As much as I love chicken wings and beer or cabernet and steak, my favorite meal of the day has always been breakfast (or as I become older and gayer, brunch). When my brother and I were kids, we looked forward to breakfast for dinner almost as much as the customary Friday night pizza at the Dixon Road Pizza Hut in Kokomo before the Wildkats home football or basketball game. Needless to say, it isn’t much of a stretch to state that I always anxiously anticipate the opening of a new breakfast or brunch joint, especially one as close to my hood as Wild Eggs.
Wild Eggs is a Louisville-based small chain of breakfast and lunch restaurants with a little bit of a Kentucky spin on the menu. For example, the Kelsey KY Brown is Wild Eggs’ take on the ubiquitous Kentucky Hot Brown, one of the most repulsive dishes to ever grace a tabletop. (I must state the following disclaimer: while I have lived in Greater Cincinnati for over 20 years, I have never developed a taste for some of the signature regional dishes, i.e. Cincinnati style chili, goetta, or Greater’s Ice Cream.) Luckily for the marketing department, most of the dishes on the menu sound much better than the Kelsey KY Brown. I did say sound though, because in my limited experience, Wild Eggs has a very long way to go to compete with local legends like The Echo and Sugar N’ Spice, not to mention comparable chains such as First Watch.
When I walked into the recently opened Oakley location, situated in the parking lot of the Oakley Kroger Marketplace, for a moment I thought that perhaps construction hadn’t quite wrapped up yet. Or at the very least, the decorator was still on the premises. Lo and behold, I was wrong. If I were to sum up the appearance in one word, I would say chintzy. I totally understand budgetary constraints, but the bigger problem might be the lack of a cohesive theme. I can’t completely put my finger on it, but the oddly placed counter seating with 1950’s style barstools stood out like a sore thumb against the 1980’s color palette. I can forgive an ugly restaurant though if the food is good. It isn’t.
I ordered the “Zax I am Fried Eggs and” which was a basic eggs, potatoes and meat breakfast. You can’t screw that up, right? Wrong. There is no way that the self-proclaimed skillet potatoes came out of a skillet. They were soggy, as if they had either been frozen or perhaps baked, not to mention that they were utterly tasteless. The eggs themselves were fine, but the sausage patty was so rubbery that I could have stretched it like a rubber band. Was it perhaps turkey sausage, which might explain the rubbery texture? I don’t know, but that wasn’t what I ordered. The meal was served with an interesting “Everything” muffin that I did enjoy quite a bit, although I thought that the savory flavor might be better suited to a meal other than breakfast.
Sometimes great service can make up for a lackluster meal, but this wasn’t one of those occasions. My actual server was a very attentive young lady, almost too attentive. I felt like she specifically timed her frequent visits to my table with my every bite, but the bigger problem was someone who appeared to be in a managerial position. When he stopped by my table to check on my dining experience, I kid you not, he leaned over and came within about a foot of my face when he interrogated me. (He didn’t interrogate me, but I was afraid that he might be headed in that direction.) Close talkers make me nervous when I know them. When I don’t, they make me want to run for the hills, which was fine in this instance, because I was more than ready to leave.
Wild Eggs will probably be successful, if not solely because of their high traffic location. That being said, there are so many better places to have a great breakfast (most of them within about a mile of Wild Eggs) that I am fairly certain that I won’t be back. Don’t waste your time either.
What's in Bill's Mouth 