A Change of Plans

What is it that they say about the best laid plans of mice and men? Well as you read in my last entry, Joan and I were headed to the airport and ready to get on a redeye flight from Las Vegas to Minneapolis. We had a hotel reservation for Friday night and the plan was to show up early at the hotel and beg for them to give us a room. Then we’d crash and sleep until lunchtime. Great plan, huh? We’ve done this before without any problem. I know, there’s a slight chance that they will have NOTHING clean when we arrive and we’ll be out of luck, but what are the chances that they were completely full the night before. Well, they were completely full the night before and had nothing clean to give us when we got in. So there we are sitting in the lobby trying to figure out what to do until someone checks out and they get a room clean.

Well Joan being from St. Paul says that we should get some breakfast. That sounded good to me. If we can’t sleep, we might as well eat. Joan loves Perkins restaurant and there was one right around the corner, so off we go to break my “no chains” rule again. We show up and there is not one car in the parking lot. Not a good sign. As it turns out, this particular Perkins is now closed. So we punch up the handy dandy GPS, put in “Perkins” and head off to the next nearest Perkins.

On the way, we pass this place called The Little Oven. Joan mentions that they have breakfast there and asked if I wanted to stop there instead. Now here’s where I remember the words of my mother. I don’t remember how old I was but I was pretty young. We were traveling and were in Golden, Colorado. It came time to eat and my younger brother and I of course wanted to go to McDonald’s. My mother insisted that we go somewhere with more “local flavor,” somewhere we couldn’t go at home. Growing up in a town of 18,000 people, even we had a McDonald’s. Now being kids we thought the suggestion of “local flavor” was quite ridiculous. Let’s go get our Big Mac and enjoy it. No, we need “local flavor.” So we head to a place called the Golden Ram. I will never forget the Golden Ram. When we walked in the door we couldn’t see the other side of the restaurant because of all the cigarette smoke (remember the days when you could still smoke in restaurants?). Standing for only a few minutes waiting for a hostess, it was decided that we would not be dining at the Golden Ram. Now, I don’t remember where we ended up eating that day but I know it wasn’t the Golden Ram and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t McDonald’s either. We never let my mom live that one down. How silly to seek out “local flavor” when McDonald’s is right there. For years and years after that we would bring up the Golden Ram and we all knew what we meant.

Well, many, many years later and now my mother somehow seems so much smarter. Now I like finding those things that you just can’t get at home. That’s why now, when given the choice, I tend to shy away from Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s and the like because you can get those in any town across America (heck, even my hometown of 18,000 has an Applebee’s now). Amazing how the older you get, the smarter your parents become. This is one of the main influences behind the “no national chains” rule.

So, let’s get back to The Little Oven.  Joan remembered this as simply a pizza place when she was growing up but knew that they had branched out to other items as the years went by. This is now a wonderful little corner restaurant open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We were there for breakfast on a Friday morning and the place was pretty busy. At one point there were no open seats. There was one large group of what appeared to be construction worker eating breakfast before they headed out. There were several tables of retired guys hanging out for eggs and coffee. Joan mentioned that her father hung out there from time to time, but being it was a little after 8:00am, we were probably past his time there. Here’s a quick view of the dining room, looking in from the door:

Well I took a look at the menu and saw something on the “Specials” sheet that I just couldn’t pass up. I saw the “Around the World” Breakfast. This breakfast comes with two eggs, potatoes, toast and three types of sausage. How could I pass that up? The sausages were a southern sausage, a Bavarian sausage and a Venetian sausage.  Here’s what the whole thing looks like:

Now, the one complaint that I would have is that by piling the toast on top of the eggs and potatoes, they picked up a good deal of steam and kind of made it soggy. It wasn’t inedible by any means, but if you’re looking for good crisp toast, you might want to ask for the toast on the side. The potatoes were wonderful. They had that great flat top crust on them and then had just enough pepper and onion mixed in. It was still mostly potato but the peppers and onions gave it just a little more zing. The sausages were vastly different from each other which gave you a great variety of flavors. The “southern” tasted more like a traditional breakfast sausage that you might be used to. The Bavarian had a milder taste more like a bratwurst. The Venetian was a little spicier like an Italian sausage. Overall it was a very satisfying breakfast and a wonderful little old school restaurant. In fact, they still write their tickets out by hand; no computerized receipts here.

If you’re in St. Paul, check out The Little Oven. All the particulars are below. Breakfast in the morning, pizza and Italian food in the evening.

Next up, back to the plan for lunch after some much needed rest in our finally available hotel room.

Until next time,

Mike

The Particulars

Restaurant: The Little Oven
Location: 1786 East Minnehaha Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55119
Website: www.thelittleoven.com
Date of Visit: August 26, 2011
Time of Visit: Around 8:00am, Breakfast
Has it Been on TV?: I Don’t Think So.