Brandon's Diner — Restaurant in Moreno Valley

I saw this diner on Indiana while visiting a shop across the street and decided it might be a good place to try. The banner stating it was a Press Enterprise reader pick for breakfast made it sound pretty good. At 9:00 am the next day, the wife and I drove down to see for ourselves how it was. We quickly found an parking place and after being seated by a woman with bright pink hair, checked out the menu. The inside of the diner was clean, although our table was still wet from the previous cleaning. Although the interior was bright from the windows, the mounted TV's were easy to see. On the menu, we found quite a selection of omelets, skillets, and standard breakfasts. I chose the standard house omelet with cheese, onions, and mushrooms while my wife had an avocado omelet with cheese. We both chose hash browns while I chose toast to share with the wife and she chose cottage cheese. For a drink, I asked for coffee while she requested orange juice. We got our drinks first and although my wife's orange juice was pretty good, my coffee was extremely bitter. I had to use two packets of sweetener and two tubs of creamer to make it drinkable. Normal is only one each. I checked the clock and from the time we entered the diner till when we were served our meals was about 35 minutes. A bit on the long side, but not too bad. While the coffee was really bad, the meal itself was extremely good. The omelets were huge! They were served on an oval platter and extended from one end to the other. In addition, there was nearly as much hash browns as omelet. The cottage cheese was served in a separate bowl and the toast on a separate plate. I found the omelet to be very good. Just enough cheese with plenty of onions and mushrooms. My wife also found hers to be very tasty. Between the two of us, we could only eat half of ours and requested boxes to take the rest home. The bill came to just under 26 dollars for the two of us and was not bad at all for an omelet breakfast. Were it not for the really bad coffee, I would have given this diner 5 stars, but the coffee, the pink hair, and the long wait is enough to prevent a perfect score. If I could give a half star, then 4.5 stars would be my score. Still a good diner and we will certainly try it for lunch and...

Brandon’s diner.

We had the steak and chicken fajita combo, and a fried zucchini appetizer, along with the free chips and salsa.

We had the fajita plate done as a special order. Normally in addition to the rice you see here, it would include beans, sour cream and guacamole. We chose to not have those items.

Service: the service on the day of our visit was great. It was a little slow and later in the evening, so not many customers in there, we got our food quicker than expected, and exactly as requested. The fried zucchini came so fast that we both hadn’t finished washing our hands yet by the time it came!

The food temperature: served HOT, even the chips were still warm. The fajitas were sizzling (in the live photo version of this, you can hear the sizzle), the zucchini had to rest for a couple minutes, the rice and tortillas were a good temperature too.

Consistency: everything was consistent all the way through the meal. No bad zucchini, no bad veggies or chicken, nothing undercooked, nor overcooked. Rice was perfect.

Portion size: very generous serving of zucchini. We ended up taking most of this home and it reheated nicely in the air fryer as a side for 2 additional meals over the next few days. The fajitas were filling without being stuffing, for 2.

Flavor: here is where they earned the 5 stars. These fajitas were GOOD. I mean, sopping up the juices with the leftover tortilla, good. I’m normally one to ask for extra lemon wedges to squeeze on the meat to add some flavor. But I didn’t need to do a thing. I couldn’t get enough of the flavor of whatever they marinated and cooked the fajita in. I took one bite and was hooked.

My wife and I had been debating trying Brandon’s at several locations over the years, but never got around to it. Even once, pulling into the parking lot and deciding to go to somewhere more familiar. But now we are hooked. This meal was that good. Our only regret is that we didn’t try Brandon’s sooner. If all their dishes are made with this much care and flavor, we look forward to trying even...

It’s one of those places you tell yourself (not even after but DURING ) lI’ll never come back here again”. They shuffle you in and shotgun your party into a seat then three or four different people come and ask you the SAME question: anything to drink? So by the time you repeat the order for the umpteenth time you assume the service will follow this rhythm right? WRONG. if you don’t immediately know your food order when they return with your drinks, you will be left sitting there anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes twiddling your thumbs. It won’t help trying to look around like you’re searching for anybody because no one will be present to even catch a sideways glance from you. Once you do get your order in, they’ll bring it without any condiments and hardly finish a sentence asking if you’d like anything extra. Another 20 minutes will pass by. Meanwhile, you’re looking at your runny eggs you could’ve made at home for $.30 apiece and try to smear the entire plate around to try and make some semblance of an edible entrée. The check routine will go about the same-the waitress today actually told us “you can just give the payment to me and I’ll take it up”. Yeah, that’s if she ever comes back which she didn’t. And this is the experience when we do come here after not being back for a few months I don’t know why we haven’t learned by now, but there is a new breakfast spot across the street that JUST opened up. So we intend to try that before returning here again. I mean, the bar is set so low it’s not like you would have to do much to come in ahead...