Toast, A Breakfast and Lunch Joint – Ferndale, Michigan
I love tooting the horn of a great breakfast eatery, and Metro Detroit is full of them. Located at 23144 Woodward Avenue, just north of 9 Mile Road in Ferndale (one of the Detroit area’s more hip neighborhoods), Toast is one of my Detroit standbys, and for plenty of good reasons. It doesn’t look like much from the exterior – a simple storefront with a black canopy sporting the restaurant’s vintage-style logo, some red neon lighting around the perimeter of the front window – but step inside on a weekend morning, and you’ll find the place jammed with people.
It’s charming, in a very Ferndale way. The red walls are hung with shelves that house the restaurant’s collection of vintage toasters. No two coffee mugs appear to be alike. The waitstaff sport jeans, logoed t-shirts, cheerful smiles, and tons of energy. Good breakfast smells and lots of chatter fill the air. More important, however, is what comes out of the cramped kitchen. It’s a step beyond typical breakfast fare.
The pancakes are dinner plate-sized, with toppings like bananas and granola or toasted pecans. The French toast is made from local challah, a thick-sliced Jewish egg bread. Omelettes boast imported cheeses, like chevre, brie, and smoked gouda. The breakfast panini – a grilled challah sandwich spread with Nutella and laden with thinly sliced apple and banana – is a delightful surprise. Even the granola will knock your socks off.
My latest fave, pictured here, is the Bacon and Smoked Gouda omelette, with cinnamon challah toast and house fries (redskins sauteed until their skins are falling apart).
My friend Amanda is always happy just to order a heaping plateful of house fries with “The Works,” which translates into sauteed onion and green pepper, and melted cheddar cheese.
If you can’t find something (unlikely to happen) on the regular menu, there’s always a list of weekly specials, usually apropos to the season.
The final test? They serve really, really good coffee. This week, it was banana flavored, and no, there was no artificial flavoring involved – just coffee beans roasted with banana. How’s that for being un-Starbucks?
