Norma J's

9:20 - 9:56 am

Setting the Scene

Be ready when pulling up to Norma J's for a very small parking lot that makes you feel like you are trespassing on the houses behind the diner. We were even beeped at for pulling in slowly which should have been our first indicator this was going to be an eventful visit. Norma J's is one little room with a row full of booths and counter seating. Imagine an old western movie when the new guy walks into a bar and everyone turns and looks before returning to their drinks. 

It felt like we were the new guys walking into a completely full diner of regulars. We had to wait for a table (which has never happened before) and the interactions to get our table felt pretty uncomfortable (due to lack of acknowledgement of our existence from the waitresses). The wait for our table was actually longer than waiting for our food. Both waitresses were on the older side and sounded like they smoked a pack day. Norma J's felt like there was a secret code in order to navigate the restaurant. Unfortunately, we clearly did not know the code.

Different orders for both of us this morning. The menu was on a whiteboard behind the counter and it only had diner basics. 

Bethany

I got my classic decaf and water to drink. I had to wait for the decaf but I will never complain because it means I got a fresh cup from a fresh pot. It was a decent diner decaf and the water was not chlorinated. Win win. With no breakfast wrap option, I got two eggs over easy with pork roll, home fries and white toast. It was a lot of food for a good price. The home fries were big chunks of potatoes that are deep fried making them very crispy on the outside. My eggs were a little under but that's what happens when you order over easy. You never know how done the egg whites are going to be so next time I would have to get over medium. The toast was really good. The butter on it was nice and salty and made it delicious. The pork roll was cut super thin but needed some extra time on the grill to get more brown.

Benjamin

This is the first place that didn't have eggs benedict which was only bound to happen at some of the smaller mom and pop places. So I got another stereotypical thing for me to get which was corned beef hash with some sunny-side up eggs and hash browns which also came with some white toast. The butter on the toast made it. It's like that perfect salty-grease that hits just right. The eggs were almost underdone where they had a good amount of the goop on top. I don’t mind that, but some people (like Bethany) would. They were still excellent. The corned beef hash was pretty tasty. I really enjoyed mixing my order up a bit and getting something a little different.

The home fries were good, but it's hard to call them home fries. They're definitely deep fried, which made them probably objectively more crunchy than most. They were closer to french fries than home fries in every way except the shape. The orange juice was pretty standard. Nothing to complain about there.

Great bang for your buck for non-socially anxious people