Posted by Tegan O'Neill
The coffee at Triangle Diner isn't particularly strong, but the service makes up for it. As for the food, it is neither healthy nor fancy, but it is good, and that is all that matters on a weekend morning. Without a car, Triangle is not as easily accessible as the competition on Broadway, but some extra effort on the transportation front is worthwhile if you are hit with a hankering for a classic diner breakfast. Expect to have to wait until a spot opens up when at Triangle; expect to wait even longer if you prefer a booth to a seat at the bar. Most likely, the other diners are the ones holding things up because the women in the kitchen (on a recent visit, all workers were women except for one male dishwasher) are moving at a breakneck pace.
It should not take all that long to decipher the menu. Triangle has your classic fare and as always, there is the glaring divide between savory and sweet. At Triangle, though, you have the split between run-of-the-mill sweet and super sweet. This particular morning's sweet specials were Reese's pancakes and chocolate caramel french toast. Only those who were brave enough to go down the peanut butter pancake route will know what that concoction tasted like. I can not include myself in that ilk, but I can report on the chocolate caramel french toast. Talk about chocolate overload. Have you ever been worried that an eatery won't put enough chocolate chips in the chocolate pancakes? If so, put your fears aside at Triangle. A generous handful (or two) of chocolate chips provided a thick, sticky blanket for the toast so that not a bite of toast went naked. The wealth of chocolate smothered any hope for also tasting caramel or, for that matter, tasting the bread.
Although by no means the more visually appealing, the savory option was the more gustatorily appealing, hands down. What is this pile of fat on fat with more fat poured over it that you see pictured on the screen? Country eggs benedict in all its glory. The first layer, biscuit, is so buttery it tricks you into thinking that you just walked out of the barn from milking cows and sat down at the kitchen table in an old farmhouse. The second layer, sausage, has the same flavor that sausage (the real thing, not that fake tofu stuff) has had since you were in elementary school eating at the annual pancake breakfast. The third layer, poached egg, represents the pinnacle of poached eggs. The yolk oozes its golden goo out from its cocoon of light white. The last layer to be lathered on, homemade gravy, is better than any other gravy you have had. It avoids the common pitfalls of being too starchy and too tasteless; instead, it packs seriously rich flavor into a velvet-like cream. As if the portion were not yet big enough, a hefty side of starchy potatoes makes the plate complete.
You will leave Triangle with a full stomach, guaranteed. You will also leave with a smile. You won't be able to resist at least a chuckle when you remember how you saw two elderly women sharing a booth and how one of them ordered a bowl of fruit and the other ordered a huge chocolate eclair piled high with whipped cream; her eyes widened like a little girl's when her dessert was placed in front of her.