After spending so much time stalking lunch and dinner, I decided to get some dirt on breakfast, too. There are a million different places that sell coffee, bagels, muffins, and donuts, and each one has a group of die hard fans. So I spent several weeks checking out different breakfast stops during my early-morning activities, and here’s what I found.
Dunkin’ Donuts in Upton was pretty good. I ordered a jelly donut, which was a little under-filled, but delicious nonetheless. My drink was pretty complicated: a half-hot chocolate, half-coffee iced coffee with three creams and mocha syrup. Joe Scott in Upton is the absolute master of this drink: he cools the hot chocolate before he mixes it in, so the ice doesn’t melt and make the coffee soupy.
I was pretty tired of McDonald’s, but I’ve heard good things about their new coffee, so I stopped by one near Darien, Connecticut for breakfast. The pancakes, though microwaved, tasted sweet and fluffy, especially with syrup. The hash brown, a McDonald’s specialty, was crispy, salty, and warm. The coffee, however, was bitter and needed a lot more cream.
I made sure to include Starbucks in Bellingham, though I had to visit in the mid-afternoon. I bought a lime cheesecake; the filling was slimy and messy and the crust tasted stale. My caramel macchiato had way too much caramel and not enough cream. It was too strong and the caramel kept getting caught in the straw, and then I would get a huge mouthful of it.
Tim Horton’s is a little less popular than some of my other stops, but still a good bet for breakfast. I visited the one in Mystic, Connecticut. Their coffee comes in unique flavors like butter caramel and English toffee; I got a butter caramel iced coffee with cream, and it tasted smooth, sweet, and creamy. The staff was helpful and polite. When I entered, the woman at the counter complimented me on my shirt, and she let me taste one of their sour cream iced Tim Bits for free. She recommends that flavor, and so do I; it had a unique rich, sugary taste.
Finally, I checked out one of my favorite places in the whole world: The Little Coffee Bean. It is a local coffee shop with locations in Upton and Whitinsville; I went to the one in Upton around seven times over the course of my investigation. Their bagels taste home-made, and they have a huge variety of flavors, including egg and sunflower seed. My favorites are cream cheese on a blueberry or chocolate chip and sausage, egg, and cheese on a sourdough or cinnamon raisin. The breakfast sandwiches are made fresh on a grill, not prepackaged and microwaved. My favorite coffees are hot or iced chocolate cappuccino and iced cinnamon sticky bun, and they just introduced an extra, extra large so you can drink even more! My only criticism is that I wish they stayed open longer because I really crave coffee in the afternoon as well as the morning.
If you are a true coffee connoisseur, you should head to The Little Coffee Bean, where the food and the coffee were both spectacular. If you’re not in the central Mass area though, Dunkin’ and Tim Horton’s are the next best choice. Starbucks is more expensive than the other options, but the coffee, food, and service were actually worse; I would probably avoid it in the future. McDonald’s had delicious food, but terrible coffee. Next time, I’ll just order their orange juice.
Starbucks: **
McDonald’s: ***
Dunkin’ Donuts: ****
Tim Horton’s: ****
Little Coffee Bean: *****
