Mike's City Diner—Breakfast Brawlin'

Heads recovering from a cold and spinning a bit from Nyquil, we needed some TLC and food with flavor because basically we couldn't smell anything let alone taste, food. We needed flavors that popped, something greasy, a good diner experience. We wanted to relive one of our favorites from Maine—the diner of all diners—the fat turkey of diners: Moody's. We think Mikes City Diner came reasonably close to matching our expectations.

Buried way in the South End, we found the aroma of blooming Bradford pear trees queasy and weren't sure if we would have an appetite. Like all good diners, there was a line when we arrived. We waited. And waited. It was one of those awful types of lines that doesn't ever move. We gazed intently at people who were near done, mentally willing them to remove themselves so we could snag their tables.

While waiting, two counter seats opened up, but being Bostonians, we figured that we let the people in front of us sit down, but then, charging in from no where, two gargantuan beefy people swooped right in taking the counter seats. We were like, “Hey, hold up. There is a line” And they were like, “Counter space is free for all” and we were like “Well we were kind of waiting” and we were ready to brawl for counter space on a Sunday morning, when everyone was hungover, but then two nice diners right next to us got up and offered their seats, and we were like “Oh, thanks” and all was forgotten. And that is the story of how the Palateers won the battle for breakfast.

Our waitress was wicked cool. She had an incredible six sense for empty coffee mugs that needed filling. The first thing we ordered was the hash and eggs ($7.50), because the nice people who gave us their seats said the hash was homemade. Eggs over easy and with hash browns and toast, it was indeed good homemade hash.
Our second dish was the phenomenally priced two eggs, toast and bacon ($5.05). We made the mistake of ordering the grits (against the recommendation of waitress who insisted that we should have gotten the home fries). We guess that grits are just one of those things that taste better south of the Mason Dixon line.

Priced how we like it—cheap—and good American size portions, with a lot of New England character, Mike's City Diner was the medicine we needed to cure our colds.

Mike's City Diner
1714 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02118-3307
(617) 267-9393