Daniel B.: “The Tour de Egg Sandwich is going to start at 7:30 on a Saturday,”
Albany Jane: “Ha ha, that’s a good one. No, seriously, when does it start?”
Daniel B.: “7:30 am on a Saturday,”
Albany Jane: “Yeah, I’m gonna be late,”
Daniel B.: “You can’t be later. 7:30 A.M.. SATURDAY.”
Albany Jane: >_<
Albany John and I decided to split a sandwich at each stop so we could hopefully stave off a visit to the cardiologist immediately following the tour. Our chosen sandwich?:
Bacon, Egg, & Cheese
Egg sammich #1 was pretty decent. Two eggs on the roll, although a bit pricey at $5. The cheese was white American, and the bacon was crispy and soaked the buns nicely. The buns also tasted fresh and were really pleasantly squishy-soft. We went to:
Jack’s on Central Ave (near the Co-Op). I’d never been there before, and is a little bit bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside, not unlike a Tardis.
We also got two cups of coffee, because at 7:30 AM, Go Go Juice is absolutely necessary. The Profussor wisely paired us up with another couple we’d enjoyed hanging with on the Tour de Fish Fry. I don’t know about you, but bleary-eyed me is completely unfriendly and crankasaurus at sevenfreakingthirty in the morning.
Two cups of Joe & a BEC is just over $8.00 at Jack’s.
Stop number two was the deli at McCarroll’s in Delmar.
You order at their counter, give your name, and wait for them to call it. These guys were busy on Saturday morning, and not just because of our group.
$3.19 for a sammich here.
I LOVED the bacon. So crispy, plentiful, and they had just the right amount of fat. Mmm. I think the roll was from Prinzo’s, which is probably my hands-down favorite hard roll in the Capitol Region. It was also toasted up just a teensy bit on the inside.
I also liked that the egg yolks weren’t cooked 100% hard. I picked out any of the hard cooked egg yolks from all of the egg sandwiches we ate this day. Yes, I’m picky. Cooked egg yolks gross me out; I only like runny egg yolks.
Anyway, you can see how generous the bacon was here. I think Albany John started getting a little full. We have an unofficial 2/3-rule in our house. Usually Albany John eats 2/3 of food in the time I can eat 1/3 amount of food. I def ate 2/3 of this roll. Man, I wish I still lived in the DelSo. It would be so easy to go here.
The bacon was in a roll. A ROLL. As in, sliced off of a log of bacon. This is kind of not a normal bacon shape, and if you have abnormally-shaped bacon, it should at least taste good and not like fail and sogginess.
The roll was equally unpleasant – the crumb was too tight and dense, and rather overwhelming (but then again, you really didn’t want to focus on the egg & bacon circles).
The cheese was there, but absolutely flavorless and forgetful. A waste of calories. Albany John and I took two bites of this sandwich and deemed it painfully inedible. As in, our stomachs started hurting after eating these hockey pucks.
Thankfully our tour-long sandwiching mates (i.e., folks goodly enough to put up with my sarcastic and cranky demeanor) brought along Zero, who was more than willing to dispose of our undesired sandwich.
I still can’t get over how awful this bacon, egg, and cheese from Stewart’s was. I love their buttered hard rolls, and pretty much every thing else I’ve ever gotten from Stewart’s. How could something so bad come from Stewart’s?
Stop number four was Bella Napoli in Latham. It was about a 10 minute wait from ordering to receiving an egg sandwich. Saturday mornings are busy here!
Two eggs, a generous amount of bacon, and hooray, the egg yolks weren’t entirely hard! $3.51 with tax.
It was okay, but I think Bella Napoli’s hard rolls are a bit too sweet, so it’s not as perfect as a Prinzo’s hard roll, or… any other not-super-sugary rolls. The texture is great, though – airy and light buns.
Our final stop was Famous Lunch in Troy, NY. This was another one of my favorites. It was like $2.50 for a sandwich! When you go to Famous Lunch you just order with someone at the counter, and pay when you leave. It’s really low key.
BACON, so good! And the buns were nicely charred. Not burnt, but a good bit of browning and flavor. Just a hair from burnt, basically the diner-equivalent of wok hei. Tons of flavor, just awesome all around. All of the flavors were equally balanced, and it was just an enjoyable and delicious bacon, egg, & cheese overall. So good. <3 Famous Lunch! <3 Troy!
My two fave BECs were from McCarroll’s & Famous Lunch. Stewart’s was a surprising last place finisher (if you’d asked me before the tour, I’d have easily placed it in the top 3. Not a distant last).
It also seems like egg sandwiches in the Albany-area cook their eggs whole and the yolks most of the way through. In the future, I would probably ask for egg-white only, or sunny-side up yolks in my egg sandwiches, or else risk picking out hard cooked yolks from each sandwich (which grosses out everyone else around me).
Well this just inspired me to make an bacon egg and cheese. Second breakfast here I come!
Can't wait to try Famous Lunch's sandwich next time I'm in Troy!
It's too bad Flavour Cafe in Troy isn't open right now…they make one of my FAVORITE runny-egg and cheese sandwiches. Perfectly delicious. Another good one is the egg and cheese from Nighthawk's Kitchen at the Troy Farmer's Market every Saturday morning!
Haha, thanks for the post. You guys forgot Inga's Diner on Fuller Rd, though. They never disappoint.