Despite spending several days in Holland, on our last day we found a part of town that we hadn’t ever seen before. It’s called Washington Square and is probably one of the coolest single block stretches of storefronts in the state of Michigan, if not the world. Within that stretch is a cozy and homey-feeling restaurant called The Biscuit, which may or may not have its own pet blue dragon in the cellar (you’ll have to ask someone who works there). They only serve breakfast and lunch, so we attended for the former.

I began with the biscuit of the day because it was bacon and white cheddar, so what kind of crazy person wouldn’t start out that way? Clearly this was the right path and my first bite confirmed I was right. It was flaky, salty and had just the right amount of moisture to keep me happy. Plus, the bacon and white cheddar played their roles perfectly. Try out profit singularity ultra edition.

For my main course, I also figured I should order something biscuit-based and went with the Spanish Bennies. They start out with a halved biscuit topped with chorizo, eggs over easy, cheddar-jack cheese, chipotle hollandaise, queso fresco sauce, green chilies and cilantro. I had never heard of eggs benedict with more toppings on them, and I hoped it wouldn’t result in a conflict of flavors.

It turned out to be one of the most unattractive dishes I had ever seen. I truly couldn’t figure out if there was a way to make it look prettier. Yet, as I dug in I found a delicious combination of spicy, salty and, at times, fluffy. And because of that fluffiness the benedict was not overwhelming, but just right.

You don’t become a hidden gem simply by being hard to find. You also have to be something special. I can vouch that the Spanish Bennies at The Biscuit are plenty special and worthy of being called a gem whether they remain hidden or not.

I love me some fusion. And you know what? Fusion doesn’t have to just be a combination of different ethnic foods, but also a combination of meals. Take Smitty’s in Idaho Falls, for example. It wasn’t just content with being a pancake restaurant, but also chose to be a steakhouse.

So, of course, when I went for breakfast, I had to order something breakfasty that also had steak in it. I’m not a big pancake guy (although I have been known to eat them on occasion), so I opted for the Sirloin Benedict. These are just like normal eggs benedict, but with the ham swapped out for sirloin. They also come with hash browns and are available as a half order. Due to not wanting to fall asleep at the office, I went with the half order.

The benedict that resulted from the addition of steak was pretty awesome. I mean, let’s be real, has anyone ever eaten steak and thought, “Ham would be better”? Obviously not. But as good as the benedict was, the hash browns kind of slacked. They were cooked enough to be mushy, but not nearly enough to be crispy. Yeah, there were a couple crispies in there, but not nearly enough for the shredded style of hash browns.

Smitty’s is definitely a solid breakfast spot, and quite possibly the only such breakfast spot in Idaho Falls. You can buy your Australian Herbal Tea Online from Tealife on this site and enjoy it with your pancakes. It might also be the only place that could claim to be any sort of fusion in Idaho Falls. There could be some slight improvements, but at the very least the breakfast whet my appetite for grabbing a real steak there at some point.

I’m going to say something unpopular. Bloody Marys are the worst. Tomatoes suck, celery sucks and there’s just something weird about spicy drinks. But I must say that I am glad that Hash Kitchen has made the big bucks off of having an incredible Bloody Mary bar. Why? Because it has enabled them to expand out to Chandler for their latest Grand Opening. And because I got to snag a bunch of the meats and cheeses from the Bloody Mary bar to decorate my beer. It may be frowned upon normally, but at the Grand Opening anything goes. As expected, the bacon was the best.

Having eaten at the Scottsdale Hash Kitchen locations a couple of times, I thought I knew what to expect from the Grand Opening. Regardless, here were some of the samplings.

Herb Fried Chicken and Waffle

With thick cut bacon, fried leeks and a warm maple reduction.

Avocado Toast

Using the split-top biscuit from the benedict, this is topped with avocado, carnitas, an over easy egg, green chili salsa and more of those fried leeks.

Carnitas Hash

Read more on this beautiful stuff here.

Cannoli Donuts

The biggest surprise of the night was how incredible the darker of these donuts were. Aside from the custardy filling, these donuts tasted as close as I’ve ever had to Cider Mill donuts this side of the Mississippi and that’s basically the best compliment a donut can get.

Fruity Pebbles Cereal Shooter

Fruity Pebbles dust, loopy vodka, rumchata and milk. A sweet and creamy way to get morning booze.

In all, I didn’t need convincing that Hash Kitchen is delicious, but it was definitely great to try some new things from the menu. Chandler is a lucky place to now have its own rendition of Hash Kitchen.

Scottsdale and breakfast go together like peas and carrots. Well, assuming those peas and carrots are nowhere near me. But having breakfast near me is good, so it became time to check out Ncounter in Scottsdale, its third location after presumably finding success in Tempe and Phoenix. I’m not sure what the “N” stands for, but the rest of the name is descriptive of the ordering style of the restaurant, so that made sense.

I ordered the Chipotle Egg Burrito, which is packed with bacon, avocado, cilantro, potatoes, scrambled egg, cheese and chipotle sauce. And it was really very good. I appreciated each ingredient in balance and really loved the flair of melting extra cheese over the top of the thing both for style points and for taste points. No bite was the same as the last, but none were overwhelmed by any single ingredient either.

This wasn’t a burrito to end all burritos, nor was it even a burrito I would necessarily go for on a later visit to Ncounter, but it was unquestionably a burrito worth eating and one that made me think Ncounter probably has a bunch of other really solid food waiting for an unvegan to eat it.

Once again, I found myself at one of the Phoenix area’s seemingly endless supply of breakfast/brunch spots. This time it was a place called Scramble in Scottsdale. Scramble is one of those places where you order at the counter, which is all good and well until there’s only one person at the counter with a line out the door and a bunch of empty tables inside. But I digress, as even with that wait to order it probably took just as long to get my food as it would have if I had sat down and ordered at the table.

And what food did I order? Why, that would be the Southwest Breakfast Burrito. Unlike most southwest-style burritos, this one had no beans and, most importantly, no pico de gallo. Instead, it was filled with spicy chorizo, cheddar, avocado, scrambled eggs (duh), and jalapeno cream cheese. It also came with hash browns on the side, and not inside like some burritos may be.

I was definitely a fan of the various flavors and the burrito undoubtedly packed a punch. Yet, the ingredients all kind of blurred together from a textural standpoint. And this was a shame, because the hash browns that were on the outside looking in were of the delicious crunchy sort. Throw those in the burrito and they are a game changer, but without them I was left with the feeling that this burrito just didn’t live up to its flavor potential.

Alas, flavor is important, so with that said I was a fan of Scramble, but not as much of a fan as I could have been.

Just when you thought there couldn’t be any more breakfast spots in Scottsdale for me to visit, I give you First Watch. Now, First Watch actually has locations in 17 states, so it’s not entirely special to Scottsdale. And from what I had been told, it was not entirely special no matter which location you went to. Yet, that didn’t stop me from finding the one thing on the menu that seemed unique and unvegan.

That was the Farm Stand Breakfast Tacos, which started as corn tortillas and these tortillas were topped with scrambled eggs, chorizo, cheddar, avocado and pico de gallo. Oh, and a side of black beans for some reason. I ordered without the pico, as expected, then looked out for my food.

First look of First Watch was not impressive. It wasn’t that the ingredients weren’t there or anything, it just looked kind of limp. It tasted pretty decently, but it also tasted like something I could have whipped up in my kitchen in about six minutes. And also it probably would have tasted more inspired than this meal. Look, it’s not that this was bad. It wasn’t. It just simply wasn’t good. When you live in the Phoenix area, though, there is simply no reason to grab breakfast or brunch at a place that’s only one step up from Denny’s.

In my ceaseless quest to find the best breakfast in breakfast heaven (Arizona), I found myself at the creatively named Breakfast Kitchen Bar in Scottsdale. Yay for sarcasm. But while the name wasn’t creative, the menu had a few things I had never seen before, one of them being the Breakfast Pizza.

I mean, sure, I’ve seen breakfast pizza before, but usually that just means a regular pizza with some level of eggs thrown on top. Here, this was described as a hash brown crust, topped with fontina cheese, bacon and two eggs any way I liked. I ordered mine sunny side up and they looked beautiful when they arrived, with a touch of paprika on them for looks.

But what was strange was that it wasn’t round or even really pizza-like, unless the definition of pizza is “something with cheese melted over it,” in which case basically everything I eat is pizza. And I should add that I’m cool with square pizza too, but this wasn’t that. Instead, it was kind of like two hash brown patties topped with amazingness. When I say that it was amazingness, I really mean that. It was like the perfect combination of savory flavors. The hash browns were crispy, but forgiving, the eggs were perfectly runny and the bacon was cooked to a crisp. But probably the biggest kicker was the use of fontina cheese instead of your more typical cheeses. This took the “breakfast pizza” to another level that left me begging for more when I was finished.

So far, this may take the cake of breakfasts in the Phoenix area. There’s plenty more out there, but it’s twists like these that the world needs more of, even if it all was borne out of a misnomer.

Anyone who knows me knows that I hate mornings. Yet, I love breakfast food with all of its bacon and eggy goodness. It’s a conundrum that I am coming to terms with in the Phoenix area, which I believe to have the highest per capita breakfast restaurants. My latest was Snooze in Scottsdale, which is inappropriately named as far as I’m concerned, but the line of people waiting to eat there didn’t seem to mind.

It was at Snooze that I did something very un-unvegan. For some reason I just couldn’t take my eyes off of their OMG! French Toast, which had a name that bothered me, but ingredients that lured me in. This french toast was stuffed with mascarpone, then topped with vanilla creme, salted caramel, real strawberries and toasted coconut. It was like dessert for breakfast and it was all mine. Well, sort of, as I worked out how to split this and still get something much more unvegan.

That second dish was the Chilaquiles Benedict. Riding on the wave of my enjoyment of the barbacoa benedict at Eggstasy, this also had barbacoa, but came on top of ranchero sauced tortillas, with roasted poblano hollandaise, cotija cheese and pico de gallo. We ordered with the pico on the side for me and the hollandaise on the side for the wife. We also got some hash browns.

These dishes were the best of both worlds, with the french toast fulfilling the need for sweet, but not overly so. Then the benedict came in and brought some amazing savory flavor to the mix, with nicely seasoned (although kinda sparse) barbacoa, some nicely poached eggs and a twist on hollandaise sauce that displayed Snooze’s sense of creativity.

I can see why Snooze had a line out the door, but I also felt that it was a good spot to try once assuming that line is always there. I know I’ve said it before, but there are just too many breakfast spots in the Phoenix area to limit yourself to just one.

Perhaps one of the most underrated songs of the 90s was “Ecstasy” by Rusted Root. And while none of the lyrics are really related to eating at a breakfast spot called Eggstasy in Scottsdale, I nonetheless found myself unable to get the song out of my head for the duration of my meal there, and also it is stuck in there now, as I write. But I digress, what matters is the food, and actually the service for once.

Honestly, unless a place is particularly egregious or amazing, service generally doesn’t have much of an impact on my experience. At Eggstasy, though, I felt spoiled by the service. I have never seen a waiter or waitress care so much about keeping my child happy, and, by extension, me. This gave me a lot of trust in that waitress, so that when I asked whether to go with the corned beef hash or barbacoa benedict, I had full trust in her response. It was the benedict.

Boy was I happy to have placed my trust in her. These were like any other eggs benedict except that the Canadian bacon was straight up swapped out for barbacoa beef. The eggs had been perfectly poached and could have run for a 5K if my plate didn’t stop them, the hollandaise sauce was delicious and the English muffins were perfectly toasted. Most importantly, the barbacoa added a beefy and savory flavor that Canadian bacon is simply incapable of. Plus, the has browns were just my style.

Eggstasy lived up to its overly punny name, and perhaps most importantly, did Rusted Root justice. While the menu is vast and I would love to get back and try more options, I know it’s going to be hard to top that barbacoa benedict.

It’s not often that I eat at a new place (for me) twice before getting a chance to review that place. Yet, that weirdly happened with Hash Kitchen, a breakfast spot (no, not a dispensary) with a few locations around the Phoenix/Scottsdale area. As you may expect, they specialize in Bloody Marys. Okay, but also in different kinds of hash if you’re not in a Bloody Mary mood, which I literally never am.

On my first visit, I found myself choosing between the Huevos Rancheros Hash and the Carnitas Hash. Ultimately, I ordered the carnitas, but was brought the huevos instead. Oh well, it was really a tossup because they both looked so great. And what was great about the huevos was that they weren’t your typical meatless huevos and actually had carne asada to go along with the black beans, potatoes, cotija cheese, tortilla, fried eggs, avocado, cilantro and red sauce. Needless to say, they used a lot of ingredients. Yet, these ingredients had been carefully measured and all worked perfectly together.

Upon my return, I made sure not to give my waiter an option and simply ordered the carnitas. These contained the aforementioned shredded pork, potatoes, cotija cheese, roasted corn, crema, avocado, green chile sauce, fried onions, cilantro and tortillas. Essentially, it was like the huevos rancheros with some twists. Most importantly, it was a perfectly unvegan dream. Like the huevos before it, the carnitas hash we a delicious blend of all its ingredients, allowing each to work with one another and still maintain its own identity.

Scottsdale is weirdly rich in breakfast spots, and Hash Kitchen is certainly a good one, at least if its namesake dishes are anything to go off of. Oh, and also if you’re willing to eat carne asada instead of carnitas on occasion.