Special Dispatch: Paper Moon Diner, Baltimore

Paper Moon Diner
227 West 29th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211
United States

by Joyce Carol Oats

I marked the dawn of 2012 with a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich at Paper Moon Diner in Baltimore. The new year, I’d decided, would be one in which I demonstrated unprecedented self-restraint. And it was for this reason that when the waiter asked me which breakfast meat I wanted in my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich (sausage, ham, or crispy bacon), I said loud and clear, and with maybe a tiny bit of a tone that implied he was suggesting an excessive indulgence: ‘no breakfast meat, thank you’.

This meant that my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich would consist not of two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese, a fried egg and breakfast meat, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup, but only two fat slices of French toast filled with havarti cheese and a fried egg, dredged in maple-flavoured syrup. The dieter’s Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, if you will.

Paper Moon Diner raises a chicken-egg question. Which came first? Was it a diner that someone decided to decorate with decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers? Or did someone have a collection of decapitated doll’s heads and old Matchbox cars and Pez dispensers and a mannequin painted green and stuck all over with molded-plastic toy soldiers and did that someone think, ‘I need to get a diner to properly showcase this shit’? It’s a perplexing question. But something about Paper Moon Diner -- something about the way happy American families sit at tables in there blithely chewing pancakes under naked toddler dolls suspended from the ceiling with cords like ligatures -- made me feel that asking is not the done thing.

And so I turned my attention, instead, to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich, placed before me by the friendly waiter on a thick white diner plate. It was puffy and golden, presented without any garnish but a small steel pot filled with the crucial maple-flavoured syrup, microwave-warmed to aid liquidity. (An important touch: many diner chefs apply the maple-flavoured syrup to breakfast treats in the kitchen, causing an unacceptable sogginess). Cutting in to my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich -- for this is a sandwich with the use of knife and fork intrinsic to its design -- I was pleased to note that the texture of the bread was springy and light; surprised to see that the central cheese and egg was not greasy.

The first bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich revealed that it was a pleasant melange of sweet and savoury, with the perfect amount of morning-after champagne-soaking carbohydrate. The second bite of the Monte Cristo French toast sandwich filled my heart with a flood of regret: why had I deluded myself that my lofty refusal of breakfast meat made me any better than any other feckless glutton eating a fried egg-and-cheese sandwich served on deep-fried battered white bread? But third bite of my Monte Cristo French toast sandwich restored my confidence. For although it made me certain that I would never again eat a Monte Cristo French toast sandwich in a diner decorated by someone with a hoarding fetish, there was no question that my life would have been poorer if I had not tried it once.

An open letter

From: T.N. Toost, US Bureau Chief, London Review of Breakfasts
To: All candidates for President of the United States of America

Dear Candidate,

As you no doubt know, The London Review of Breakfasts is the preeminent breakfast review organization in London, and as such is in a unique position to offer you the kind of international attention that you have no chance of finding anywhere else. We have a cadre of fans all around the world, many of whom vote in the most important elections in your country.

Our American bureau is conveniently located in Cleveland, Ohio – a small, sleepy yet important village on the North Coast of America. Because of your election system that almost nobody else in the world understands (save us, mind), Ohio is going to be one of the must-win states.

We therefore invite you to a candidate breakfast to be held in Cleveland, Ohio on a date convenient for you. To help you understand the importance of this breakfast, the last time we invited the candidates to breakfast, in 2008, John McCain, Ron Paul, Hilary Clinton and John Edwards all turned us down, citing scheduling conflicts. Each and every one of them lost the election.

Once we have interviewed each of the candidates extensively we will be in a position to endorse the candidate who will eventually win the nomination and the Presidential election in November.

We are busy, however, so please contact us soon to ensure that your schedule can be arranged to accommodate ours.

We look forward to breakfast with the future POTUS.

Sincerely,

Malcolm Eggs and T. N. Toost

The Ohio primary is on 6 March 2012