Sammie's Family Restaurant

Sammie’s Family Restaurant
9804 Red Arrow Hwy, Bridgman, MI

In early June I took a camping trip to Warren Dunes State Park in Michigan with “the boyfriend” Wm., and some friends of his. After the first tedious morning of cooking breakfast over a fire, Wm.’s friend Nick made the decision to head into town for our next breakfast. We visted Sammie’s Family Restaurant, a diner-type place in Bridgman.

The first thing I noticed was that restaurants in Michigan still apparently have smoking sections. I know I point out smoking sections a lot in my reviews. This is mainly because they were illegal in my home state by the time I was old enough to buy a pack, so their legality in Ohio always seemed like sort of a novelty to me. They’ve been outlawed in Ohio since December ‘06 now, and recently became illegal in Fort Wayne (where I often go to visit Wm.) Yes, I do smoke, but usually when I dine I’m with non-smokers and tend to stay away from the smoking section, which was the case on this occassion.

The non-smoking section was slightly elevated above the smoking section, with a chest-height wall between them. I took advantage of my lofty position by staring at some tattooed biker guy who was seated in smoking.

The menu featured typical diner breakfast food, plus “skillets.” I think it said something about these skillets being world-famous or something. I really don’t remember. I chose a farmer’s omelet, which was some type of omelet with vegetables and cheese in it. The waitress asked if I’d like a half-order, and being both low on funds and not a “big eater,” I said yes. The obvious question is: so, was it a 1.5 egg omelet? I’d say it seemed more like at least two eggs. With homefries and toast, it was quite enough of a meal for me. The most interesting part of the omelet was the constrasting slices of white (provolone?) and orange (doubtlessly american) cheese on top of the omelet. Inside the omelet, the side with white cheese on top had orange cheese inside, and vice versa. Classy!

Wm. ordered some kind of French toast combo, then ate nothing but the French toast. At a later date he revealed to me that this was because he “unleashed on the bathroom.” This says far less about the quality of Sammie’s food than the overactivity of my boyfriend’s bowels. The other three in our party had various dishes, but I can’t remember them in detail.

Also, I tried some super-hot habanero hot sauce. It was flavorless and not really that hot. Yawn.

Drinks, my $4 half-order, Wm.’s half eaten French toast combo, and tip came to just under $14. The omelet was a steal. I am not letting my boyfriend order anything “combo” on my tab again.

$-$$
*

Expressway Diner

Expressway Diner
5109 Memphis Ave
Brooklyn, Ohio 44144

I was introduced to the Expressway Diner by an Internet friend on the first night we hung out in real life. Carla and I, discovering a mutual vegetarianism and disenchantment with humanity, decided to meet up at the local bar Manja, then visit a few bars downtown. After a few drinks, Carla said she was having a hankering for home cookin’, so we went to the Expressway Diner. She had the jojos, which seemed quite delicious, and I had a ultra-tasty vegetable quesedilla complete with salsa and sour cream, which was large enough to provide for ample leftovers.

I was impressed enough to visit again with my roommate Jeff at the next available opportunity. We both had the omelet, homefries, and toast breakfast, and were stunned by the large, fluffy, delicious omelets. I argue that the homefries at Expressway are the best that I have ever had and represent the platonic ideal of homefries — salty and flavorful, not greasy, or soggy, or burnt — but Jeff seems to prefer the homefries at the Clifton Diner. I was also impressed by a menu item with a name something along the lines of “Belgian Waffle Deluxe” — Expressway has a giant menu of breakfast, lunch, and dinner entrees — which was a waffle covered with strawberries, whipped cream, and the piece de resistance — a big scoop of vanilla ice cream in the middle! On my next visit, I had the non-ice-cream topped version of this waffle, which was nicely crispy and light, with not-too-sweet strawberries and just enough whipped cream to give you a taste but not so much that you can feel your arteries clog.

Another benefit of the Expressway Diner is that they maintained a smoking section long after the Ohio smoking ban had gone into effect. Maybe that will disgust some people, but as a smoker, I appreciated it. I’m fairly sure now that there’s actually a penalty for violating the smoking ban, they’ve gone no-smoking.

The last time I ate at the Expressway was the Saturday on which the old Fulton Road bridge by the Cleveland Zoo was supposed to blow up. After my boyfriend, Jeff and I sat in the rain for around an hour to see a charge go off but not actually destroy anything, we decided that we were too wet and miserable to wait around for anything else to happen or not happen, which considering the bridge wasn’t fully razed until the next Tuesday was a good decision. Since the Expressway Diner is near the corner of Memphis and Fulton, we headed over there for a late breakfast. Jeff had another omelette, I’m fairly sure my boyfriend had regular French toast, and I decided to try the almond French Toast, which was essentially French toast with slivered almonds on it. Again, it was delicious, just like everything else I’ve had at the Expressway Diner.

Other benefits of this place are the chrome trim on the building, the fact that it’s open 24 hours, and has extremely reasonable prices (I think my French toast, without meat, was under $4.) The staff is also reliable and friendly, and they seem amenable to special orders along the lines of “no meat.” I hope to someday go back and try some of their lunch/dinner fare. I’d say that I’d post an updated review at that point, but it’ll probably be just as good as everything else I’ve had there, so why bother?

[A note from my next visit: the quesedilla "tortilla" is actually fillo dough!]

**
$$

Michigan Street Diner

220 E. Michigan Street
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Several times I thought this place was closing (they had a fire at some point) which made me sad, yet I never go here, even though it's just about the only place to eat breakfast in all of downtown Milwaukee. So I returned after several years, wondering if the counter was still sticky, and the place was still generally annoying.

Very little has changed, which is sad. The coffee is bad, and served with Coffee-Mate, which is outrageous, here in the "Dairy State." There are okay hash browns, though they are mushy and wet. The menu says "farm fresh eggs" which I suspect is bullshit-- it's the kind of bullshit you can ususlaly get away with. No one is going to do an investigation to find out if those eggs come from SYSCO, because, really, who cares?

The black, red, white, Elvis, Marilyn decor is bad enough, but what is worse is the fake Fifties music that drove me out of the place as soon as I could finish my food. The Fifties "classics" were digital and remixed in some cases, but other songs seemed to have been recorded by studio musicians whose little guitar and piano flourishes sent me into a deep depression. My two "farm fresh" eggs, runny potatoes, and undrinkable coffee came to $4.81, and getting a dime, a nickel and FOUR PENNIES in change put me over the edge. I'm still happy, somehow, that this place still exists, but I won't be stopping in anytime soon.

--Ray Speen

$$

(no stars)