The Fly Trap

Ferndale has for a few years been a pretty popular destination for breakfast, at least along the Woodward corridor. Between Club Bart, Toast and The Fly Trap you can mingle with a diverse and representative bunch of Ferndalers, wannabe 'dalers and oughtabe 'dalers, hipsters, used-to-be-hipsters and cheerful folks like us.

We checked out breakfast at The Fly Trap and at least felt right at home with the crowd - except for maybe a irritatingly loud woman a table over.

I had the Boring breakfast - so says the menu - eggs over easy, double slab o' ham, toast and jam, potatoes and coffee. The ham was grilled just right, the coffee was medium strong, fresh from beans ground right before our very eyes. That was the good stuff.

The eggs were OE, but the white was not quite cooked through as you ate from the edge toward the yolk.

The sourdough toast came from what seemed to be pretty good bread. I could tell it was toasted because the edges were the palest of pale gold, though the centers were soft and white. After a swipe of the paintbrush dipped in butter, the toast came to the diner on its own plate, piled high - which of course allowed the bottom slice to sit in its extra generous paintbrush swipe of fat until it was PDS (pretty damn soggy) by the time I got to it. The British have a good idea with those upright toast holder thingeys they use. The raspberry jam that came with the toast was very tasty, almost homemade in its bright flavor and minimal sweetness.

The garlic fried potatoes were only very slightly burned by which I mean it was easy to peel off the burned skin parts. But when you get past the burned parts, imagine this --- imagine pretty good fried potatoes carrying the lovely, smooth sweetness of roasted garlic mixed in with the spuds and onions. Got that taste in your mind? Now imagine that every other garlic clove in the mix wasn't exactly roasted - in fact every other one was damn near raw! If you're in need of a quick wakeup, try biting into a harsh, nearly raw garlic clove with your first sip of coffee.

The waitress was not very friendly.

They don't serve pancakes.

Let's review: potatoes with a raw garlic surprise, toast soggy, ham fine, coffee good, eggs cooked as well as could be expected from the local 8th-graders in their first cooking class, no pancakes, no smiles.

Maybe The Fly Trap calls it the Boring breakfast because the cook got bored with it before he actually learned to cook and serve a pretty basic breakfast of ham, eggs, toast and spuds.