Here are the 'Toasty 32' Breakfast Bowl finalists who are still in the running. Early next week, we'll be revealing the Sizzling 16, shortly followed by the Eggscellent 8 and just a few days later, The Final Four will be announced. They will then be judged in a taste-a-thon and reviewed by Brian Ries with the help of his Breakfast Club posse.
The outcome of some of these matchups was surprising; both the more popular restaurants who went head-to-head and some of the smaller restaurants that ended up garnering quite a few votes.
The biggest vote-getter overall in this round was the matchup between Nicko's Fine Foods and Three Coins, both in Seminole Heights, who gathered a total of 2056 votes overall. Surprising, right?) Three Coins ended up getting more than double the votes that Nicko's did, taking the win with 1450.
Another big vote-getting bout, and also representing the North Hillsborough region, was the one between La Ideal Sandwich Shop and West Tampa Sandwich Shop which received the second most votes overall in this competition.
In the South Hillsborough region, another one to watch was the Datz vs. Pink's feud that played out over the weekend, with Datz leading for quite some time. Pinky's fans came through in the end, though, and bestowed upon them 859 votes, while Datz received 381.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2011.