THERE ARE PLENTY of free tables in the diner and never any at the counter, and that should be clue enough. You get legroom at a table but you can get that anywhere, and on one of those swivelling stools bolted to the linoleum floor, you have a vantage point. There are a couple of short-order cooks working in this diner on different days of the week, but only when one particular guy is working – the stocky Mexican guy with the red baseball cap on backwards and the improbably long and slender braided rat-tail – can it be difficult to snag a place up here.
Every stool is taken, and though we pretend not to be, each of us is watching the short-order cook, a man at the top of his game. If you asked any of us why we choose a seat at the counter, we mightn’t be able to articulate why. We’re not gourmands, and none of us would enjoy watching the macho, bawling chef of a Michelin-starred place half as much, because he would be complicit, and it would be forced. The most pleasing aspect of this show is the absence of ego in the star, the cook who makes the music of eggs with his back turned. We can watch him – it’s a free country – but he’s only doing his job. He’s fixing breakfast.
When this particular guy is not working, it takes two of them to operate this station to the same level. His instrument is laid out in front of him – that flat, open steel frying surface. To one side sit four gas-fired hotplates, around him the full range of pots and pans, while knives and flipping devices swing from a rail attached to the front of the extractor fan above. On either side of the range, various ingredients – links of sausage, chops, bacon, coarse paper pallets of eggs, peppers, and spices. And hanging over the doorway, the ubiquitous transistor radio playing raucous Mexican rock music.
Everything seems random and chaotic, but when I order the “Devil’s Mess” – a scrambled egg confection of guacamole, sour cream, turkey chorizo, chopped coriander and peppers – I can see that ingredients are positioned according to when they are required, and to what extent.
This guy can move, but not in the geeked-out showboating fashion that calls to mind Tom Cruise in Cocktail, where ingredients are thrown over the shoulder when they needn't be – no. That's 13 Ronaldo stepovers to one Torres tap-in, and this is ergonomic cooking, based on economy of movement, impeccable timing of ingredients, and harmony of man and machine. The only flashy thing he does (apart from fire eggshells across the room into the recycle bin without a glance) is crack his eggs on a steel spatula balanced perpendicular to the frying surface so they land ready to fry, while his other hand works in another area.
The show is on. He always has a small mountain of seasoned homefries to one side, which he turns every minute or so. They are fairly low maintenance, but he also has four different types of egg on the go – two poaching in a bubbling saucepan to one side, four frying on the top, four scrambling in another pot, and a terrific omelette to which he is just now adding freshly chopped herbs before folding it into a golden parcel. Then a kind of dispenser is brought out and held above the counter, and two wets blobs of creamy batter drop onto the frying surface – these will be pancakes. Some bacon is added to one side, pork chops and turkey chorizo discs are flipped, onions are chopped and fried, then grits are added to another section.
My dad has a saying (he has a lot of them, but I’m rationing) that goes something like this: if you’re going to be a bin man, be the best bin man in the world. I love the spirit of this idea. The short-order chef doesn’t aspire to gourmet cooking. Watching a film, I still get a pang of desire when I see cabs well driven, bars expertly tended and fine breakfasts made, and in the diner, the short-order chef is humming as he cracks more eggs with one hand, sweetens oysters and bacon in a pan with hissing marsala wine, then flips pancakes and pops and butters toast. He is disinterested in coulis. Nothing here will ever be julienned.
Real estate is getting tight and the poached eggs are spooned out and placed atop two sliced muffins which have just leapt from the toaster and were caught mid-air. The waitress adds more orders above, but he’s cooking just as fast. Wheat bread is added to the toaster, poached eggs placed on the muffins, then two of the fried eggs flipped – they must be over-medium.
I never did notice the spinach steaming atop the smallest saucepan to the left, but now it is removed, dried on a tissue, seasoned and added to the poached eggs – someone has ordered Florentine. These eggs are plated after the fried ones (over-easy) and the turned ones (over-medium) on three separate plates. One plate gets a pork chop and some fried mushrooms with freshly ground black pepper; the other some grits and fried tomatoes. Hollandaise is poured on the poached eggs of plate number three, then he adds the fried potatoes to all, wipes the edges clean, dings a countertop bell lightly with his elbow, and returns to the range.
God is in the detail and when my plate arrives I glance down and three elements combine to bring me close to tears of joy. One, a perfect blob of sour cream atop the “Devil’s Mess”. Two, a sprig of coriander on top of that. And third, a small paper Mexican flag on a toothpick. I still have that flag.