Bacon Starts the Day Right

"Excuse me, miss, could we have a plate of bacon to start?"

Sometimes nothing but a side of pig will get you through an arduous task like trying to decide what to order for brunch.

A friend had to work today so we'd made plans to sandwich brunch between his morning client meeting and his afternoon filing a brief.

I, on the other hand, planned to sandwich it between getting up and taking a nap.

Sure, I felt a little bad about the discrepancy in our plans until he told me that his normal Sunday routine is to get up, eat breakfast and go back to bed.

At least I got dressed and went out in between quality time spent between the sheets.

But I didn't go far. To his e-mail this morning of "Where, princess?" I responded with the closest possible place for me: The Belvidere at Broad.

And since we arrived minutes after they opened, it was just us and the staff for a while.

We sat under a large-scale painting of Byrd Lake done by Paul Steinberg, part of a show that included other local places of note.

Techno music played on the sound system reminding us that we weren't all that far removed from Saturday night.

We were having a tough time deciding what we wanted, which is how he ended up ordering a mound of bacon to enjoy while we discussed our options.

Once I told my friend that they smoke their salmon in-house, his decision was made: bagel and lox with chived cream cheese, chopped red onion, chopped egg and capers.

I did the same, as much out of laziness as anything. The bacon was satisfying me so nicely that I would have been happy with anything on the menu at that point.

I did opt for fresh fruit on the side while he got home-fried potatoes, large chunks with the skin on that he raved about.

Part way through my bagel, our server showed up with additional cream cheese for me.  Wondering how she'd known I'd need more, she said, "Well, if I ate cream cheese, I know I'd need more than they gave you."

That's service with a capital "S."

Sadly, our bacon appetizer meant that our bagels defeated us, maybe because we both got very generous servings of the melt-in-your-mouth smoked salmon.

We only wished we'd saved room for the dessert special, a chocolate espresso pudding.

Walking back to his car and my house, we stopped to admire a charming Louisiana-style raised cottage that caught his eye.

Standing across the street from it, we discussed the abomination of siding and bad brick planter additions but got reverential about its gingerbread trim and narrow two-sided porch.

If we hadn't both had things to do, I'd have taken him on a walking tour of other Jackson Ward architectural gems.

But bacon and bagel behind us, brief and bed were calling.