I have a special place in my heart for the breakfast sandwich. Simply put, there’s no better way to start a day than with a good sandwich. It sets your spirit right and sends you into the world sated and ready for anything. A good breakfast sandwich doesn’t need to be complicated, but trying something a little bit more involved can often yield an excellent sandwich. On one recent cloudy morning, while cycling between Venice and Manhattan beaches, I stopped for a bite to eat. The breakfast sandwich at Kevaccino’s seems on the simple end of the spectrum, being listed on the menu board as simply eggs and cheese. An addition of avocado and having the sandwich grilled are offered, and I took advantage of both options. I’m not a man to pass up and avocado, and if you’re not dealing with a roll, toasting or grilling bread for a breakfast sandwich is almost mandatory.

The basics of the sandwich are on point. As you can see in the photo, the sandwich had a substantial amount of scrambled egg, and it was light, fluffy and moist. The cheese was a fine sharp cheddar and there wasn’t too much of it. The grilled was very light, just enough to give the bread a crunch without really trying to brown it. That leaves one remaining hurdle: The avocado. I’m sorry to say that that’s where the sandwich stumbled.Making my way through the first half the sandwich, I gradually came to realize something was not quite right. Peeling open the second half of the sandwich my suspicions were confirmed. What you see above is the entire amount of avocado provided on one half of the sandwich. The first half contained a similar amount. Combined, the two would struggle to equal even half of the most diminutive avocado. The avocado was not a casual “extra peppers” sort of addition to the sandwich. It was a specific option for which I tendered an additional dollar. I can appreciate that a restaurateur operates between thin margins, but what I saw in that sandwich strains the boundaries of what I can accept. I looked down at the second half of that sandwich and I felt cheated. This, I suppose, is the risk in pinning the start of your day to a sandwich. When it goes well, you set off with your best foot forward and greet everyone you meet with a smile and an open heart. If it goes wrong, though, if some charlatan, some rogue takes your money and delivers only the barest pittance of what he has promised, then what faith can you be expected to have in the world at large?