LAist's Elina's Top 10 Places (I Liked) to Eat Breakfast in Los Angeles in 2006

photo by hexod.us via Flickr.

I know I'm a little late jumping on the bandwagon of year-end Top 10 lists, but if there's one thing that never goes out of style, it's food.

10. Foxy's
206 W Colorado St. at Central Ave., Glendale
Any place that puts all my favorite things into one omelette (bacon, avocado, onions, tomatoes) as a standard dish on their menu can't go wrong.

9. Rodeo Grill
1721 W. Sunset Blvd. at Echo Park Ave., Silverlake/Echo Park
I love this little Mexican greasy spoon where you get beans and tortilla chips alongside your breakfast. They also have awesomely cheap weekday breakfast specials.

8. Nick's
8536 W. Pico Blvd. at La Cienega, Fairfax District
This is my little local greasy spoon, so I am partial to it partly for its vast menu and low prices, partly for its ambience.

7. Doughboys
8136 W. 3rd St. at Crescent Heights Blvd., West Hollywood
I like the hash, the toad-in-the-hole, various scrambles and many of the baked goods from this delicious, rich

6. Griddle Café
7916 Sunset Blvd. at Fairfax, West Hollywood
Free refills on pitchers of mimosas earn The Griddle the award for Best Place to Get Drunk Before 2pm on a Sunday. You can expect a 1-2 hour wait, but the breakfast menu is wild and varied, full of weird, wonderfully gluttonous offerings, and the portions are ginormous .

photo by erinsikorskystewart via Flickr.

5. Rae's Diner
2901 Pico Blvd. at 29th St., West L.A./Santa Monica
Another surprisingly good greasy spoon. The Eggs Benedict here are as good as the Eggs Benedict at most fancy-schmancy places, but at Rae's they cost half the price. There's a bit of a wait on weekends but it's worth it for the ambience and low prices. Check out Quentin Tarantino's True Romance for a scene where Patricia Arquette and Christian Slater first meet; it’s set at Rae's.

4. (formerly) Highland Grounds/ (soon to be) The Dive
742 N. Highland Ave. at Melrose, Hollywood
I've already written about the awesome-ness of Highland Grounds and my favorite dishes: chilaquiles, the HHS Blues Burrito, the Chipotle scramble, the Benedict Arnold (a uniquely Angeleno take on the traditional Eggs Benedict with two eggs resting on corn bread instead of English muffins and covered with Jack cheese, enchilada sauce, sour cream and pico de gallo instead of Hollandaise) and the Desayuno Fuerte (potato pancakes topped with eggs, sauteed spinach, garlic, onion, tomato and Parmesan cheese).

3. Millie's
3524 W. Sunset Blvd. at Maltman Ave., Silverlake
Those homemade biscuits rock as do the scrambles made with cream cheese and scallions.

2. Auntie Em's Kitchen
4616 Eagle Rock Blvd. at York Blvd., Eagle Rock
Oh sweet goddamn! The best Cobb salad in Los Angeles? Quite possibly. But all the breakfast (and lunch) items are wonderful from the eggs to the sandwiches to the salads to the cupcakes. I like the we're-just-a-bunch-of-artists-who-run-a-café-as-a-side-project vibe.

1. Square One
4854 Fountain Ave. at Vermont, Hollywood
Absolutely, hands down the best bacon in Los Angeles but not for that reason alone does Square One win the #1 spot on my list. Every single thing I or anyone I have been with has EVER eaten here has been delicious. They serve bacon-infused caramel sauce, for god's sake. Life doesn’t get any better than that?

Honorable Mention:
Tacos Delta (Silverlake/Echo Park) -- for the chilaquiles
Loteria (West Hollywood) -- also for the chilaquiles
Café Figaro (Los Feliz) -- for the crepes
House of Pies (Los Feliz) -- for the coffee cake
Rockenwagner (Santa Monica) -- too spendy to go often but so tasty the last time I went
Masa (Silverlake/Echo Park) -- just because I had fun there
Allegria (Silverlake/Echo Park) -- also because I had fun there
Du-par's (West Hollywood, Studio City & Thousand Oaks) -- for the donuts
Empress Pavillion (downtown) -- for the dim sum
Nate 'n Al's (Beverly Hills) -- there's nothing like pastrami scrambled into your eggs
Beard Papa's (Hollywood) -- why wait till dessert to have cream puffs? These things are a meal unto themselves