La Dolce VT: Johnny’s Boys breakfast secret

(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5)

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I’m usually telling visitors about well-kept secrets known only to the locals.

Today’s column is a reverse image of that. Johnny’s Boys is one of the top breakfast places around, known and beloved by folks from Boston and New York who visit Killington to ski, but scarcely known among we valley-dwellers.

A staff member read a recent review calling a meal “the best breakfast in town,” and said he wasn’t so sure about that and had I tried Johnny’s Boys? Without revealing my source’s name, let’s call this the Alan J. Keays honorary breakfast.

So the gang piled into the Mommobile last Saturday and headed up the mountain. And hey, you just can’t hear “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” too many times in a row, can you?

There’s a certain amount of stress involved in taking preschoolers to a restaurant at the best of times, but breakfast is just plain hard. Don’t give them a snack and they’re in meltdown before the food arrives, overfeed them and they turn picky and want to get down in order to visit with the folks at the next table. Mercifully, due to our disparate schedules and her saintly disposition, my wife is usually up with the boys sometime between deargodwhattimeisit and it’stooearlygobacktobed, so they’re used to having second breakfast with me around what I like to call the crack of dawn at 9 o’clock.

Johnny’s Boys is marooned in a parking lot in front of Comfort Inn, built in the neomall style of the late ’80s. In the offseason, there’s a cluster of cars around the restaurant, but otherwise it’s like seeing Wally World closed for repairs. First impression: Welcome to Touristburg, Vt.

One plus side of the offseason is that, despite the “please wait to be seated” sign, there was no wait for a table. The host/waiter/guy with too many hats to count pointed us toward a small stack of high chairs and booster seats at the entrance — the first sign of slightly spotty service to come — and we grabbed a table in the middle of a busy, busy room.

The décor is what those cluttered chain places aspire to, an eclectic mix of hunting trophies, sports and historic photos, road signs and what have you. There’s also a counter for the quick fueling stop, pre-ski. The staff members were mercifully not wearing the mandatory minimum 37 pieces of “flair” that usually accompanies that kind of interior design, were helpful, friendly and knew everything from the menu to just where our table needed to sit to not wobble.

That said, two servers and a busboy were one person too few to handle the demand, which was pretty strong midmorning on a sunny Saturday, so some of the little things (the extra coffee refill, syrup for the pancakes without asking) went lacking. But that’s the curse of any seasonal establishment in slack season. You know how to handle the winter crush, but not knowing if you’re going to have five tables or 15 in the summer is a headache for any restaurant.

The menu is mostly breakfast, with some lunch items and an impressive list of specials. No fear getting stuck in a rut of ordering the same-old, same-old here. We did stay with breakfast: The house omelet (sausage, tomato, spinach), the never-canned corned beef hash and blueberry multigrain pancakes off the list of specials.

One welcome option is the inclusion of bloody Marys and mimosas, which we’ll save for another time.

Any little quibbles over service were forgotten when the food arrived.

Corned beef hash and steak and eggs are two dishes that always look good on a menu to me, but are usually crushing disappointments on the plate, particularly east of the Mississippi.

I just couldn’t bring myself to order the steak and eggs, but the corned beef hash was spot-on: Lots of ground meat and minced potatoes, nicely seasoned and fried to a slightly greasy, crispy perfection, topped with two eggs over easy and a stack of buttered toast. (Yes, this is the point in the column where I ask my cardiologist to avert his eyes.)

Anybody who thinks making hash is dumping half a can of meat on a plate with some spuds needs to try Johnny’s Boys. It’s the best I’ve had this side of the Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the last week of August 1992. Give or take.

Speaking of averting eyes and at the risk of testing that saintly disposition I mentioned, the blueberry pancakes were even better than my wife’s (Sorry, hon.). Most multigrain pancakes come out a little bitter from the wheat flour. I don’t know what Johnny’s Boys does differently, but I do know I want the recipe.

And the two bites of omelet I got were at least as good as the first two meals I tasted: The sausage had a nice, spicy bite, lots of veggies. The eggs were just a little on the lacy-brown side, but it was good grub all ’round.

How good was it? Next time, I’m having the steak and eggs, rare and over easy, thanks. The dangers of eating raw and undercooked meat, eggs and shellfish are grossly exaggerated.

If you’re from Rutland and haven’t been up the mountain to try Johnny’s Boys, do so. You’ve got another three or four months before the tourists come back. And admit it: You’d hate for those flatlanders to know more about a good local place than you do.

Herald Editor Randal Smathers writes on dining weekly. For column archives or to write a review of your own, see www.invitevt.com. Contact him at randal.smathers@rutlandherald.com