A DINER WITHOUT AN OCEAN VIEW

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Tom and I have found that there are a lot of great breakfast places near us. And in our continuing search for more places to dine early in the morning, we decided to try out a local favorite, Bette's Ocean View Diner. Bette's is a hugely popular local diner and it's located on 4th St., sort of a trendy, upscale shopping area in Berkeley. (Tom says it's like a mall but spread out on a street). And contrary to its name, it has no ocean view. All of the reviews I'd read mentioned long lines, so we knew we'd have to get there early.

We got out the door by and arrived to the diner around 8:40 am, and sure enough there was already a line.

I gave my name to the guy up front, and was told it would be a 30 minute wait. Luckily, Bette's has a take out side next door, where you can get a cup of coffee while you wait. (We over heard a woman who'd arrived after us about a 45 minute wait, even though they'd arrived at 8:45 in the morning). Since we'd never been to 4th Street before, we walked around and took a look at the shops (none of which were open so early in the morning) so we went back to Bette's where we were seated exactly 30 minutes after we arrived.

What we soon discovered is that Bette's is a small, bustling restaurant. They're famous for their pancakes and even sell pancake mix. But neither of us were in the mood. I got waffles with a side of chicken apple sausage and breakfast potatoes. Here it is below.

The waffle was pretty good, though not as crispy as the one at Fat Apples (my current favorite place to get waffles), but the potatoes were amazing. They were crispy and tasty and certainly my favorite breakfast potatoes out of all the places we've tried.

Meanwhile, Tom ordered scrapple with poached eggs and a side of Portuguese sausage. I'm still having a hard time figuring out what scrapple really is, but I think Tom enjoyed it. Oddly enough, his sausages were served fried up without the casings, but I think he still enjoyed them.

Bette's really is a great breakfast place, and we look foward to going back and trying their pancakes. The service is pretty cordial, but it's so packed, that you don't get a whole lot of attention, and it did take awhile for our food to arrive. Of course, the warning is get there early, or be prepared to wait upwards of an hour for a table. And if at all possible, try to go with 2 or less people. (They don't have many large tables there).

And I'll close with a pictures of thing giant slice of pie floating in the middle of the diner.