Italian Cafe

Where to Lunch: If You're Mildly Hungover

or, Where to Breakfast: On a Severe Budget

Financial District

I can't even begin to describe how absolutely essential an egg-and-cheese on an english can be on a morning with a touch of the sea legs and a moderate-to-stabbing headache. It’s even more essential to someone who might not have done their grocery shopping, or who, while grocery shopping, overestimated their ability to wake up in the morning and, as such, only purchased items that require preparation (8-minute oatmeal, scrambled eggs, smoothies.)

For someone who barely has time to put on underwear before getting on the train to work, there’s always the Italian Cafe. One dollar these breakfast sandwiches are, from 7-10 every morning. They come out gooey and messy, cheese and egg overhanging the sandwich, and sometimes the edges of the sausage are burnt and the white of the egg gets a little crunchy but it all melds together into a beautiful, satisfying, fatty, delicious mess. FOR ONE DOLLAR!

Between the hours of 9 and 10 AM (I can’t speak for the hours of 7 and 8), there’s at least 5-7 people waiting for these gorgeous saviors between the long ordering counter that spans the back wall and the short counter at the front window. It’s a small establishment and 5-7 people feels crowded, especially with the blanket of heat coming off the griddle. People step to the side near the soda cooler and mill near the window, waiting for their order. Almost no one orders just one sandwich and the chef throws down 18 english muffin halves on the grill at a time.

 One dollar!

My experience is limited to the breakfast sandwiches, though I can imagine the rest of their offerings to be both cheap and delicious, if not totally health-conscious. The menu does bear an eerie resemblance to that of Al's Cafe, a mere .1 miles down the road on State Street, but Italian Cafe has slightly cheaper prices. The cheapest item by far is the egg-and-cheese, so cheap that splurging for meat (75 cents) is no splurge at all.

My favorite combination is the egg-and-cheese with tomato and sausage. The cheese is standard American and melts into the crevices of the english muffin. The tomato gets piping hot (be careful) but is a good compliment to the heavy flavor of the sausage. Of course, there's the egg with a yolk that ranges from runny to hard, based on how many orders were before yours. Most importantly, it's one dollar; and, some mornings, that's all that counts.

Italian Cafe
65 Broad Street
Ate: Egg-and-cheese on an english muffin with sausage and tomato
Total: $1.75

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