I met up with my friend Chad for breakfast last Monday! We’ve been emailing and SMSing regularly but have both been really busy (regular readers may remember Chad used to work with me but is currently on a secondment at a different office) – it’s been a little tricky finding the time to get together.
Chad ordered a ham and cheese croissant, served lightly toasted with a generous slab of sliced ham and melted cheese. She quickly devoured the croissant, which she said was simply delicious – fresh and flaky. She wasn’t so keen on the cooked tomato served on the side, but I think that was a Chad thing rather than a problem with the tomato. And before some of you ask, no – I didn’t eat Chad’s tomato. I was totally focused on getting through my own breakfast! :)
On the recommendation of my friend C (with whom I had breakfast at Ba Ba Black just recently), I ordered the sweet pancakes, which in a stack, sitting in a pool of maple syrup and berry juice, topped with lightly stewed blueberries and a dollop of luscious double cream. It was lovely – and although it didn’t appear to be that big a serve, it was really really really sweet, which made the stack seem huge! By the time I got halfway through it, the sweetness was beginning to get sickly and I knew I would struggle to finish the entire serve. And I must hang my head in shame, for although I left with a full tummy, I was defeated by this stack of sweet pancakes. I left a quarter or so of the serve on the plate, looking somewhat mangulated (the pancakes looked mangulated, not me! :)). I ate all the berries and all the cream, though! :) The manager (or maybe owner) cleared my plate, and told me he’s only ever seen one person finish the pancakes.
It was lovely to spend some time with Chad, but we both had to return to our respective offices eventually. Damn you, work! Actually, it’s more a case of “damn you, my love for money, buying things and dining out”!
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
TFP:
This might seem somewhat odd, but the moment I saw the first photo from this post I deemed it too decadent to read before I went for a run. It was a nice “treat” after a great workout, and somehow helped quell my craving for junk food, which would have been counterproductive to the run! Not that this is junk food, though. haha. Thanks for sharing, lovely post as always!
Wow, delicious bfast! Yeah, the pancakes looks too sweet! If the owner knows the customers aren’t finishing the pancakes, perhaps they shud do something about the sweetness factor. I am a no gamer on wasting food, but if its that sweet, then “no way, Jose!”..i would definitely not complete my meal as well.
since they KNOW the pancakes are so sweet, shouldn’t’ they douse it down a bit before people start passing out? Oh well, were they at least good before making you sick?
Must be a Chad thing – those tomatoes would have tasted delicious eaten slowly with the croissant. Mmmmmmm.
i reckon the pancakes look yum, but they should serve syrup on the side cos it does look really sickly sweet. i bet it was tasty but being able to ration syrup helps.
I don’t come across tomatoes prepared that way. I think I’d have preferred raw sliced tomato IN the sandwich, which sounds delish, btw.
I like sweetness to come from the syrup/preserves/fruit/cream rather than from the pancakes, themselves. And I don’t like them to be swimming in a pool of syrup. That way, I can sorta control the amount of sweetness with each bite.
But it sure looks pretty!!
Hahaha, Steph, I’m glad you were able to make it work for you. :)
Kiran,
Yes, I thought the same. But restaurants often take pride in people not being able to finish their dishes. There’s this belief that they’re giving you great value for your money just because they give you such a big serve. Personally, I’d prefer a more realistic, reasonable serving size that cost a little less.
Kagenosuke,
They were nice when I began eating them, yes. But I reached my sweetness threshold pretty quickly.
Katie,
That’s what I thought too. I would’ve polished them off.
dea,
Agreed! It would’ve been handy to be able to control the syrup distribution rather than just serve it up as syrup saturation.
Irene,
I love tomato, but I often burn my mouth on tomato when it’s in a toasted sandwich – I try to chew through the tomato skin to get a bite-sized piece of tomato in my mouthful but end up dragging out the whole slice, which always always burns me! It would be better if the tomato in toasted sandwiches was sliced into bite-sized pieces so this wouldn’t happen! Anyway, I avoid ordering toasted sandwiches (any sort of toasted bread) with tomato as one of the fillings. Yep – being able to control the sweetness would have been good. Sometimes I think chefs go overboard with what they think looks good on the plate, but forget the practical side (and I think actually more important than the aesthetics) – how will this taste? How will the customer actually eat this? Is this going to be really hard work to eat?
isn’t it also really wasteful for a restaurant to serve such big helpings that no one can finish them? esp after the food crisis?
Bit late, but i see you went back to Ba Ba Black again.
Your stack of pancakes certainly looked nothing like the stack my friend had when i went with her, in size and complexity. Maybe they’ve revisited their pancake order, sadly :(
ak,
Agreed. There seems to be some weird idea that serving up huge meals is indicative of the “great value”. But I’d feel much more satisfied as a customer if I was able to finish a (smaller) meal. It’s not good value to have to leave food on the plate because you’re way too full, and it’s definitely not good value to force yourself to finish it just because you don’t want to waste it.
C,
Oh well. I still enjoyed what I got through. But yeah, you’d need a very sweet tooth to do it justice, even now, in its reduced state.