Destination Dining: The Mecca

      Last weekend, the legendary Mecca Restaurant opened one block from where we live in Lakewood, relocating from its prior home in North Dallas where it had proudly been serving breakfast all day for the last 74 years.  I had heard of the Mecca, of course, but never traveled across town to eat there.  I think my waistline and blood pressure would be healthier if it had stayed put.

The Old Sign At Its New Home.





      As featured on the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives, the Mecca's claim to fame is their "freshly baked all day" home-made cinnamon roll. As we ordered our late Sunday breakfast we added one of the cinnamon rolls.  I must have looked surprised when our waitress asked us if we wanted it before our meal, because she quickly added "most folks want to eat it first while they still have room for it."  We opted to save it for a rare breakfast dessert course.



The Roll That Ate Manhattan



     After finishing delicious home-made corned beef hash, two perfectly fried eggs, and a huge doughy biscuit with somewhat bland sausage gravy, our waitress brought out the star of the show.  We gasped at the size of it, swimming in butter on a 9-inch dinner plate. It had to be 8 inches long, 7 inches wide and 6 inches high.  The lady with a family of 4 next to me at the counter goggled at it as well and said to me under her breath, "I hope you're planning on sharing that with the rest of us."

     I cut that monster in half and placed a portion on my companion's plate.  The warm, cinnamon fragrance wafting up from the plate was intoxicating.  I muttered something about only having a couple of bites, but moments later that plate was clean.  I swallowed the last of my coffee and waddled over to the cashier.  I was having trouble focusing and I said something to her about going into a coma and she politely asked me not to do it there.  We somehow stumbled home and immediately fell into a post Thanksgiving Dinner-like sleep which lasted 2 hours.  I am not, ordinarily, a napper.

     I totalled up my  intake and logged the over 2,000 calories I had just consumed in my www.fitday.com on-line calorie counter and exercise journal.  (It takes much attention to detail to look this god-like at my advanced age.)  Clearly this meal would be my only one of the day and thankfully, I went to bed at 10 PM still full.  For purely aesthetic and longevity reasons I don't intend to make the Mecca a regular stop on my restaurant rounds.  But one day that cinnamon roll and I shall meet again.