There are few better ways to spend a Saturday morning than indulging in unnecessary amounts of breakfast classics at a diner. Let’s be honest, it is hard to go wrong with bacon, pancakes and loaded om­elets. So when I heard rumor that Purple Salamander (10 East Main St, Morrisville, NY) serves one of the best breakfasts around, there was no questioning that was where I wanted to be Saturday morning.

After a short 10-minute drive, two of my friends and I excitedly jumped out of the car and scampered towards the giant purple salamander hanging over the door of the restaurant. Once inside, we seated our­selves and admired the huge mural covering the entire wall. Forgetting that we are in college and not five -year-olds, we pointed out to each other our favor­ite salamanders playing in the painting. This game did not last long, as the waitress soon handed us our menus and we began scanning all of the options as fast as we could read.

One of my friends ordered two classic breakfast sta­ples, blueberry pancakes and a side of homefries. The smaller-sized plain pancakes were covered in small blue­berries that we speculated were from Maine. However, she did not describe these pancakes as light and fluffy. Although they were not heavy, the difficult to describe texture can only be explained as being moist and almost smooth. She did not find these to be the best pancakes she has ever eaten, but they got the job done.

In keeping with my trend last week of trying half the menu, my other friend and I ordered an unlabeled dish that was comprised of French toast, white toast, a pan­cake, bacon, sausage patties and homefries. We both had similar critiques of the dish. As mentioned above, the tex­ture of the pancakes was hard to describe, but faired well under a generous pool of syrup. The homefries were kind of run-of-the-mill and moderately seasoned. However, the sausage patties were strongly seasoned and did not disappoint. My friend and I struggled to make an assessment of the French toast. My first reaction was that it was a good bread selection that was sturdy enough to uphold the weight of the eggs and syrup, but some­thing was missing: cinnamon. I have never had French toast that was not made with cin­namon, and its absence greatly diminished my affinity for this French toast. Though the other breakfast attendees argued that this is not necessarily in all versions of the dish. Fur­thermore, we felt that the bread could have been soaked in the egg a little bit longer as the final product was too dry for our taste. Lastly, we both agreed that the bacon was not at the ideal crispiness.

Our overall impression of the Purple Sala­mander is that it was good, but not impres­sive. The service was quick, friendly and at­tentive. At any point in the meal, I do not think a single person successfully drank even half of their coffee before the waitress returned to refill the cup. We all ate substantial amounts of food to say the least, though none of the well-priced items stood out to us. This may be attributed to the fact that we walked into the restaurant excited with high expectations or it may speak to the wide variety of personal preferences for the meal. I guess this is one of those examples where no one can compete with mom’s home cooked food made with love.