The Benedict Chronicles: Lou's Cozy Grill
By Matt Brown
January 5 2011
"...as plate after plate of fluffy poached eggs, cartilaginous peameal, and lakes of sunshiney goo continued to pile up over time, I realized that if I don't start catalogueing these excursions in some formal manner, a great field of human knowledge would be lost. Hence, the Benedict Chronicles..."
The first stop on our trip to Montreal was a meeting of the minds and bellies in Belleville, where we picked up Daniel and Brenda and combined Voltron-style into a five-armed army en route to Quebecois-spattered New Year's Eve revelry. Before leaving town, though, we stopped at Lou's Cozy Grill, which Daniel and Demetre assure me used to look different, but looks just fine to me. This diner may have no booths, but there's plenty of room at the back.
While we were eating, Brenda (or it might have been Daniel) asked if there was a noticeable difference between the Bennies of big cities and those of smaller towns. I guess the answer is that big-city Bennies often try to gourmet the offering, striking out as often as they hit in their increasingly far-fetched schemes for recognition. Small-town Bennies, on the other hand, hit it straight between first and second base for an infield double every time. (I think. I know Bennies, not baseball.) What that means is: the eggs Benedict at Lou's Cozy Grill is every single thing you want when you order an eggs Benedict at a diner in a small town. Which is fine by me.
The eggs were cooked flawlessly into the very center of "medium," and there was an appreciable, neither exaggerated nor measly, quantity of hollandaise. The peameal was exactly salty enough, and cooked through without being tough, to tie the meal together. I might have done with a few more home fries, but I'm not complaining. Some days, you're just glad to see the state of the art captured.
If I remember correctly, the Benny cost around twelve bucks at Lou's; I'd call that high for a diner Benny, which should (in my mind anyway) always live in the $7-9 range but which (admittedly) has been creeping into the low teens in most "diners" in Toronto (I'm looking at you, Fran's). I'd like to see that price come back down before gourmet joints start thinking they can offer their mad concoctions for $20 a plate.
Lou's cozy Benny gets three cozy eggs out of four.
Lou's Cozy Grill is located at 207 Front Street in Belleville, Ontario. The Benedict Chronicles is an ongoing, non-regular series.