Sunrise Diner is a Great Breakfast Stop

Eggs are tricky. The staple of many a breakfast joint, eggs can be rather ordinary. Most of us only know ordinary eggs. Most of us have also met up with the rubbery, overcooked, over manipulated egg, and the underwhelming and depressing affair that is an undercooked egg. Perfectly cooked eggs are usually found at home, where there is no time crunch and a room full of people waiting to be served. This is why I was a little apprehensive, but no less excited to see what dishes Chef Ernie Cornelius would have on his menu at his new place, Sunrise Diner, 1510 S. Main St., in Firestone Park.

I've been enjoying Chef Cornelius' cooking for a few years. He's a great cook, and I've racked up a lot of miles chasing down one of his hamburgers, and if luck allows me I will also order, pilfer, or right steal any sized portion of his beautifully fried chicken. Cornelius can cook. His lunch and dinner dishes always satisfy. There is no doubt, but does his expertise in the kitchen take eggs beyond the ordinary?

Yes.

I waited to visit the Sunrise Diner until I could find someone to go with as I wanted to sample more than one dish. I ordered what one would assume to be the most difficult dish, eggs Benedict and my companion ordered an omelet.

Hollandaise sauce is deliciously bright over poached eggs if it's cooked right. When it's cooked wrong it's either sour or flavorless. It can totally ruin or make the dish. With omelets, there are so many things that can go wrong; if the flavor combinations are off, if the ratio of filler to egg is wrong, or if the chemistry is off, your omelet will be nothing more than scrambled eggs held together by overcooked cheese.

Cornelius served two expertly timed and perfectly cooked egg dishes. I had the California Fresco Benedict. My first bite was almost entirely all spinach, but that was entirely my own fault. My second bite was excellent. The poached egg tasted nothing like the water it was cooked in. It wasn't rubbery or over salted. It's darn near the best set of poached eggs I've had all year. The spinach was cooked enough to offset some of the inherent bitterness, and the english muffin had its own covering of Hollandaise sauce. All the flavors were so well balanced and the whole dish was so good I almost finished it without offering my guest a bite.

The Western Omelet was excellent. It was fluffy without being oily, structurally sound without collapsing under the weight of the ham, onions, and peppers. The vegetables were fresh and flavorful. The smoked cheddar was neither overwhelming nor underrepresented. Both dishes were served with the standard hash browns which were not dripping with oil or butter. I usually don't eat the breakfast potatoes. I made an exception today because they were good.

The restaurant itself is brightly lit and clean. Most of the tables sit four people comfortably. There is two person settings options alongside the walls, and two four person counters flank the cash register. There is lottos off-street parking out back and it's easy to spot from the street. The service was brisk, coffee was served hot and refreshed regularly, and the house-made jam was bright, sweet, and fresh.

The serving sizes were generous without being overwhelming. The food was cooked cleanly and served neatly. Nothing about what I ate made me feel as if I was somehow mistreating my body, and I didn't leave feeling like I should fast for the rest of the day to stave off a coronary blockage. I left well fed and happy to have stopped in. Of course, the next time I stop in I'm definitely going to order the Sunrise Diner Burger, for old time's sake.

Winter Storm Harper: Akron

Man walking up Oakdale to Market St.

     The city of Akron had a plan in place for clearing streets of snow, which worked fine as long as complaints from citizens were pushed aside for the sake of the plan. Major streets were plowed first, then secondary streets. The problem with this plan became clearer and clearer as more and more people found themselves stuck on their streets, on bridges, in valleys, and on hills. It didn't matter if you were on foot, on a bike, car, or bus.

     On Saturday, when the storm was in full force, everyone was calm and understanding. We were told it was gong to be a big storm with huge amounts of snow being dumped right at our doorsteps. We the people did not panic. Our city government and street crews had just as much warning as we did. Most of us had bought extra groceries, bags of street salt, and had our snow shovels at the ready. We assumed our streets would be properly taken care of. We've dealt with storms like this before. We had full confidence in our city government. No one was worried about their ability to get to work come Monday morning.

     We were let down, but most of us believed it when we were told that street crews were doing all they could. In a way, they were. They were doing all they could to clear the streets that were in the plan for clearing streets. Unfortunately not very many streets seemed to be part of that plan.

     The streets where the majority of Akron residents live on were not plowed, some for two days. Half the streets in Akron were not plowed after three days. To add to the frustration of not being able to go to work or to school, of having to dig out ambulances, or having to shovel paths down city streets, or having to wait thirty minutes to an hour for a city bus, some residents had to watch snow trucks drive down their streets with plows raised up and salt spreaders turned off. Sometimes one part of a street would be plowed, but the remainder was left untouched. We felt duped.

     What good was it to maintain West Market Street if East Market Street was an iffy mess? What purpose does it serve to plow major roads if no one can reach them? Who made the strategic decision to keep all residential streets under a cover of snow and ice? Why were we told that everything was okay when it clearly wasn't okay? 

     We went from feeling disappointed to feeling angry when it became apparent to us that we were either being lied to or that the truth was being held from us. We were told to stop whining, to buy better vehicles, to grow up, to get a grip with reality because this is North East Ohio and snow happens, but we were not once told when we would see our streets cleared of snow and ice.

     Our city government has grown so thin skinned it has erased all transparency with this problem, opting for strategic tweets and Facebook posts. The 311 information line we were all funneled through was off line for most of us. The online version crashed. We had no other way of reaching out for help. We resorted to communicating our needs and frustrations, and sometimes our anger through the very same accounts the city used to assuage us and tell us that they were doing everything they could to dig us out.

     We were still trapped in our cars, waiting for the tow truck operators to dig themselves out of the snow. By the time a video of a temporary street employee throwing salt down cup by cup went viral, all pretense was gone. The majority of Akron residents knew their street was not going to be cleared, not under the plan the city was following. We laughed, made sarcastic comments, rolled our eyes and stopped believing anything we were told. 

     After three days of being immobilized, of having friends who lived on clearer streets chastising those living on lesser streets for criticizing and calling out their government, for being bad Akronites, after we perceived clear lines were being drawn around the Haves, while the Have-Nots watched them doing figurative wheelies on their clear streets, after spending hours and hours waiting for even one plow to show itself, we receives a soft reprimand from the city for laughing at the salt thrower, for pointing out how we used that video to express our view of the whole process.

     Some of us got really angry and lashed out, but most of us were over it. We had shoveled our way out of our neighborhoods, and out of every neighborhood we got stuck in on our way to work. We had to. Most of us can't afford to take a snow day off. Many of us would get fired for not showing up at work.

     If the Mayor's Office chooses to communicate with us through social media we have every right to respond to them through those channels. Using public forums allows for public viewing. We could not see the number of phone calls and emails that were sent to the city, but we could see and read the number of complaints on twitter and Facebook. We figured out the street snow removal plan was not working. and we said so. The Mayor works for us. City council members work for us. We are the customers. We needed straight answers and we got standard responses that contradicted what we were experiencing. 

     We did receive an apology, and an an explanation. Great, but it came at a time when it made no difference. The damage to our vehicles and our trust in the city was done. Many of us were too tired to even read it. It was long, and the print was small, and we had street drains to clear. In short, it was too little too late.

     To have the term "Mob Mentality" thrown at us by those who would defend the city's actions for voicing our grievances in public is tactical. It puts us in the wrong and makes our city government look like the victim. Apology notwithstanding. We've had enough.

     As citizens of the city of Akron we have a right to complain about city services that were not rendered. We have a right to be angry. We have a right to raise our voice, a right to be heard. We also have the right to speak up for the good job the street crews did following the city plan. We have the right to defend our city government. We have every right to speak our mind because as of today we don't live in a dictatorship or a totalitarian country.

  

Plow driver helping APS school bus stuck on Palisades Bridge, Thursday, 01/24/2019.

APS school bus stuck on bridge, Thursday, 01/24/2019.