I do well on sofas: brunch at TOAST

Last weekend, I had the joy of hosting a great friend here in Fire City; we'll call her Curly Beast. Curly Beast was scheduled to fly in at 10pm on a Friday, out at 9am on the Monday following, and since Sunday was already relegated to a full-day journey to our youth at Disneyland, we really just had about 24hrs to see the sights. Believe you me, we hit the ground running.

Friday night straight from the aeroport, we met up with my boyz and partied til early morning, and though the Tanqueray in our veins (er, livers) told us to stay on the down-low, we woke up that hazy Saturday needing good eats. No time like post-booze time to try the mid-town brunchy hotspot, TOAST.

Despite Toast's mid-high ratings online (where its reviews OFTEN involved LOTS of caps, evidently to communicate only the highest order of TRUE LOVE), I was still a notch skeptical. There were rumors of celebrity sightings, long lines and longer waits that smacked of nightclubs I tend to avoid. But the eyebrows of everyone to whom I tentatively revealed our tentative plans earlier in the week went skyward in appreciation once I uttered the name of the restau. And then their eyes would widen, their mouths would drop open and they would speak in all caps: "Oh, I LOVE Toast. You'll LOVE Toast. You should DEFINITELY eat AT TOAST."

It was like hypnosis. And so we ate at Toast.

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY TOAST IS WORTH ALL THE HYPE
1. Exterior decor - outside, there are uncovered tables, tables under canopies, tables almost dumping into the street--but not in a bad way. And yeah, there is a long line but it clumps so happily between all these tables, it's less akin to a bouncer's nightmare than to a bunch of kids trying to see into a candy shop. Cute.
2. Interior decor - the chair situation inside varies from barstools and long-legged round tables to your standard connect-four to comfy, earthy-colored couches with low coffee tables buckled against them. It feels like your living room, if your living room were a cafe.
3. Wait staff - Friendly, jovial, helpful and knowledgeable about all the food--and not in a "please tip me" way, but as if they're your friends. Or my friends. They're not your friends. They're mine.
4. The egg scrambles.
3. The omelettes.
4. The never-ending hot coffee.
5. The generous fruit salad.

'Cause shouldn't eating be about the food?

the restaurant: http://www.toastbakerycafe.net/
(But early warning: arrive before 11am, or you might get so hungry waiting, you end up eating your arm before you get a table)