I mostly order tomato and feta melettes, grilled cheese, chef’s salads, BLTs, club sandwiches, hot turkey sandwiches and rice pudding. Egg creams in NYC.
What do you like to order the most?
At breakfast it’s usually either an omelette or CFS (but only if they make from scratch and not a food service pack pre-breaded ‘meat puck’). Hash browns on the side are a must. For lunch, it’s a toss-up between a BLT and a burger, with fries.
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For adult me, a diner equals breakfast. Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and coffee hit the spot.
When I was a kid, I would frequent the Woolworth’s lunch counter with my grandma. She’d have a BLT and coffee, and I would get a grilled cheese.
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Full English breakfast - that’s bacon, sausage, black pudding, fried egg, mushrooms, baked beans & toast. In the words of the late Hovis Presley “It’s almost a meal in itself, really”.
Later in the day, slice of tiffin or millionaires shortbread.
Posh cafe - scone & jam
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Greasy Spoon
Bacon & egg or sausage & egg bap/sandwich with HP sauce.
Bubble & squeak, two fried eggs, grilled tomatoes and bacon .
Double egg & chips.
Builders tea to drink, never coffee.
Slightly posh cafe in the afternoon. A slice Victoria sponge cake and a pot of tea.
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Breakfast…Eggs Benedict, Hollandaise on the side, unless I know its home made (and good) ham, hash, crab cakes or lobster.
Lunch is a club sandwich or maybe a smash burger, both with fries
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Diff favs at diff diners
Coffee
Hot oatmeal
Hashbrown scramble
Grilled tomato and cheese sandwich
BLT triple decker sandwich
Pork roll and egg sandwich
Hamburger/fries
Reuben
Meatloaf/mashed potatoes smothered in gravy
Gyro
Barley soup
Rice pudding
Sweet potato pie
ETA: I have a real fondness for a diners buttered, toasted rye and coffee while on the road working when I was too spent to eat a real meal but could count on a simple toast plate to heal me fast.
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I loved the Russell Davies’s Eggs Bacon Chip and Beans blog. I was ordering that when I visited England, for a while.
I switched to my comparative study of meatful and meatless Full English and Full Irish breakfasts in 2013, after my trip to Ireland included distinct Full Irish breakfasts at 4 beautiful hotels.
When I’m in the UK ( haven’t been back to Ireland since my first trip), I usually order Full English, or Kedgeree when I see it, or something I have never tried before (I tried an Arnold Bennett Omelette at a fancy place once) and occasionally a Full Turkish. 
From our current one (Leo’s, Main St. Waltham, MA,) - bagel and lox, omelette, egg sandwich, BLT (add blue cheese and avocado), or burger plate. Club sandwiches are also solid and use the all important heavy mayo.
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A new cafe in the village does the Full Kurdish. A cousin of the Turkish.
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The kind of cousins that don’t like one another.
When I was at a restaurant for lunch in Anatolia almost 30 years ago, I had a friendly waiter. He made a point of letting us know he was in fact Kurdish, not Turkish.
(I had good service experiences at all the restaurants I visited in Turkey.)
Indeed. We were in a restaurant in Hereford the other week. Food was a sort of generic Eastern Mediterranean - not completely Turkish, not completely Lebanese. We got chatting to the manager and I asked if he was Turkish. He replied, with something of an edge to his voice, that he was from Turkey but wasnt Turkish. Kurdish, of course.
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At US diners, hash browns are a requirement for me. Here, most places don’t serve them anymore. Home fries just don’t appeal.
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Reminded of breakfasting alone at a small town diner. Climbed onto a stool at the counter, ordered two poached eggs on rye toast. The harried fry-cook turned around and scanned the crowd to see what dingbat had thrown the wrench into his heretofore smoothly meshing cogs. Took a long time as he assembled a pan of water, found the rye bread and so on. Was fine when it came but I got the definite feeling that I was not his favorite customer that day.
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Nyc diners: always chicken noodle soup and BLT.
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BLT if I’m traveling and unsure about the place. Kinda of hard to screw up a BLT although I’ve experienced it once. On that note, hard to screw up bacon and eggs, so that’s an option.
If I know the place then I’ll order something I know. Instead of Eggs Benedict, I order Eggs Blackstone, a variation with bacon and a tomato instead of Canadian bacon. A few places locally serve it. Not that hard of a substitute if they serve Eggs Benedict.
I like hash browns but it depends on the place. I really dislike loose HB that aren’t browned. Prefer if they’re browned with a crush with a soft middle, usually an inch high.
If a place looks decent and or crowded, or I see it ordered and it looks good, might order a chicken fried steak.
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Club sandwich, liver and onions(and bacon) BLT, Coconut cream pie(if made in house) B&E’s or pancakes at breakfast, open face hot turkey sandwich, fries and gravy.
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Unless the B is all limp and NOT COOKED. Bleah.
For my diner meals, breakfast could be 2 eggs, over easy, well toasted toast, home fries (Vic’s Waffle House in my town makes GREAT home fries!), bacon (BACON!) and fresh OJ if they have it (Vic’s does!). Plus cawfee. Seriously, diner coffee is almost always good.
OR waffles…or pancakes…or French Toast.
For a lunch, it would have to be a burger, if I’ve seen someone else get a burger and it’s a nice thick patty where it can actually be cooked medium-rare. And French fries (crispy on the outside, pillowy soft on the inside).
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Breakfast sandwich! I’m a bacon, egg, and cheese person (provolone if I can get it) on a grilled English muffin. Diner heaven.
When I get to my preferred breakfast cafe, my order is a wrap filled with perfectly cooked scrambled eggs, avocado, a bacon slice, and chipotle aioli. But that’s the only place where such a breakfast sandwich is on the menu.
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Breakfasts:
Chicken-fried steak & eggs
Loco moco
Corned beef hash
Country Benedict
Ham steak
(Occasionally) Pancakes
Pie
Lunches & dinners:
Seafood baskets
Club sandwich
Burgers
Steak salad
Chili or chowder
