Monday, January 9, 2012

Pfanntastic breakfast in Calgary

Whoa...Someone does not know how to spell fantastic. Yeah, I do. That's the way the restaurant spells it! Cuz they're Dutch. A "Dutch dining treat" to be exact.

I'm in Calgary and like always, on a hunt for a restaurant that is one or all of these things - fresh, unique, tasty, local if possible, organic or close.

I wanted to go to "Diner Deluxe". I've been there before and LOVED it. A really good friend of mine -Allyson Smith, grew up in Calgary and brought me there a couple years ago. I'm telling you - locals are by far, the most reliable way to find out about good places to eat. We were going for breakfast with friends and they had never been to Diner Deluxe but had heard that it was a one to two hours wait on the weekends so we opted to go somewhere else. Two hours waiting list??? I knew it was a good restaurant! I'm not going to lie, I was disappointed that we couldn't go there but they recommended another place to go to that they described as a "pancake place". I was skeptical... I don't even really love pancakes. But I try to roll with things. And I'm glad we did.

When we get there. There is a line up. We sign up for the waiting list and wait for about 15 minutes for our table. It's a good sign when there's a waiting list. I was skeptical until I opened the menu and saw how original it was. The majority of the menu was split up into two categories - sweet and savory. This was not your average pancake place. in fact, here is a quote from their website -

"The owner of Pfanntastic Pannenkoek House, received her initial training at one of these recognized restaurants in the Netherlands, in order to bring it to you, our valued customers. Pfanntastic Pannenkoek House is the only restaurant of its kind in Canada trained in this particular method, which makes them unique."

I hadn't had a coffee yet and was dying for one. Got it. GOOD coffee! A very rare thing in restaurants and it came with a delicious little cookie! I should've taken a picture of it. So good. So cute.

There were many choices and the menu needs a bit of explanation which the waiter did in a very friendly way. The hostess by the way was the friendliest girl I have ever encountered.

I asked the waiter for a recommendation. I went with the one he said was the most popular. It was with bacon, onion, grated potatoes and cheese. I added tomato and an egg to it. The waiter had mentioned that you can request whatever you want even if it's not on the menu. What makes these pancakes so interesting is that all the ingredients are inside the pancake! Cool!

I tried to get my bf to share a savory and share a sweet with me but he was all savory no sweet so he got one with smoked sausage, cheese and bacon (the second most popular on the menu). My pancake was awesome. Served with a side of sour cream. I loved it and it was a huge portion. Took half home and ate the rest reheated in the oven later that night. So good again!

Our friend ordered a chocolate pancake. It looked good too! There's a photo down below.

This Pfanntastic Pannenkoek House would be something I would probably never go into based on what it looks like on the outside and for the inside for that matter. It looks like a place that Gordon Ramsay would go into and tear it all down and redesign. There was a vacuum cleaner in the corner with a few other random things just stored out in the open. Weird. But Gordon would not say a bad thing about the food. The food is fresh, extremely unique (in Canada) and definitely tasty!!!

I was really pleasantly surprised at how good and different this place was.
I would almost say it was PFANNTASTIC!!!
Can't wait to go back.

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