Pancake Pantry
Cornmeal Pancakes with Honey
Swedish Pancakes with Lingonberry
Banana Bread Pancakes with Cinnamon Cream Sauce
Half Order French Toast
Coffee
Arriving in Nashville the night before I almost couldn’t wait to finally visit a restaurant my breakfast-loving self had long heard was amongst the best in the region, and opting to avoid rumors of long lines with an early Tuesday arrival our party of three walked right into the Pancake Pantry, a cozy table at the center of a large dining room ours for as long we’d want it, a relatively slow morning never once seeing the space more than half filled.
Celebrating “50 years & still 23 varieties” in reference to their eponymous griddled specialty it was with water filled and menus in hand that menus were perused and quickly poured the type of atrociously over-roasted coffee that makes it clear why some people absolutely hate the stuff it was thankfully that the kitchen was not overburdened, a trio of pancakes soon arriving alongside half an order of French Toast.
Unfortunately not offering 100% Maple Syrup, but instead featuring house-made Cinnamon Cream Sauce and some sort of artificial rubbish overly sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup, it was with the French Toast that the tasting began and featuring eggy cinnamon bread not quite soaked to the core the flavor was perfectly fine, though certainly nothing worth writing home about, a slather of butter and cinnamon cream adding a bit more flavor both here and to ‘banana bread’ pancakes that were oblong and lightly tinged in both fruit and nuts without being too sweet or aromatic at all.
Perhaps making a mistake in eschewing classic buttermilk or signature sweet potato flapjacks it was onward to thin Swedish pancakes that the tasting progressed and although already cool to touch by the time they arrived the flavor of both the light batter and lingonberries were quite pleasant, the far more toothsome cornmeal cakes dressed up in honey proving to be the best bites of the breakfast largely due to the lightly bronzed and buttery exterior, plus the fact that everything else was just so mediocre.
www.thepancakepantry.com
