We tried a place claiming to have ‘the best’ breakfast in Columbus. Our review
I’ve always found some of the best food you’ll have will come from the most unexpected places. Growing up, my family and I were no strangers to gas station restaurants throughout Alabama and Georgia.
Each gas station restaurant had food that would put traditional restaurants to shame. I ate at gas station restaurants from Enterprise in Alabama to Blakely in Georgia.
Looks can be deceiving, and delicious food may just be waiting for you in the most unlikely places — such as a convenience store at 1465 54th St., claiming to have the best breakfast in Columbus.
We decided to see whether the claim is true. So Ledger-Enquirer visual journalist Mike Hakey and I hopped in my truck one morning last week and tasted some food at Express Market for ourselves.
What we ordered at Express Market in Columbus
The food comes in convenient styrofoam cups, perfect for eating on the go. The menu is limited, but they seem to have mastered making what they serve.
I ordered the sausage link biscuit, the cheese grits and the biscuit and gravy, and I grabbed a white Monster energy drink from one of the coolers. Mike ordered the cheese grits with link sausage and a plain biscuit.
As we drove back to the office, the smell from the bag of food filled my truck with wonderful aromas of smoked sausage, freshly baked dough and peppery gravy.
Our review of the Express Market breakfast in Columbus
Now, I don’t typically eat breakfast foods at the time they’re supposed to be eaten. However, I may have to start eating breakfast in the morning after how good the food tasted.
The biscuit was soft and flaky, the sausage tasted smoky and well seasoned, and the sausage wasn’t greasy, which happens often in sausage biscuits.
The cheese grits were perfectly smooth with no lumps. They also were perfectly buttered and salted, and the cheese blended in nicely with the grits.
I’m reminded of a quote from My Cousin Vinny, in which a witness says, “No self-respecting Southerner uses instant grits.” With how delicious these were, I doubt these were instant grits.
Last but not least, the biscuit and gravy sent me back to my childhood, waking up in the morning to my mother’s made-from-scratch biscuits covered with sausage gravy. The Express Market’s sausage gravy was delicious, with thick pieces of sausage throughout the gravy.
It was peppery, creamy and slightly smoky in flavor. The biscuit, buried beneath the mountain of gravy, still was flaky and soft without becoming mushy.
Now, as someone who hasn’t sampled all the breakfasts Columbus has to offer, I can’t definitively say whether this is the best breakfast in town.
However, I can say this is one of the best breakfasts I’ve had in a long time — and it’d be hard to beat.
