Rissa's Guide to Pancakes at The Griddle

Creative Writing homework assignment 06.18.09 ~ describe in detail a meal you've had recently...

I’ve enjoyed quite a few pancakes in my time ~ IHOP, Denny’s, summers at Girl Scouts’ Camp Azalea Trails, Mrs. Gilbert’s god-awful blueberry mess, my Mom’s Sunday morning smiley face masterpieces. If a place serves pancakes and I’ve been there? Chances are I’ve eaten pancakes. However, the pancakes at the Griddle in West Hollywood are thee best pancakes I have ever had! They’re huge; they’re filled and/or topped with yummy deliciousness and taste just as yummy as they look.

I go to the Griddle for pancakes about once a month; and have been doing so for at least five years. Here is Rissa’s Guide to Doing Griddle Pancakes Right:

1 – Which to order? With close to 20 pancake choices, your head will undoubtedly spin. If you like bananas, try the Banana Nana – brown sugar-coated bananas mixed in buttermilk batter; Feeling like Violet Beauregard? Try BLUESberry – blueberry pancakes topped with blueberry sour cream and powdered sugar. There are pancakes that taste like coffee cake, all cinnamon swirled and streusel topped. Eyes Wide Open with chocolate chips and a shot of espresso. Or, my favorite ~ Tis the Season – pumpkin pie filling in the pancake mix, topped with whipped cream, more pumpkin pie filling and powdered sugar. Mmm! Oh yeah, they have plain good ol’ fashioned pancakes, as well.

2 – How to order. These are not normal-sized pancakes, my friends – ohhh no no no. The Griddle calls them “over-sized.” I call them huge. HUGE! They’re bigger than my head. Let’s see…they’re the size of a…a Frisbee. Possibly bigger. These pancakes are so big, they hang over the edge of the plate. Now THAT’S big! A regular order is 3 pancakes. That’s A LOT of pancake! A short stack is 2 pancakes – this is what I usually order. Of course, you can order just one pancake.

3 – How to prep your pancakes. The plate of huge pancakes comes to your table steaming, with lots of yummy goodness on top ~ be it melting butter, whipped cream, pumpkin pie filling, powdered sugar or blueberry cream. I’m giving you my personal prep technique: Take your fork and spread all that yummy goodness all around the pancake, avoid the edges (reason for this to follow). Push that pat of butter over the hot pancake, let it melt…let it seep in…concentrate all that yummy meltiness in the middle. Use your fork to cut a hole smack-dab in the middle ~ push some of that mix of butter, pumpkin and whipped cream in there; let your entire stack be touched by the yummy goodness. Mmm!

4 – Eat! A couple of things: you probably won’t finish the stack. I never have. No, I’m completely serious. I’ve never eaten an entire short stack of pancakes. And, come on now, I. CAN. EAT. The other thing? With these pancakes, all the goodness is in the middle; so, start there, avoid the edges (you’re welcome).

The second bite is my favorite ~ the first one, you’re just trying it out…testing the texture…the temperature…checking to see if it’s a combination of flavors you can tolerate. But the second bite? Ooh, yeah ~ the cool whipped cream hits the tip of your tongue, that hot fluffy pancake soaked with hot buttery goodness, a smattering of pumpkin all comes together…mmm! Oh, sorry – I’m salivating.

So, there you have it ~ Rissa’s Guide to Doing Griddle Pancakes Right. Whaddya doing Saturday morning?