Best Breakfast

This is one of those hotly contested categories that people are willing to go to the mat over, so it's never easy coming up with a winner. You've got your biscuits-and-gravy crowd of the Mecca and Metro variety, who swear on the beehive of their favorite waitress that their local diner holds the true secret to the egg well-fried. You've got your breakfast-as-brunch set of Lucky's, Cliff Café and Breadwinners fame where pancakes and French toast rule, and the infusion of Mexican accents into the early morning meal is a gastronomic necessity as well as a delight. But for our money, which is not much these days, we choose Cindi's NY Deli (Central Expressway location), where a bagel and lox are still among the pleasures of the flesh, and eggs any which way you like 'em—fried, scrambled, omelet—are reliably good. Coffee pots remain on the table, hot and ready to pour. Hash browns are just the right shade of brown. Waitresses are sweating from orders short and long, patrons old and young. And the Vietnamese owner has the good sense to employ the former owner of the now defunct Gilbert's Deli to get a bit of Jewish cooking into their menu so that the name delicatessen never becomes a misnomer.