Where Can I Find a Decent, Not Over-the-Top Breakfast Sandwich in San Diego?

Welcome to Ask Eater, a column from Eater San Diego where we answer specific or baffling restaurant requests from readers and friends. Have a question for us? Submit your burning questions and solicit recommendations via email to sandiego@eater.com with the subject line “Ask Eater Question.”

Dear Eater San Diego,

Where can a homeboy get a classic Jersey-style Taylor’s ham, egg, and cheese sandwich? Or even a decent, not over-the-top, breakfast sandwich that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg?

Signed,

The Sandwich Seeker

Hello Sandwich Seeker,

The long-running Giorgino’s in Golden Hill is where to get your Taylor ham fix. The 28th Street spot serves up the New Jersey specialty in three different sandwiches including a classic breakfast sandwich that layers the pork roll with an egg and melted American cheese.

Want to build your own breakfast sandwich with Taylor ham? Grantville’s top-notch butcher shop, Iowa Meat Farms, stocks pre-sliced packages and one-pound rolls of the hickory-smoked and salt-cured Garden State favorite in its deli case.

Candice Woo

As far as tasty breakfast sandwiches that won’t break the bank, we’re partial Rose Donuts in Linda Vista, the friendly, family-run mainstay where locals along with students from the nearby USD campus line up at all hours of the day for breakfast sandwiches built on toasted bread, croissants, or bagels. Variations range from a basic egg and cheese to the Fiesta filled with egg, cheese, bacon, ham, onion, tomato, and jalapeno. For an extra dollar and change, you can make it a combo and score a small drink plus a regular doughnut or six doughnut holes.

Craving a breakfast sandwich that tastes like it came from a New York City bodega? Head over to Normal Heights newcomer Young Cluck, where in addition to morning starters like egg-topped grits and fried chicken and waffles, its menu features a straightforward “baconeggandcheese” consisting of Kaiser roll, scrambled egg, crispy bacon, and American cheese that’s, in their words, “unf*cked with so it reminds you of that 9 months you lasted in Manhattan”.

Happy breakfasting,

Eater San Diego