The Wallflower Modern Diner

by Lauren Mote

For those that are unfamiliar, The Wallflower took the place of Main St’s Aurora Bistro, and now serving morning fare in Mt. Pleasant neighbourhood.

There was always something about the interior at Aurora Bistro that made me feel uncomfortable – whether it was just a simplistic, cold room; or that the it was never busy enough to make you feel as if you were part of a room – always solo dining, everyone was watching you…. maybe it was simply that the service was slow, and due to your sheer hunger you found yourself looking around the room, analyzing everything, and waiting and waiting for your eggs to appear.

The Wallflower Modern Diner gives way to a breakfast menu served until 3:00pm daily, and a huge array of comfort type foods, from grilled cheese on white toast, to chicken wings, to burgers.

We were just interested in breakfast – us 4 diehard brunch seekers. Scrambled eggs with toast, bacon and home-fries; it’s pretty hard to screw up. But somehow, as I am writing this, I find myself traveling back in time to Sunday afternoon, 1:00pm, where my plate of those vary items arrived. It was fast, but the eggs were cold, and somehow margarine was the spread on the toast, and not butter. Margarine is like a casserole – there was a social movement during a tough time in history to birth them, but they’re still disgusting. I would take a toast-topping of churned cream over plastic bags (which I suspect margarine is made from) any day. Unlimited coffee refills were appreciated, but hardly erased the taste of margarine from my palate.

Needless to say, the service was good, the room was busy, more inviting and warmer then Aurora, but the food was not up to par. I missed the days of smoked sablefish hash and perfectly poached eggs on Aurora’s tiny 5 item menu.

I guess there’s always chicken wings… at the Wallflower.