Best High-End Breakfast
STAFF PICK: Willy Wonka's best chocolate bars melted into a lovely China pot might--just might--rival the cocoa we've savored at the Arizona Inn. This is the real thing, nothing out of a packet. Ah, but that's only for starters, sleepyheads. Roll out of bed and satiate your appetite with the best petit dejeuner in town. If you're hungry to get going this morning, skip the menu and order the crème de la crème: ze eggs Benedict! The hollandaise sauce is creamy, the Canadian bacon tastes fresh, like it's local and not shipped all the way from maple-leaf land, and the eggs are poached to perfection--not gooey, not solidified. But leisure is what the Arizona Inn is about. This is the place if what you seek in breakfast is a relaxed pace and a chance to be alone with your inamorata. If you've left the children with the relatives, you're with your beloved only, and the two of you feel inclined to make this romantic breakfast last awhile, take your time savoring the choices. Could you dine at home from a ramekin of shirred eggs Swiss style, a marvelous melding of Gruyère cheese and eggs baked just to the point where the whites set, the yolk still soft, to dunk English muffin? Or share bites of an omelet of venison sausage, grilled red and green peppers, with just a bit of gorgonzola cheese with hash browns, crisp gold on the outside, studded with bits of onion, while the 6-year-old demanded more Fruit Loops and the 16-year-old demanded your car? It's all served in cozy but stately surroundings that look like they came straight out of Room with a View. The Inn, 2200 E. Elm St., offers a fine setting and a fine table for palatable memories. After breakfast, you might want to retire to one of the rooms with your beloved, and make some other memorable times.
