West Hartford Week: Goldberg's

One might get the impression we aren't fans of West Hartford. One wouldn't be entirely mistaken. With it's lily white population, businesses carefully tailored to liberal upper-middle (and upper) class sensibilities hocking overpriced items no one needs, and outside shopping area that feels as genuine as The Bachelor contestants, West Hartford provides more than enough fodder for even the most amateur of jesters to poke fun at.

An "Irish pub" with gleaming wood an electronic clock counting down to the six month mark of St. Patty's Day? A plate of pork tacos for $22? Hell, at least the inside of The Cheesecake Factory looks like a Temple of Doom Epcot ride. It's all very, very authentic.



Yet for all the easily mocked things in West Hartford, there is a lot of really cool stuff in our neighbor city (town?) This is a week to look at some of our favorites. For all the silliness can encompass West Hartford, there's one thing that can't be applied to Hartford that draws us to our neighbor to the west.

Sanity.

West Hartford doesn't have any weekends where 10 people get shot. One can walk down the sidewalk in West Hartford without getting hassled for a cigarette (some Hartfordites apparently watch too much Mad Men and think everyone sucks down heaters like it's 1955.) West Hartford is a place in which mattress colonies don't sprout from the sidewalks, an ex-Mayor isn't waiting to go to jail and receiving embarrassingly outrageous vacation time settlements after screwing the taxpayers out of who knows how much money,  citizens aren't clamoring to name a street after an admitted felon who defrauded the public, and in which, there is, presumably, some accountability.


The first time we visited Goldberg's was January 1, 2011. Pretty sure we choked down half of an egg sandwich and a can of V8. As if New Year's Day isn't painful enough, try it after a fairly intimate New Year's party with your new girlfriend and her go-getter friends after you helped Chuckles and Pete Sopersata paint a room and slugged down about 5.5 more Bud heavies than you intended to.

Downright brutal morning.

All that aside, our under the weather introduction to Goldberg's was a ray of sunshine. Located at 1131 New Britain Ave, we had never even noticed the place before. Goldberg's is very anti-West Hartford in the no frills presentation. There's only a couple small round tables, (quite similar to the ones in the Tastease controversy) and one small grill. Customers que to place their order and then pour their own coffee while the tunes of a solid classic rock station fill the store.

The egg sandwiches at Goldberg's are our favorite in the area. For a mere $3 one can get a great egg and cheese on a bagel. As long time bagel devourers we can safely say these are great bagels, something that is curiously lacking in Hartford. For all of $3 it's pretty hard to beat for breakfast.

 Throughout the morning the line is filled with kids and teens coming from sporting events and hung over college kids and young adults. Despite an often daunting looking line, one is usually in and out in 10 minutes as the grill man expertly works a dozen or so egg sandwiches at a time.

Good coffee, good bagels, great egg sandwiches, and a good price make Goldberg's a no brainer Sad City Recommendation.