Breakfast: LePeep

You've probably been hearing since you were a kid that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  Most of us, myself included, usually rush out the door in the morning with little or no breakfast and are yet to burst into flames so who knows if that is actually true or not.  However, what I can tell you is that when I do have time for it breakfast is maybe my favorite meal of the day.  That delicious mixture of carbs and protein.  It can be sweet, savory or both at once.  Breakfast is a meal I love to eat at a restaurant if I can find a place that does it well.  Unfortunately for LePeep, after today their name has been crossed off that list.

For those of you unaware LePeep is a medium to medium-small sized chain of sitdown restaurants specializing in breakfast and lunch items with the main focus on breakfast.  I've always heard a lot of hype for it in the Indy area.  Even with several locations the flow of customers ranges from steady to really busy.  I had eaten there in pre-blog days and I had an omelet that was completely unmemorable.  I decided it worthy of another shot.  I wish I hadn't.

When I sat down I noticed that the service was snappy and that water was already placed at my table which I always view as a plus.  I also enjoyed that when I ordered coffee a pot was placed at my table a la IHOP so I could dispense my own refills.  The coffee was quite good, but it could have been served a little bit hotter.  When it came to my meal I decided to go the savory route and order the Eggs Benedict which I had been craving for quite some time.  I maintain that few things are better than a runny egg.  You can see from the picture that it was indeed a traditional Eggs Benedict served with LePeep's trademarked "Peasant Potatoes".  Unfortunately the dish was racked with seasoning and execution flaws.

The first thing I have to note is that maybe LePeep calls their homefries "Peasant Potatoes" because you'd almost have to be a starving peasant in a feudal society to want to eat them.  They look like nicely seasoned homefries, but in reality they were nothing but bland, forgettable, straight out-of-the-bag garbage.  I put a lot of ketchup on them and still couldn't make them worth eating.  You could find better hashbrowns or homefries almost anywhere.  Also, lacking in flavor was the hollandaise sauce on top of my poached eggs.  There was absolutely no tang or zip here.  It added absolutely nothing to the dish other than aesthetics.  The english muffin and ham were okay, but being the two easiest components to put on the plate I expect them to be. Being that they are in the title of the dish the eggs were supposed to be the star here.  They were not.  When I cut into a poached egg the runny yolk should flow out over my dish, but with the first egg the yolk sort of just stayed there.  I would call it more like a custard than runny.   The second egg was adequately runny, but that just speaks to a lack of consistency in the kitchen which may or may not be an even worse problem.  Also, I could not for the life of me figure out what was up with that terrible garnish on my place of tomatoes and lettuce.  Granted tomatoes in their non-sauce form kind of gross me out, but even if I liked them I don't see it making sense on a breakfast plate with such a rich dish. 

Taste: 4/10  It might even deserve less than a 4, but dang it I just love eggs that much.

Value: 2/10  The food was poorly executed and bland and it cost 8 bucks not including the coffee and tip.  Denny's food would both be cheaper and better.  If you want a real breakfast place though check out Best Bet Breakfast and Lunch or Uptown Cafe both in Noblesville.