Taprobane Restaurant (breakfast) - Guelph, Ontario

TAPROBANE RESTAURANT

160 KORTRIGHT ROAD WEST

GUELPH, ONTARIO

N1G 4W2

GPS

N43 DEG., 30.836

W080 DEG., 13.122

OVERVIEW

Guelph has always lacked a quantity of greasy spoons.....blame it on the hippies.  You can't get too much polyunsaturated fat when you're ordering the spelt and sprout roll-up.  As I like to call it, Guelph is "Berkeley North".  Amid all the soul patches, unshaven armpits and hackeysack balls, I discovered this place in a strip mall.  I know you're wondering about the name....so did I.  I googled it.  It's an island near Sri Lanka.  There, you and I learned something.

ORDER

The "Triple Combo" and coffee

COST

$12.17 CDN

GREASE SCALE

3 1/2 Lipitors.....the underdone bacon added the half-Lipitor

AMBIANCE

I know what you are thinking....strip mall?  However, no melamine to be found!  All wood, fairly clean and tidy and new.  Although I wasn't really paying attention, I seem to remember quite nice art on the walls....but that just might be my imagination.....oh, and lots of old people gumming eggs. (not neccessarily a bad sign).

DO'S

Well, where do I begin?  This was a tremendous surprise.  My scrambled eggs were done to perfection (slight creaminess) without a special request.  BOTH the Punshon and Cuschieri Rules are observed here!  Home fries are homemade, perhaps a little bland, and a little soft for some, but they have potential.  Along with my 3 eggs, 3 sausages, 3 bacon and 3 slices of ham was a small ramiken of baked beans! See, was it that hard? Informed grease epicurians will note the absence of the annoying orange slice.  The waitress was very nice and was very attentive to your coffee needs.

DON'T

If I was going to quibble, it would be that the bacon was slightly underdone, and they need to work on the coffee a little.  It was a little wimpy.  Which may be for their over-100 crowd.  (I kid.  Why? Because I love.)

YUMMING UP

Greasy spoons have a history of excelling and then quickly going under in the Royal City.  Let's hope Taprobane bucks the trend of the latter.  A better location and a better name may help with that.  A genuine delightful shocker!