I don’t spend much time travelling. Being that I was on Long Island (yes, on Long Island) to attend my cousin Joe’s surprise birthday party and deliver a surprise of my own to my cousin Dan, I had to eat breakfast somewhere the next morning before hitting the road.

Everywhere you turn, there is a diner in the vicinity of Oceanside, NY, where we stayed. We decided to stop at a place that was adjacent to a gas station on our way out of time to facilitate exit from the island. We stopped at a place called the Golden Reef Diner located at 329 Sunrise Highway in Rockville Centre, NY.

It’s pretty standard; nothing on the menu really jumped out at me, except the prices. I forgot I was in the New York City vicinity, so the prices were a buck or two more than I am accustomed to, nothing crazy or anything, though.

One thing I noted immediately upon sitting down was that it’s pretty cool that, when you order water, they serve the lemon on the side instead of putting a potentially bacteria laden piece of lemon in a relatively sterile glass of ice water.

Two guesses at what I ordered…

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At least the portions scaled with the prices, which was a sigh of relief.

They serve the typical canned corned beef hash, which they grilled on a flattop to obtain a moderate crust on the hash. The scrambled eggs were also cooked on the flattop griddle and were beautifully fluffy. They were well-seasoned; however, I always add a little extra salt to my scrambled eggs. The hash brown potatoes were also quite crispy, just the way I (and everybody should) like them.

I got dry wheat toast with a whole bunch of jelly and a humongous gob of butter on the side.

This breakfast set me back a little over $10 before tip. I’d say that was moderate. It was a successful breakfast after a wonderful weekend of birthdays, automobile transportation, and THE WORST DAY OF MY LIEEEEEEEEFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now…

Remember how I said “nothing on the menu really jumped out at me”? Well, I stand by that, but, as I walked out, I noticed the pastry case. In my experience with other diners, these cases are usually filled with mediocre looking individually cellophane wrapped pastries and donuts as well as dreary looking pies. Well, the pastries at this place looked amazing. You’re gonna have to take my word for it since I didn’t snap any pictures, but they had cupcakes bigger than my head (and I have a big f*ckin head). The pies were plentiful. There were brownies that were dripping with chocolate ganache, cookies loaded with chocolate chips, marshmallows, and nuts, things I’ve never seen before my eyes. I sadly didn’t take any pastries to go, but I should have.

MORE derryX Dines!!!!!