Tasty Beach Cafe: Breakfast Runs Until Four on Royal Palm Avenue

Quarter past nine on a Wednesday, and the loudest thing on this stretch of Royal Palm Avenue is the steam wand. A cinnamon bun the size of a fist sits under malted milk cream cheese frosting on the counter, and the woman ahead in line is asking whether the shakshuka is very spicy today. It is slightly spicy; the menu says so itself, and the answer from behind the counter comes back the same way every morning. Out at the covered tables, two men in scrubs from Mount Sinai are working through egg wraps without taking their badges off. The cafe sits a few steps north of the 41st Street corner, the first storefront past the junction, two blocks from Beth Israel Congregation. This is Tasty Beach Cafe at the hour it does its best work.

The menu runs to one hundred and thirty five items across three cards, and the kitchen is honest about which one matters. Beside the Egg Harvest Wrap, eighteen dollars, the menu prints its own verdict: "Our most popular breakfast item!" Three eggs go into the pan soft, American cheese melts through them, soy bacon and the house breakfast potatoes fold in, and the whole thing is rolled into a spinach wrap with a cup of Tasty salsa alongside. It is not a delicate dish. It is a dish built to be eaten quickly at a table you will leave in twenty minutes, and it is engineered accordingly.