Original Pancake House

Let me take a break from my Thanksgiving story to talk about Sunday morning breakfast. We had spent all weekend waxing poetic about the glories of the Original Pancake House in Williamsville. No, not IHOP, this is not a chain. So we set off bright and early on Sunday morning with high hopes.

I should remind you that I hate travelling to the suburbs so you should take this as an indication of how we all looked forward to our visit. We thought we had beat the Sunday morning crowd but it was already hopping. Fortunately, it didn't take long to seat us. As we navigated through the main dining room, some of our party asked if we were indeed sure this was not a chain. I wavered, it sure did look like a Ponderosa dining room.

We were shown to a table in a small room that was freezing and overrun by small children whose parents seemed unaware of their presence. The table was already set with water glasses the size of a thimble. Have you ever been to a restaurant that serves a small juice in one of these tiny receptacles? I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when the waitress informed us that this was a medium. I don't need all my food and drink supersized but come on.

I ordered an omelette with mushrooms and sherry, mostly because it came with potato pancakes. One of my pet peeves is charging scandalous prices for obscene amounts of food. This omelette was probably made with at least 8 eggs and although the menu said $8.75, the bill said $10.15. For an omelette? And it wasn't even all that. The mushrooms and sherry were dropped on top on the omelette, floating in a grey and grainy-looking cream sauce. Eww. THe worst part though, had to be the potato pancakes. I am used to chunks of grated potato, unlike this, which seemded to be mashed potatoes poured into a pancake mix. Not only was the consistency less than desirable, they were bitter. I tried applesauce, no good. I opted for sour cream, no better. I finally said to myself nothing can make these more unpalatable and doused them with butter and syrup. Still pretty nasty.

It was an odd experience. The food was not pleasing, the decor (country-motif wallpaper with a border of harvest apples?) was pathetic and the service could have been a lot better. I was in the restaurant business for years so I'm pretty forgiving but I found my reserves of forgiveness all used up trying to digest that $10 omelette.

Not recommended unless you like overpriced, useless and not even attractive food.