East Vancouver Neighbourhoods Dirty Johnny 2003-05-03

Bon’s Off Broadway

As Vancouver’s reigning authority on all things breakfast, I’m frequently asked where the best value is for one’s loonie, toonie, or other similarly worthless piece of Canadian currency. My steadfast response is always “The Swedish Touch” massage parlour. When the inquisitor stipulates they meant the best value for their breakfast dollar, I coyly glance towards my feet, fidget uncomfortably and cough out an insincere “Obviously.” I then proceed to regale them with tales from Bon’s Off Broadway, the city’s deserved frontrunner in the ongoing no-holds-barred ultimate battle for greasy-spoon supremacy.

What is it that separates Bon’s from the throngs of similar cheapie, dirt-bag brunch joints littered throughout town, you ask? Well, Tony, to that there truly is no simple response but I suppose one could speculate; It could be the dorm room-like décor, with its scores of cheesy movie posters and pop star album covers plastered all over the bright yellow walls. Perhaps it’s the dude clad in security guard accoutrements who is not actually an employee but fancies spending his mornings wandering from table to table, filling coffees cups and kissing ladies. Or maybe it’s the amicable, tattooed punk-rock wait staff, who, despite being overwhelmed with orders, will take the time to answer all your imbecilic menu-related queries.

While a decently strong argument could be made for any of these hypotheses and they all undoubtedly contribute to the overall effect, the real deal-sealer for the Armada is the psychotically low prices. Show me another restaurant in town where five dollars will get you a bottomless cup of coffee, two eggs, sausage/bacon or ham, toast & hash browns with enough left over to leave a 20% tip and I’ll show you three or four little girls whose pet kittens mysteriously vanished about half an hour before your meal arrived.

In our inaugural visit to Bon’s, Lang Dang and I both shelled out $5.50 for the heaping pile of corned beef hash which I supplemented with a buttery shortstack and strawberry shake. The massive mound of potatoes was mixed with abundant small fragments of ruddy, thin-sliced beef and included a couple of eggs, any-style, with a choice of toasts. While it was flavourful and substantial enough to placate even the most dangerously hyper-obese of your dining companions, it was pretty basic and didn’t really have anything revolutionary to offer.

Dang, in one of the more bizarre assessments he’s given since we began our quest, judged the completely regulation-sized potatoes to be too big and was also disappointed by the lack of grease in his meal. For this outburst of insubordination and just plain weirdness, he was locked in the brig for a full week with nothing but a bag of russets and a bottle of Crisco. That’ll learn ‘im!

My shake was satisfactory but Bon’s committed the one cardinal sin of shakedom, being that it was served sans one of those metal refill containers used to repeatedly top up your fast depleting supply. The two-high pancakes were of suitable fluffiness and cooked right through but would’ve benefited from a blueberry option and some whipped cream. At $2.75, however, if you factor in labour they’re probably cheaper than cooking up a Bisquick batch for yourself at home.

Ordering the $5.95 egg, perogy, sausage and toast combo, Agent M fulfilled his lifelong desire to be infiltrated by Ukrainian wieners. The six fried perogies, huge dollop of sour cream and whole wheat toast hit the spot but he didn’t receive quite the sausage-stuffing he had hoped for as the meal was a little light in the meat department. Fortunately for him, it did provide ample starches to absorb the liquor still left in his stomach from the previous night’s cocktail and stripper-fuelled mayhem with Ben Affleck.

When I inquired as to how the mighty Duck‘s heralded Breakfast Special went down, I was summarily dismissed with an incredulous “Seriously, dude, I had bacon and eggs.”

“True ‘dat, Duck-boy, but you had it for two dollars and ninety-five freaking cents. Perhaps you’d care to elaborate on what kind of meal one can purchase for less money than you’d normally spend in one sizzling minute on the ‘InteractiveMale’ chatline?”

Placed firmly on the hot seat, Ducky volunteered that his erect bacon was well-cooked and the eggs were suitably runny but the hash browns could have used a little more cooking. See, kids? That wasn’t so hard. All you need are some functioning tastebuds, a grade seven vocabulary and about four bucks and you, too, can be a renowned breakfast critic. I’d stick with school if I were you, though.

Bangkok Barbie, who I met at a fifty cent Thai ping-pong show, spent her maiden voyage with the Armada delving into the depths of Bons’ Benny. She appeared to derive some intense oral pleasure from the eerily translucent hollandaise and hunky (but undercooked) pan-fries, although her poached eggs bore an uncanny visual resemblance to urinal cakes. Our highly paid braintrust quickly surmised that this was due to the little poaching tray used to cook them and not an emergency raiding of the men’s room supply cupboard. Hell, at the freakishly low price of $5.50, they could coat those eggs in Ty-D-Bowl and there’d still be a line up out the door.

A word to the wise if you’re planning on hitting up Bon’s: either get there early or prepare yourself for a substantial delay. Folks flock from all over the city to take advantage of the cheaper-than-dog-food breakfasts and, as such, my crew was forced to wait over half an hour to get a table for five. Aside from this small stumbling block, Bon’s has all the makings of a Vancouver breakfast institution and is unquestionably a port worth plundering again.