Who doesn’t love a good breakfast sandwich? In Newtown, Conn., where my family moved when I was in high school, the Hawleyville Deli made one of the best breakfast sandwiches I have ever had: an amazingly airy poppyseed bulky roll, a perfectly jammy egg, melted American cheese, and a touch of butter and hot sauce. My mom got hers with bacon, because that’s how our parrot, Largo, liked it. He always got the last two bites, and if my mom gave him just one, the bird squawked bloody hell in protest.
I love to tinker with breakfast sandwiches at home — a fluffy two-egg omelet with plenty of butter and cracked pepper, folded square on a toasted brioche bun with American cheese — but food is always best from the hands of others. Camberville — in particular, Union Square — has some exceptional morning starters. Here’s a square-by-square ramble of some of our favorite eggy to-gos.
In Harvard Square, Daily Provisions (run by Danny Meyer, the New York-based restaurateur also behind Shake Shack) may be known for its sinful and addictive maple crullers, but it’s the breakfast sandwiches that make me a repeat customer: a fresh, airy, and pleasingly chewy poppy-seed bun with an over-easy egg whose warm yolk sensually bursts on your first bite. The quality is unbelievably consistent, and the egg always pops. My go-tos are the chicken sausage with extra cheese and house-made “wake up” sauce.
In Davis Square, the Diesel Cafe’s Joplin layers together a perfectly medium-cooked egg and hearty chicken-sausage patty with addictive maple butter. Choose the sourdough toast over the bagel: Thin and light, it soaks up that glorious butter. Up Highland Ave. is an unlikely breakfast sando hero: Saigon Tiger’s egg bánh mì that crowns its fresh, crunchy-soft baguette with sunny-side-up eggs, their runny yolks melding with savory pork pâté, pickled vegetables, pucker-inducing jalapeños, and fresh cilantro. For a salty, slightly sinful upgrade, get the eggs-and-Spam variation — and let the Monty Python jokes fly. (Saigon Tiger makes for a late breakfast; it opens at 11 a.m.)
Over in Huron Village, Armando’s Special Omelet Sub packs grilled mushrooms and spinach, American cheese, and golden, fluffy eggs into a soft Italian sub roll — a satiating, decadent way to get your veggies. Pro tip: Get the large, and know that Armando’s only takes cash. Across the street, Sarah’s Market and Cafe offers a rib-sticking cousin — the spinach and egg sandwich — that comes with tomatoes and cheddar cheese on wheat toast. Ask for it on a griddled brioche bun instead of toast, and thank me later.
At Bom Dough (“good dough”) in Inman Square, the Good Egg sandwich is the best way to try the Brazilian-style bakery’s perfectly fluffy scrambled eggs. It comes with avocado–lime purée, crisp bacon, arugula, tomato, and white cheddar on your choice of bagel, a traditional Brazilian parmesan pao de queijo (cheese roll), or brioche bun. Get the brioche, whose rich butteriness complements the celestial scramble. At Triangle Coffee, in Somerville near the Brickbottom Artists Building, get the Umami Spice breakfast sandwich — an inspired, all-day offering with sausage and egg. The twist here is that the fluffy, oven-baked egg comes with spicy umami sauce, a pucker-inducing mixture of rich Japanese Kewpie mayo and spicy Chinese Lao Gan Ma chili sauce, with a slice of Monterey Jack, all served on a Triangle English muffin.
On “the Avenue” in Porter Square, there’s a reason for the lines around the block at Bagelsaurus on weekends: the super-fresh and super-chewy handcrafted bagels. The bagels make a great base for their Classic Jumbo breakfast sandwich — an over-medium egg with Cabot cheddar and mustard butter. Get it on a sea salt bagel, as the salt, butter, and mustard play really well with the jammy yolk and aged cheddar. Go early; once the bagels sell out — and they regularly do — Bagelsaurus closes up.
The Fix at local chain Pavement offers another neat sausage patty creation that’s simple and savory with a fluffy scramble, slightly melted smoked Gouda, and a house pepper jam: salty and hot-and-spicy, with a faintly sweet offset. Get it on a rosemary-salt round. Across Mass. Avenue, at the Montrose Spa — the Cuban-influenced bodega run by Tommy Rodriguez for nearly 50 years until new management took over last year — the killer griddled egg and cheese (good old America) on a classic English muffin remains one of the best deals for a breakfast sando in this town ($5). Elsewhere along Mass. Ave., you can get a vegan sausage and egg sando at Page & Leaf or at Starbucks. (The Impossible Breakfast Sandwich, and ‘Bucks’s morning sandos are surprisingly good.) The breakfast burrito at Chivo is a solid eat, especially if you go stripped down — just egg, cheese, and pepper, with perhaps salsa or guacamole.
Union Square’s Vinal Bakery makes its own special style of rich, doughy English muffins that natch serve as their base for over-medium eggy creations, like the maple butter-infused Miss Maple. But the thing to have on the Bakery’s morning menu is the Ham Jamboree: uber-lean McKenzie smoked ham, weepy Brie, arugula, salted butter, and red pepper jelly. The savory secret sauces — umami, maple and mustard butter — set these sandos apart. Vinal makes their own turkey sausage. Slide over to Bow Market, where Mike & Patty’s, another locally grown chain, serves up a slate of hearty breakfast fare that uses free-range chicken eggs and comes on a buttered, house-made Flourhouse sourdough English muffin. I’m a big fan of the Classic — over-medium egg and American cheese, and there’s a slew of choices in between (including a vegan breakfast burrito). But if you want to go big (and go home and have a food coma nap), get the Breakfast Grilled Crack with fried egg, bacon, bacon, and more bacon and gooey cheese (four kinds: American, cheddar, Monterey and Gruyere) until the cows come home.
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