An English muffin is never the hero of a breakfast sandwich. Too usually, they’re dry and tasteless, valued for his or her capacity to carry little swimming pools of butter relatively than any form of innate taste. That’s why Chaz O’Neill, proprietor of the breakfast cart Dawnbringer that opened in September 2022, determined to good them in pursuit of the perfect breakfast, his favourite meal of the day.
breakfast sandwich, in line with O’Neill, “at all times begins with the bread—and I’ve at all times been disenchanted with English muffins,” he says. That’s why his are the amalgamation of 10 totally different recipes, together with just a little trick he realized from Francisco Migoya, the writer of Modernist Bread, by way of an episode of Martha Stewart. It includes caramelizing grains—on this case, cornmeal—in butter utilizing a stress cooker. He’s since swapped out butter for olive oil to make the muffins appropriate with future vegan-friendly sandwiches, however the impact is similar: a pillowy, craggy, and super-moist English muffin that additionally crisps up properly on the griddle.
Between the buns, combos are wildly inventive. My favourite is the Morning Muffin, which mixes tinned fish, kale, avocado, miso, scallions, cream cheese, and scrambled egg. It’s a refreshing departure from the standard greasy breakfast fare, the miso pairing properly with the fish and the cream cheese balancing out the healthiness of the kale. It’s not simply run-of-the–mill canned fish, both—they’re Matiz sardines in olive oil. A detailed second is the Photo voltaic Sandwich, which fuses O’Neill’s Irish heritage (corned beef) with a Korean avenue snack known as gilgeori toast. Like gilgeori toast, it options an egg patty with shredded cabbage cooked proper into it, and O’Neill’s model subs out the everyday sugar and ketchup topping for maple ketchup. For breakfast purists, the Twilight Tasty is just about your basic meat, scrambled egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich, however with out the conundrum of getting to decide on between bacon and sausage. Every breakfast sandwich runs a budget-friendly $8, which looks like a steal for the standard and parts you’re getting. Final time I finished by, I additionally grabbed the French toast fabricated from English muffins—a surprisingly crackly, toasty rendition topped with corn flakes and grapefruit slices—and a inexperienced smoothie, refreshing and really healthy-tasting with kale, ginger, oat milk, and fruit. Proud Mary espresso, drip or chilly brew, can also be on supply.
Although I discovered no fault within the English muffins, O’Neill continues to be engaged on their subsequent iteration: a pita pocket–meets–English muffin that’ll be simply as fluffy with a toasty inside, however engineered to forestall toppings from spilling out. (That’s additionally why O’Neill prefers scrambled eggs relatively than runny fried eggs, to forestall that yolky goodness from escaping.) Vegetarian and vegan choices are additionally within the works.
With a menu like this, it’s no shock that O’Neill has some spectacular kitchen chops; he went to culinary college on the CIA (Culinary Institute of America), has labored at food-cart-turned-restaurant legend Nong’s, labored at Jacqueline’s now-closed breakfast mission Fairweather, and at present splits his time between the cart and Sweedeedee.
There’s a sure scrappiness to the cart that makes it significantly charming. It’s housed in a blue-and-orange transformed classic camper relatively than a standard cart, and the title Dawnbringer is emblazoned on the menu in typical sprawling metal-band font, designed by native artist Sam Klickner. And Spanish tinned fish apart, there’s nonetheless a utilitarian side to those breakfast sandwiches.
“It’s all about both getting you prepared for the day or repairing you from the earlier night time,” says O’Neill. Whereas the tinned fish sandwich is perhaps a pleasant begin to a busy day, the bacon-and-sausage duo may require a nap afterward; the corned beef and cabbage-egg quantity might go both means. For now, they’re solely accessible Sundays and Mondays from 9 a.m.-2 p.m., however search for Friday and Saturday hours coming quickly.
Dawnbringer, 9 a.m.–2 p.m. Solar–Mon, 3441 N Vancouver Ave, @dawnbringerbreakfast
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