast: sourdough, rye, wheat, and white;

2) Biscuits and Gravy w/ Sausage, side of potatoes

3) 2 sodas

Cost: $22 and tip

5 Quick Reasons You Should Go:

1. The food is satisfying to both your stomach and wallet.
   
2. You can make vegetarians and vegans feel comfortable.
   
3. You pay at the counter giving it a diner feel, but also makes settling up and leaving quick and easy.
   
4. Daily breakfast and lunch/dinner blackboard specials.
   
5. Service is friendly and prompt, yet unintrusive.
   

The Fall Breakfast Crawl continues with a Salt Lake insider favorite, Blue Plate Diner. Unfortunately, the secret isn't only out in the valley, Food Network's Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives recently visited Blue Plate and have showcased their vegan burger on their website. This seems like your typical diner, but believe me, it's anything but. The owner John Bouzek wandered into Salt Lake and fell in love. When we walked in, we fell in love with Blue Plate too.

If you want a table, you've got to get on the list, which is a yellow legal pad on the counter kept by the owner. Get on the list...you won't regret it. Despite the large crowd this morning, they got us in quickly (not more than 20 minutes.) We wondered if this seemingly quick turnover would leave us the way we felt at other local eateries: rushed and unimportant. Instead, we felt instantly comfortable, totally attended to, and the food came so quickly. But was it good? Let's get straight to the food.

Blue Plate is the kind of place where you can order breakfast all day, every day but Christmas and lunch and dinner fares after 11am. They make a majority of their fares from scratch, including both of the breakfast picks Laura and I made. Their food ranges from the simple like classic omlettes, huge burgers, and thick shakes to the complex with tofu veggie scramble with vegetarian or vegan sausage, salmon club sandwiches, and a full espresso bar. It's a place where you can satisfy any eater since portions are huge, varied, and almost always able to be made vegetarian.

Laura ordered the corn beef with a side of sourdough toast and substituted her eggs for tomatoes. They use a traditional pickling spice with juniper berries, bay leaves, mustard seed, and other great spices to make their own corned beef, used both in the has and rueben. The has is made with green onions, green peppers, potatoes, two types of cheese, and of course the hash. Let's be clear, Laura loves corned beef. She loves it in a hash, she loves it in her Rueben's (which you'll also find at Blue Plate.) In fact, while we were finishing our food, other newcomers sitting next to us had their mouths watering for Laura's hash too.

I ordered the biscuits and gravy with sausage and a side of potatoes. At first, I was disappointed that the biscuits weren't more golden but their taste shut me up immediately. The biscuits and gravy are made from scratch too. The portion was huge and I barely was able to finish one biscuit, which are made perfectly for a delicious marriage with the gravy. It's been awhile since i've had biscuits and gravy, and this simple dish reminded me why this is one of my favorite breakfasts.

If you are wondering whether to go to Blue Plate or not, try this on for size. This morning we went to blue plate, and there was about a 20 minute wait, with every table full, waiting area full, and although the patio was closed it was full too. Did anyone leave after hearing the wait? No. Did people leave when it started raining? No. Did people leave when it started snowing? Again, no. Enough said.