Cracker Barrel (outside Philadelphia)

Whenever I go on a road trip, I like to plot the route such that I pass by a Cracker Barrel.  My recent trip to Philly was no exception; I stopped by Cracker Barrel for breakfast directly before heading into Philly.  (Sadly, though it was a Friday and I’ve been seriously impressed with their Friday Fish Fry in the past, it was too early for them to fry me up some fish… boo…)  I opted for the Sunrise Sampler, which includes: two eggs your way, grits, sawmill gravy, biscuits, butter, fried apples, hashbrown casserole, smoked sausage, country ham and thick sliced bacon… Yes I did.  It was only $7.39!!!  At least I didn’t opt for the Grandpa’s Country Fried Breakfast (so tempting) which would include the above plus my choice of chicken fried chicken or country fried steak, for only an additional 40c (minus the fried apples).  I am sooo glad I don’t live within 5 minutes of a Cracker Barrel (one of my favoritest blog buddies does, hi Jenn!) – I would gain about 20 more pounds…

I stupidly opted to have my eggs poached.  Stupidly because I really should just give up and order my eggs sunny side up or even over easy because those are harder to mess up… I think.  I was surprised, to say the least, to see my poached eggs arrive in little dishes with a lot of the poaching liquid.  Clearly, they use a machine/mold to poach… and these were overcooked.  Sigh.  Ah well, the hashbrown casserole was tasty per usual, and the sugar ham (NOT country ham), bacon, sausage were all pretty damn tasty.  Nommed up. 

Dipping my biscuits into the gravy, I whispered to myself, “This is why you’re a fat b*” and continued eating.  As long as I know why, right?  So good!  In the bowl on the right is grits, which were horribly bland, but a touch of salt, a swirl of butter, and

a dab of this apple butter, which was crazy delectable… made the grits absolutely amazing.  Salty, sweet, all at the same time… so good.  I gobbled it all up happily… nommm. 

The fried apples, I only ate a little bit because that isn’t really my thing, but they were good – if you like that sort of thing. 

Yvo says: I love Cracker Barrel.  It’s super cheap, super tasty, and the staff is super friendly, too.  Though my food kind of took a long time that day (which might explain the eggs being overcooked – if they sat there for a while, they’d continue cooking!), I will continue to go out of my way a bit just to go to Cracker Barrel, since it’s hearty, delicious, cheap, and fun – the country store attached has a ton of stuff to browse, and they even had a ‘porch sale’ going on that day, 70% off everything outside; I scored a book on tape for about $4.  Whee! 
super recommended for road trip stops; forget McDonald’s or any rest stop ‘restaurants’ this is where you want to go!