“You’ve never been to the Original Pancake House?” My friend’s eyebrows rose with her voice. It was nothing compared to what she said when I told her I hadn’t been to Waffle House.
Breakfast-challenged me and my two partners in crime recently headed to Kate’s Kafe (10764 Montgomery Square, Sycamore Twp., 513-489-7999) where I planned to get introduce to some food groups my past mornings lacked.
It was quickly apparent that we were all coffee-challenged, as well, given that we nodded in unison in response to the server’s offer of coffee.
Groggy and ready to indulge, our mood clouded over when Kate’s broke the first rule of breakfast: Do not leave your customers clutching half-finished, cooling cups of coffee for more than three minutes. What’s Rule No. 2? Please refer to Rule No. 1, ad nauseam.
Kate’s, which sits in a strip mall off Montgomery Road, occupies a cheery space. The blue and yellow wallpapered wall and mismatched coffee mugs make it feel like someone’s kitchen table rather than a pubic eatery. Our server was friendly, but obviously overtaxed with the few tables in the small dining room. Chef and owner Jeffrey McCoy worked with his brother Shawn at Brown Dog Café and opened McCoy’s Place, an Irish pub in Monfort Heights, as well.
Kate’s serves breakfast all day, with everything from French toast with amaretto and ice cream to breakfast wraps and bagels. If you’re in the mood for lunch, at 10 a.m. they start serving items like chili, house-made chicken, pasta salads, Reubens and the Kate’s melt (a burger with American cheese, Thousand Island dressing and fried onions on rye).
The chalkboard alerted us that we could get a healthy breakfast with Eggbeaters and turkey sausage, but none of us had planned for healthy. Miss Incredulous ordered a vegetable omelet with cheese ($6.95). The other member of our breakfast club had a breakfast wrap with egg, mushrooms and sausage ($4.25) and a half stack of pancakes ($3.25) as a side. I went for the traditional breakfast with eggs over easy, goetta and a homemade biscuit ($6.55).
The results, like Obama’s current poll numbers, were mixed. The biscuit was flaky and buttery, and the thick toast that came with the omelet was given the thumbs up. The omelet itself, however, was dry and lacked seasoning or much flavor. As for appearance, it could have come straight out of a Kittamor microwave omelet maker. The huge slab of goetta received perplexed looks from all three of us. My friends both said it had an odd aftertaste. Whatever the strange flavor was, it did not appeal to any of us.
The wrap was gigantic (are you sensing a theme here?) and the generous amount of sausage in the wrap pleased my friend. She did suggest fresh mushrooms would have been a better choice than canned. The pancakes on the other hand were greatly appreciated. The size of a dinner plate, they were fluffy and very light with crisp edges.
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