Sunday, in spite of universal decline of religious fervour, has preserved its peculiarly Christian renown not only as a day “of rest” but also as a day of “driving about”. Our project this morning in keeping with that inviolable tradition was breakfast at Neat Café (Mark Enright, Prop) on Calabogie Road in Burnstown, Renfrew County. Upon arriving at the café it was readily apparent that the Enright bloodline insinuates the place. And that is a good thing. Mark is by and large an entertainment and hospitality agent (music, food and hotelier); and, he has forever appropriately distinguished himself as affable and embracing. His sylphlike youngest daughter has apparently inherited that objective strength in addition to the familial good looks.
But it is neither the congeniality nor the canoodling which foremost characterize Neat Café in my opinion. Rather I am one enthralled only by quality and ineffability. In short, the food and service are superlative! As one who is strictly devoted to consumption not production, I shall not venture to describe the delicacy of the menu. Instead I shall observe only that the creation, volume, variety, authenticity, nutrition, preparation, cooking and presentation – not to mention the taste – elevate the meal within the café ambience (and without distorting or needlessly enlarging the dynamic) to a heightened and uncommon degree of triumph. Oh, and the espresso is unqualified perfection! I recommend the investigation of the whole if you have not already done so. Neat Café is an assuredly comfortable and restorative rural outing. Don’t let the singularity of the menu dissuade you. Each of the meais is calculated to enliven you. And while the nutrition is most certainly lacking in anything which might customarily be considered circus food, there is ample resort for those of us who occasionally wish to indulge ourselves – and it’s all homemade. The Breakfast Cookie is a delight!
There are a number of possibilities for the drive from Almonte to Burnstown. Depending upon how circuitous one wishes to be the drive can easily absorb from 45 minutes to 1 hour and 15 minutes. In every instance except one, the passage is along winding country roads, up and down hills through villages and extensive farm land. Whatever way one wishes to go it is nothing to see cows and horses grazing. The agricultural theme in both Lanark County and Renfrew County is predominant.
It was with unabashed pleasure too that I welcomed this morning’s evolution of Christmas music. Sirius XM has been overtaken my Christmas music of every description, whether Handel classics, Mantovani schmaltz, country music or rock. I know there are many who pretend (or feign) to dissemble the Christmas spirit (or its putative commercial overtones). Yet the music, like Sunday, is for me an incontrovertible alliance which I have never abandoned from the earliest days of my youth when my sister and I would sometimes begin preparing for our Christmas pageant in July.