Revenge of Super-Pancake

*No, I did not get a new camera. I had to get a photo of this, so enlisted my trusty cell phone camera.

For brunch, I had ricotta pancakes and coffee.

I saw the recipe for pancakes earlier this week, but I really hate pancakes, so promptly forgot all about them. Then this morning, I was overcome with a french toast craving, but we'd run out of bread yesterday. Enter the pancake.

I remembered seeing the recipe, and had been wondering what the hell to do with the dozen eggs I bought yesterday anyway (I got them to make kasha, but not even I can eat that much kasha), so it was perfect. I replaced the flour with white whole wheat flour, and the ricotta (which smelled weird) with Greek yogurt.

The recipe was not as time-consuming as I'd feared, but does use an absurd number of kitchen things (three bowls, two kinds of eggbeater wisks, sundry spoons, knives, and spatulas). The painful part was cooking the damn things- between the LOW heat and trying to flip something that fluffy and sticky, I gave up after completing a single one. I spooned the rest of the batter into a parchment-paper-lined cake pan, and baked it for thirty minutes at 350.

I actually haven't tried Super-Pancake, having eaten my experimental stove top-cooked one instead. It was incredibly fluffy and delicious, not at all sour from the yogurt. I'm hoping Super-Pancake tastes as awesome as it looks. If it does, I'd make it again as a great quick-cake sort of recipe, with some maple syrup frosting.

The coffee was also tasty- it was Trader Joe's dark French Roast blend. I'm slowly working my way through all TJ's coffees, which seem to be uniformly good, if not very remarkable.

Brunch LOVE in Houston

For brunch, we went to Baby Barnaby's cafe in Montrose. I am in love. It's very stylish, in a laid-back artsy way. I've been wanting these lithographs (scroll down to the last collection) for months now- Barnaby's has the whole set hanging around their dining room. They have the BEST restaurant logo I've ever seen, and their food is delicious. More amazing, their food is cheap. Bonus? They have one of those cool fresh orange juice machines that you can watch efficiently slice and squeeze the oranges. Sorry. I get a little excited about orange juice machines.

The service was so efficient, it was a little scary. We had one of those amazing waiters who knows what you need before you do. I haven't had a waiter like that in a long time, and I wanted to give him a huge hug by the time brunch was over. Their menu is not terribly long, but I wanted to try almost everything on it. I ended up with the "Green Eggs"- a scramble with spinach, cheese, and artichoke hearts. And probably loads of cream. Oh my god, was it good. It tasted like the best spinach-artichoke dip you've ever had. It also came with awesome chicken-apple sausage that tasted suspiciously porky and syrupy sweet. I'm the weirdo who likes syrup on my sausage, so this was a good thing. The potato chunks that came with it were nicely fried, but needed flavor. I added some Tabasco, and they were better. If Barnaby's would just toss them with garlic or spices, they'd be perfect too.

Brunch at Home

I really hate breakfast, but I've been trying to eat huge ones because it's supposed to be good for you. We had some leftover smoked salmon from yesterday's bagel, and our eggs were about to go bad. Solution? Soft-scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and a side of oatmeal.

I cracked the eggs into my skillet, added a little salt and cream cheese, and stirred. The salt stems from the Cooks' Illustrated recommendation that salting prior to cooking leads to more tender eggs. The cream cheese gives it a creamy texture, without thinning the egg and making it tougher, which is what added milk tends to do. I cooked over relatively low heat, which takes longer but supposedly keeps the eggs from getting rubbery. Toward the end, I added the smoked salmon in chunks. It was tasty, if a little salty between the lox, cream cheese, and added salt. Low blood pressure runs in the family, so it's probably not a bad thing.

I made oatmeal to go with the eggs. I don't really believe in cooking rolled oats (they get too mushy), so I just mixed it with some milk and toasted almonds and pretended it was museli. The breakfast was filling without being too big, and went well with my Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

Yummy French Toast!

For breakfast, I had homemade French toast with large puddles of butter and some tea. I didn't feel like dragging myself out of the house for a huge brunch, but I wanted something kind of elaborate and interesting. We had leftover french bread and some rapidly spoiling eggs, so French toast seemed like a good plan. No milk, though, so I mixed the eggs with sugar and dry sherry and hoped for the best. Sherry French toast is good. I soaked the bread, cooked them in my little cast-iron skillet, covered with pats of butter and more sugar, and ate. Yum.

(K)atfish n' grits at the Breakfast Klub

No, that's not a typo. For breakfast, I had deep-fried catfish, breakfast potatoes, grits with butter, a biscuit, and the best coffee I've found anywhere in Houston. It was all perfect. The only bad thing about the experience was their annoying propensity to spell everything with "k", which led me to wonder if their "bakon" was real bacon or kosher bacon (aka "baken").


The location was the Breakfast Klub, a soul-food inspired breakfast place on the edge of downtown. I always drive by on my way to school and wonder why there's a huge line snaking out the door EVERY morning. Now I know.


I'm not a huge fan of grits, but these were perfect- slightly eggy and dense, with a puddle of melted butter in the middle. I suspect there was more butter mixed in, because they were that rich and delicious. The potatoes could've been a little warmer, but the flavors were a great balance of sweet and savory. The biscuit was crispy on the outside, and tender on the inside, as was the fried catfish. I was expecting the catfish to be heavily seasoned, but it wasn't- just a nice cornmeal breading and maybe a little pepper.

The coffee was killer. I was somewhat skeptical, considering vacuum-sealed coffee carafes are usually a sign of coffee-as-afterthought, but no. I've whined for months at the lack of decent coffee in this town, but no more. Very strong, distinctively flavored, and a choice of four or five different varieties. I tried the house blend, which was almost too strong, and their Costa Rican, which was great.

I'll be back to try their signature "wings n' waffles".

Brunch at the Empire Cafe

For brunch, I engaged in a bit of cultural anthropology by trying the "Northwestern Breakfast". It was interesting to see what a Houston restaurant thinks of as Northwestern. It consisted of a smoked salmon, onion, and tomato omelette, some not-very-ripe fruit, and oatcakes with blackberry syrup.

The Empire Cafe is a cute cafe with nice outdoor patios and great trees. It's in Montrose, almost across the street from Cafe Brazil. I'd forgotten how interesting the menu is at Empire, and how good their coffee is. We'll probably end up here more often (assuming we wake up before the huge crowds that materialize around 10am).

Overall, not bad. The omelette was good. The smoked salmon was cold, but that also meant it wasn't cooked into pallid mush, and maintained texture well. The oatcakes were bizarre- very flat, on the raw side, with gummy chunks of steel-cut oats, weird texture, and a troubling shine. I can only presume they were very, very healthy. The blackberry syrup was good, and the cakes had a nice cinnamon flavor, texture notwithstanding. The fruit was like cardboard. Interestingly, I learned from my grandmother how to pick honeydew melons yesterday- if the skin is smooth, it's not ripe. The key is slightly rough, chalkboard-like skin.

Skillet in Montrose

Today for brunch, I had two poached eggs, local chorizo, black beans, two kinds of salsa, and breakfast potatoes, all covered with mozzarella cheese. The location was Cafe Brazil, a tasty coffee shop/bar/restaurant in Montrose, the hipster gay neighborhood of Houston. It should also be noted that this Cafe Brazil is (as far as I know) NOT related to the Dallas mini-chain that also has awesome desserts and a hipster atmosphere. If I'm lucky, I'll make it up there one of these days and review it separately- the location in Deep Ellum holds a special place in my heart.

I love the Houston Cafe Brazil- it's like a converted garage full of art, with a nice (at least in January...) ivy-covered patio, and a slew of tasty desserts. No dessert with brunch, alas. Even without some early-morning sugar, Brazil makes some mean Mexican food. Beyond the skillet I had, they also have migas, a breakfast taco plate, and a pupusa plate. I'm a little concerned about the quality of their pupusas, considering their orthography ("papusa"???), but I did have their migas last week, and they were likewise tasty. My only complaint this morning was the eggs, which were poached into don't-sue-us-for-food-poisoning oblivion. Maybe the eggs were old and they were worried? Otherwise, very nice, especially with the two accompanying salsas: sassy green chile, and a sweeter roasted tomato one. Extra points for the piping hot corn tortillas and toasted cinnamon house blend coffee.