A modern-day diner. Mean, mean stride. Today’s Tom Sawyer. Mean, mean sides… of bacon and whatnot. Because what is a restaurant review without a Rush reference? Especially when reviewing yet another Mark Twain-related diner. Because who doesn’t think of breakfast when they think of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn? I did Google it, and there is no Muff Potter or Injun Joe diner in NJ, but there is a Mark Twain diner. Which I will most definitely have to visit. There’s also not a Geddy Lee diner. At least not in America.
Despite the fantastical name, the diner itself is pretty standard. Which is honestly just fine with me. I mean the architecture on the outside is like 1983 Jersey ostentatious dipwad, but the inside is pretty classic diner. It’s comfortable and aesthetically neutral and feels like it was properly renovated and cleaned in this decade. All things that make for a somewhat generic, but very familiar experience. The case full of cookies nobody has ever bought ever. The pie with the three-foot mound of meringue. The wooden tables with the five-inch-thick layer of waterproof polyurethane that only exist in Jersey diners. It sounds like the diner has been around and family-owned since 1974, which feels just about right.
So, I went for my usual. A cheddar cheese omelette with home fries and rye toast. It’s pretty much what I order at all new diners. And most old diners I’ve been to 1,000 times. Mostly to just compare one to another. And this one was solid. You’d be amazed how some places can screw up eggs. Or make an omelette look super-sad. Nope, this joint knows how to whisk and fold and put the proper amount of cheddar in that fluffy blanket. It looked pleasing and tasted the same. I do like my home fries a little more well-done — with that crunchy layer up top — but these were decent and didn’t have any green pepper nonsense. Rye toast is almost impossible to make bad, and their’s was no different.
I was a little concerned that because of the location on a busy road in Paramus — which I automatically think of as less neighborhood-y and more people-be-shoppin’ — that the prices would be high and the service more commerce and less people-focused. But the prices actually weren’t terrible and our server was extremely pleasant and friendly. As if we were regulars despite it being out first visit. And, yes, Paramus is a shopping hub filled with stores and malls and a very large Ikea that people from all over flock to to buy disposable furniture, but there is a place where everyone from Tom Sawyer to Mr. Hipster can have a breakfast adventure.
98 E Ridgewood Ave. – Paramus
201/262-0111
tomsawyerdiner.com
