Pancakes for the people

As a semi-proficient home cook, pancakes have always been a tough sell. If I can make a dish quickly, at home and at a negligible ingredient cost, I usually don’t order it when eating out.

So, when a restaurant asks me to spend $17 on some “Really Good Fu%@ing Pancakes,” they better be really good.

I had every intention of asking my server for “a cup of coffee and the really good fucking pancakes,” but I ultimately chickened out and just asked for “the pancakes.” Luckily, they’re the first menu item, so there was little room for error.

The coffee was served in a large, pleasantly heavy mug with a pitcher of cream. I drank it as I always do: little cream and no sugar. It tasted exactly as restaurant coffee should: not too strong, not too bitter and not too bougie, just a classic cup of good coffee. I was not surprised to learn that The People’s Kitchen sources its coffee beans from local roaster 517 Coffee Co. It certainly tasted a step above the rest.

When the pancakes themselves arrived, I was taken aback by their sheer size, two massive dough saucers cooked to impressive perfection. They were served with charred lemon butter and butter syrup.

There was no space on the plate to eat the pancakes separately, so I ate them as a stack. The charred lemon butter was delicious and surprisingly lemony (yes, I took a bite of just the butter) and perfectly complemented the pancakes’ buttermilk flavor.

After pouring about half the butter syrup on the pancakes, I began dipping the pancake slices in the syrup to get more of that decadent flavor — a tactic that would make a heart doctor cry but made my own heart very, very happy, at least in the immediate sense.

I was a little mortified when my server noticed my cholesterol-loaded strategy and offered me more syrup, which I thankfully accepted. It ended up costing an extra $1.50, and I have zero regrets.

Ultimately, I have to admit that Top of the Town voters knew what they were doing when they made this dish runner-up in both the Best Signature Dish and Best Pancakes categories, on top of making The People’s Kitchen runner-up for Best Brunch.

At $17, it’s a steep price for pancakes, no matter the quality, but these things are definitely an order of magnitude above what I can do with flour, eggs and buttermilk in my own kitchen … for now.

And to the friends who eat my cooking, don’t be too surprised if the next time I serve you pancakes, they come with lemon butter on top. I’ve already got a recipe open.