"...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..."

"Do you serve eggs benedict?" - Home Fries
"The best in the city." - An Original's employee who obviously had no idea who he was up against

Me and Home Fries went to Original's for an impromptu benny a few months ago, but I didn't have my camera, so no review. Nonetheless the gap between the waitstaff's promise on that day, and the reality of their serving, became a sort of mini BenChro legend, so I resolved to go back. Home Fries abandoned me this morning (worst sidekick ever) so I went to Original's all by my lonesome, fully intending to rip those bitches a new puppet-hole.

Now here's the irritant: the benny was a lot better this time. In fact I worry about this a lot with BenChro because there can be such variance in quality from month to month on certain bennies (the Sharkey's experience still sticks in my craw) and there was a demonstrable improvement between this Original's benny and the last. It still wasn't great. The hollandaise was mealy and over-citrused, and the side of pineapple and tomato was just goddamned baffling.

Nonetheless, the eggs were well cooked - maybe slightly overdone, but I can live with that. And the peameal was decent, as were the home fries, though the latter weren't among the best I've ever tasted. They let me keep my Starbucks coffee instead of subjecting me to theirs. So it was a pretty satisfying meal, I guess.

On a normal review I'd therefore be compelled to give Original's three eggs out of four, but for sheer hubris I'm still knocking them down to two.

Original's Santa Fe Saloon is located at 1660 Bayview Avenue in Toronto, mere steps from The Big Stretch. The Benedict Chronicles is an ongoing, non-regular series.

Editor's note: the error that lead to Home Fries' failure to appear at this morning's breakfast was later determined to be mine.