LIVING LIKE A KING >>>

This weekend was the weekend of excellent breakfast. Since our floors were being ripped out due to water damage, we're living out of a suitcase at my mother-in-law's house on Sixth Avenue (thanks Chi Chi!).

Saturday, taking advantage of my temporary locale, I walked to Dirty Oscar's Annex for a gourmet breakfast, specifically its chicken and biscuit sandwich special. The bird's the word: moist, tender, intensely chicken-y meat enrobed in crispy, crunchy skin. Absolutely perfect. Yet, there was more. DOA filled a biscuit-shaped hole my life with a moist, fluffy interior one - not a dry, flakey bomb. To top off this $10 treat was light gravy complete with sausage crumbles and bacon coated and a fried egg that burst into a blanket. Good call Chef Aaron Grissom with the light gravy. BONUS: The staff was on me as if I was the only customer (house was three-fourths full at 9:30 a.m.) with attentive service and playful banter.

CHICKEN AND BISCUITS: Dirty Oscar's Annex is not channeling your grandmother.

Since it was Super Bowl Sunday, I went big. Sunday morning I dropped in for my quarterly visit with Chef William and Shannon Mueller at Babblin' Babs Bistro in the Proctor District. Sipping on Madrona coffee too tasty for cream, I chose wisely with Babs' Smith & Salmon dish. When I say dish, I mean it. The Mueller's create breakfast dishes. When I say create, I mean it. They test and re-test for months with local and exotic ingredients until fully satisfied. When I say fully satisfied, I mean it. Chef William will yank a dish if it's not perfect, even if a customer has been waiting for 20 minutes. "I'd rather have them wait and dine on perfection then have them wait and never see them again," he says.

If you order the Smith & Salmon ($14), I suggest you sit in the chair as long as it takes for the dish, which was 20 minutes for me. The salmon statue was too beautiful to rip apart, so I began with the garnish - Granny Smith apples from Chelan sliced to a see-through thickness dotted with capers and egg crumbles and glistening with rosemary chive oil circled the main attraction. I scooped, folded and ate five of the 10. Refreshing. Babs' creamy potato au gratin, its magnifique mainstay and a secret recipe, piled high and wrapped with thin slices of smoked wild salmon to create statuesque art. I fully expected Chef William to hand me a headset so I could hear the history behind the dish. The salmon tasted almost like candy. The creamy potato warmed with a savory delight. So THIS is how kings begin their day, I thought, lost in a paroxysm of joy.

DIRTY OSCAR'S ANNEX, BREAKFAST SERVED 10 A.M. TO 4 P.M. FRIDAY, 8 A.M. TO 4 P.M. SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 2309 SIXTH AVE., TACOMA, 253.572.0588.

BABBLIN' BABS BISTRO, 8 A.M. TO 11 A.M. TUESDAY-FRIDAY, 8 A.M. TO 2 P.M. SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 2724 N. PROCTOR ST., TACOMA, 253.761.9099