"...as plate after plate of fluffy poached eggs, cartilaginous peameal, and lakes of sunshiney goo continued to pile up over time, I realized that if I don't start catalogueing these excursions in some formal manner, a great field of human knowledge would be lost. Hence, the Benedict Chronicles..."

Today Bex and I decided to undo any physiological value of our yoga session and go get some eggs benedict. She enjoys "seeing Tederick.com in action." We were going to go to a place called Fate Bistro that's over on Laird, but it was raining when we left the Yogashoppe, and a place called McSorley's was only a few doors south and offered a benny. So in we went.

It may have been the largest mistake ever.

Look at that picture: does that look right to you? The bennies (she had one too) arrived not five minutes after having been ordered, which is never a good sign. The hollandaise, though plentiful, verged upon brown. Brown how? How do you achieve brown when you mix something yellow with something white? Was there baby blood in this hollandaise? Or was it - as may have been the case - entirely made up of mustard? Mustard in hollandaise??? There was a definite mustardy tinge to the proceedings which made the meal highly suspect, but it was but the first of a series of affronts.

The ham in this benny was ham. Like, cold cut ham. Like, the chef walked up to the A&P a block south of the restaurant and bought a packet of sliced ham and then put it, uncooked, in the eggs benedict, on top of a not-toasted english muffin and under a easy-medium poached egg. It was gross. I'm getting sick just thinking about it. The egg was all right, I guess, but it couldn't save the benny from itself. We have finally arrived at the Worst Benedict Ever.

This benny cost $6.99, which follows through on the "you get what you pay for" maxim. It came with home fries. They were good home fries. Bex said of the home fries, "Yeah, they mean business." But in yet another ignominy, there weren't nearly enough of them. And the coffee in this dive? Terrible beyond human understanding. So there you have it: not a single element of this entire meal succeeded.

McSorley's gets the Benedict Chronicles' first 0 eggs out of 4. Here they aren't:

Bex and I, by this point, were horribly unsatisfied and felt that our decision to not go to the Fate Bistro was a gigantic error in judgement. Nauseous, disspirited, and not even all the way full. Only one thing could solve this horrifying debacle.

Oh no.

Oh yes....

McSorley's Saloon and Grill can be found at 1544 Bayview Avenue in Toronto. The Benedict Chronicles is an ongoing, non-regular series.