Totally Unauthorized

Okay, this is a quick post with no photos.  I would have pictures, but we stopped on a whim and I didn’t have the camera with me.  I should know better.

Black Bear Diner, on Bancroft near Treat in Walnut Creek, is not fancy.  It isn’t pretentious.  It isn’t glossy.  It’s good down home food, huge portions and friendly service.

We stopped for lunch, but since they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner at any hour I was enticed by the breakfast.  I chose the Volcano, which is three pancakes, three eggs, two sausage and two strips of bacon.  With Iced tea, of course.

This was the largest plate of food I can remember.  The pancakes are enormous–10 inches across and half an inch thick.  The three eggs barely covered half the hotcakes.  There were two tiny pitchers of syrup, and they weren’t really enough.  The sausage was nothing special, the iced tea was just what I wanted: plain, cold, iced tea.

I wanted my bacon very soft, because that’s the way mother made it and I grew up with it that way.  Sadly, the softest you can order bacon is still incinerated and stiff.  These people should come to my house for breakfast to see how it’s done.

Gail had a Reuben sandwich, and it, too was quite large, served on marble rye bread and accompanied by a ton of properly cooked fries.  She doesn’t really like places like the Black Bear, but there we were.  The sandwich was OK, it seems, but it needed more sauerkraut.

Black Bear is a western chain of about 50 restaurants.  It’s very friendly and down-homey; not the place to go for your anniversary dinner but not bad for lunch or a humungous breakfast.