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Eating in Seoul: Spotlighting 4 Hongdae Restaurants

August 25, 2013 By: Kristen Category: Korean, Travel

Since Hongdae is where I stayed in Seoul, this is where I had most of my meals. In this post I’ll spotlight 4 restaurants that stood out to me mostly because of the dishes that I had there. These include: Korean-style onigiri (rice balls), kimchi mandu (dumplings), vegetable and meat pancake, and gamjatang (potato soup) without the gamja (potato).

#1 Kong’s Riceball

It was my second day in Seoul and I was still very overwhelmed with being in South Korea. I had a pretty big lunch at the museum cafe in the War Memorial of Korea and on my way back to my hostel, I wanted dinner but just a small dinner. I remembered passing by this restaurant the day before when my friend was showing me around the area and figured today will be the perfect day to try it!

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The interesting name, the brightly colored bowls, and the nice ahjumma who stuck her head out of the window to call out orders all drew my attention right away! Plus it was right next to Hongik University on the main road in Hongdae AND it offered take-out, so convenience and shyness made this the perfect stop (at this point I was still too scared to order or dine alone in a restaurant, but that was quickly overcome once I couldn’t resist the food).

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An onigiri would be the perfect meal since I wasn’t too hungry. After looking, I decided to go with two of what looked the most delicious: spicy marinated chicken thighs (닭갈비, dalk kalbi) and stir-fried kimchi (김치볶음, kimchibokkeum).

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Stir-fried kimchi rice ball

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Marinated chicken riceball

Little did I know – these are giant-sized riceballs! They took up an entire cup each! They were so delicious though that I ate both of them in the comfort of my hostel room. I expected something hand-held, but I had to use a fork with this one – luckily my hostel had utensils because when I tried taking the rice ball out of the cup with my hands, I ended up making a mess. The flavors were delicious and so comforting: both the chicken and kimchi were really spicy but I loved it since the rice and seaweed balanced out the spice. If I were a college student at Hongik University, there would be no doubt about it, I would be eating these rice balls all day long. With the most expensive one costing 3,000 won (less than $3 US) and the stir-fried kimchi one costing 1,500 won (less than $1.50 US), these are great!

#2: 빚은 만두 뽑은 국수

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I wish I knew the translation for this restaurant name, but I don’t…the only character I recognize is 만두 (mandu), which means dumplings. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the only word that I need to know! My friend and I met up here specifically for their kimchi dumplings…she’s on a quest to find the best kimchi dumplings in the area, so we came here to test out this restaurant. It’s on the main stretch of road bordering Hongik University (the same street as Kong’s Riceball and Cafe Berlin); if you keep on walking down this road, you will eventually end up in the popular Sinchon area, which also has a ton of universities.

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I should probably admit something embarrassing at this point…I have never had fresh kimchi mandu before. I’ve only ever had the frozen packs that I buy at Koreana Plaza in Oakland. When I say that this is the best kimchi mandu I’ve ever had, it’s probably not saying much, but these were the best kimchi mandu I’ve ever had! The filling was extremely fresh (which stood out to me since I’ve only had the artificial tasting dumplings) and deceptively spicy – I found myself drinking more and more water as I ate! The steamer that comes with the dumpling is so cute too. I don’t remember the price right now, but I think it was around 3,000 won (less than $3). I loved how well I can eat in Seoul without spending a lot of money! The dumplings also come with banchan that included pickled yellow radish and a clear soup that tastes like the kind that are served in Japanese restaurants in the U.S. Overall I was super impressed with this place, but I don’t know how it stacks up with other kimchi mandu restaurants.

#3 The Pancake Restaurant

This actually isn’t the name of the restaurant, but I don’t remember what it was called. All I remembered was that it was a rainy day in Seoul and I had just finished touring the War and Women’s Human Rights Museum (commonly referred to as the “Comfort Women Museum”), which addresses the history of the women who were drafted into sexual slavery under the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII (an issue that many Japanese politicians and textbooks deny) as well as their ongoing legacy and attempts to fight for justice and reparations. Needless to say, it was a very difficult museum to walk through and combined with the rain, I was definitely looking for some comfort food. I happen to walk right past this restaurant on the way back to my hostel, and could not resist the smells. This is some perfect rainy day food.

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This restaurant is pretty much the definition of a hole-in-the-wall restaurant. I think they probably serve more take-out than sit-in diners and I was the only one there that day. The prices looked pretty expensive compared to other food that I’ve eaten in Seoul so far, but that didn’t deter me from ordering the meat and kimchi pancake (김치고기전, kimchi gogi jeon) for 10,000 won (a little less than $10 USD).

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The owner of the restaurant (the woman with the glasses) was super friendly and I think she felt a little bad for me when she asked if I was eating alone and I said “yes.” I didn’t mind though, particularly as she started to cook my pancake on the little electric stove and the smells came wafting towards me. This is definitely made-to-order food!

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Pictured here is the pancake (I didn’t take a picture of it but I got some banchan as well). It was a little greasy, but it definitely hit the spot. The meat was a little flavorless on its own; I couldn’t tell if it was pork of beef – it tasted like burger meat to me. The kimchi though was full of flavor – this was the most pungent and sour kimchi I have ever eaten and I loved it. The overall flavor of this pancake rings “sour” more than anything else, but I love some fried kimchi pancake and even though after my first few slices I was wishing for a little more sweetness or spicyness to balance out the sourness, I definitely had my craving for kimchi pancake satisfied. I was able to end up eating half of it before I was full, but I took the rest of it back to my hostel.

The owner was so incredibly sweet also; she kept on talking to me and made sure that everything was to my liking. She also complimented me on my Korean, which was really affirming for me to hear since I am super unconfident with my Korean language skills. However, I was actually able to have a conversation with her (even if it was a little bit awkward and I didn’t quite use full sentences all the time), but it is definitely a good confidence boost to actually almost understand someone completely in Korean! Not only was the food excellent here, but the service is quite good as well!

#4 The Gamjatang Restaurant

This is another restaurant that I forget the name of; I think it is a chain restaurant since I saw one in Myeondong as well (the one that I ate at is in Hongdae). The logo consists of an animated potato head. Actually, here is a blog post on the restaurant; it is called Onedang Gamjatang. Fun fact: the hostel that I stayed at is right above the Plan B bar pictured in that post.

Actually, one of the first things that I did before leaving for Korea was to Google Maps (can I use this as a verb?) my hostel location. To my delight, I saw that it was right next door to a restaurant that read “gamjatang.” I was super excited because I love  gamjatang and this place is literally two steps away from my residence.

What I failed to realize though is that the entire area surrounding my hostel is full of restaurants and shops, but I still made it to the gamjatang restaurant on this trip despite the numerous options.

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One of the first things that I noticed about this gamjatang is that it did not include any gamja – or potatoes – in it. While I had read on Wikipedia that gamjatang actually commonly comes without potatoes, the logo of this restaurant features a potato head so that was a little weird. However, once I tasted the soup, I couldn’t care less about not having potatoes. For only 6,000 won (a little less than $6 USD), I got a massive amount of food – I fished out 3 giant pork bones. The soup was so rich and full of flavor and the pork just melted off the bone. I ended up eating all of the banchan as well – it included kimchi, raw onions, and some pickled carrots and spicy peppers. I also polished off an order of rice and all of the pork AND the soup. I love how for 6,000 won I could eat so well. And it was perfect that my hostel was just a step away – just in time for me to collapse in bed with a massive food coma!

Breakfast at Jodie’s

August 07, 2013 By: Mai Truong Category: American, California - The Bay Area, Comfort food

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Friday. Nancy messaged Kristen and me that we should meet up early the next morning for breakfast at Jodie’s. We love breakfast. “How early, though?”, I asked.
– I could pick you all up… Mai at 7:45, Kristen at 7:50 ish…
– I have to say, this is insanely early, maybe I would just skip sleeping…
– Well, it is a TINY place next to a salon, I believe. It only seats eight at a time. The shop opens at 8 AM… There is the possibility of going later – 10 ish – but we would have to wait for “turnover” and wouldn’t be sitting with each other…
– …
– They have a table outside… it might be cold… They said they can’t predict if there will be only a few people or a lot… so we could always go a little later, but then we might have to wait for the table, but at least when that happens, we could still all sit together… Shall we try for 8:30 then? A bit of a compromise 😉
– 7:45 or 8:30 are the same to me, so let’s do 7:45. 🙂

Now, I’m an astronomer and a student, those two types of creatures don’t wake up early in the morning, they stay up into the morning. Which is exactly what I did. I stayed all until 7:50 when Nancy and her husband Ken picked me up. Then we swung by Kristen’s apartment. Kristen looked wonderfully bright and lively in pink pants (it might have been a salmon color, but after working the whole night, my color perception has reduced to that of a guy). During the drive, the conversation in the car was actually quite lively too, at one point we talked about male favoritism in ancient Chinese culture, but I won’t dwell on that now. The point is, boy was it the right idea to meet at 7:45, because by the time we arrived at Jodie’s (a bit before 8:30), 4 seats appeared filled. We took the remaining 4 seats.

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I felt somewhat bad for the folks who came minutes after us. They were regulars. In fact, everyone there that day was a regular except the four of us. But someone left to wait for someone, 2 seats freed up, they filled in, the conversations started. Nancy and Ken, being long time residents in the Berkeley – Albany area, had no trouble connecting with everyone through stories of local high school principals and colleagues that somehow everyone (but Kristen and me) knew, while Kristen studied the walls of menus and photographs, and I snapped photos of those walls.

A huge mish mash of color papers, some faded, some laminated, covers the wall facing the customers. On each of those papers prints the description of a dish, its name, its number, and its price. I don’t know how long it would take to really read all of them, I lost track after a few panels and focused on taking pictures instead. There’s a normal menu on the counter behind the fruit preserve jars and sauces, too.

jodies-cook-preparing-gritsJodie’s has a staff of two: Jodie, and a young guy who works the stove. The young guy hardly spoke. Jodie is a likeable man, he strikes me as a grandpa who would sit at the porch chewing out grandkids and neighborhood kids in a pretending-to-be-mean but loving voice, and no one would ever be afraid of him, he’s someone who makes you feel at home just by saying hello to you. He told us that the stuff in the counter menu are not on the wall, and the stuff on the wall are not on the counter menu. So I stopped reading both altogether.

Nancy knew what she wanted, and she also ordered for Ken after confirming with Ken that she knew what he wanted. So that went quickly. Kristen was up next. I know grits was involved (Kristen likes grits, and Jodie’s is famous for grits), but Kristen couldn’t decide between so many different delicious-sounding combinations, which she told Jodie, and Jodie chewed her out in his pretending-to-be-mean but loving voice. I heard some gigglings and “I don’t know”s, but I was running circles in my head trying to figure out what to get myself.

Then it was my turn. Like I said, I had already given up on reading the menus, so I just started listing what I wanted on my plate: hashbrown, pancake, sausage, scramble eggs. I wanted English muffins too, but Jodie stopped me before I said muffin, “then why don’t you get the Jodie’s Special? It has everything you said.” “Oh… okay.”

Either then or a little before, a lady stepped into the staff area behind the counter, so now Jodie’s has a staff of three. Jodie retreated out of view to prepare portions for each order. The lady took more orders (the line of customers was spewing out the door) and poured coffee. The young cook slapped bacon strips and hashbrown patties onto the sizzling platform. I don’t know how much time passed until we got our food, I alternated between gawking at the bacon and hashbrown browning and scanning the photos that covered the back wall. There were funny quotes, hundreds of pictures of Jodie’s regular customers, some sports photos. Old tattered photos make the place look more run down then it already is, but I can’t imagine decorating this place any other way, they embody too much memories and too many bonds among these people. Jodie’s wouldn’t be Jodie’s without the photos.

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The lady told us to taste our food before adding anything to it. Nancy took a bite of her pancakes and grits, then reached for the salt and pepper (or some kind of condiment). Jodie flew out of his prep station into view, “Have you tasted it?” “Yes… !?” “Okay.” Jodie disappeared into the prep station again. [UPDATE: Nancy explained what actually happened: Nancy was going for the syrup bottle, but she had to move the salt and pepper out the way.]

I tried a nibble of Ken’s corned beef, more than I should have of Kristen’s “Jodie’s Special with a Y” (I’m sorry Kristen, it was too good and too close to me, and you were too nice), and I wiped clean my plate. Funny though, I’m not a fan of grits and Kristen’s not a fan of pancakes (which is why she ordered grits and I ordered pancakes), but we were both impressed by the other’s dish. The grits was anything but bland, it has an indescribable flavor that possibly comes from the grease on the griddle (or maybe just years of bacon smoke in the air?). The pancake was fluffy and buttery, it didn’t even need syrup. The bacon was thick and crunchy. The scramble eggs were creamy. For Kristen and me, Jodie’s has raised the bar for breakfast.

For Nancy, Jodie’s changed something else.
– I’ve been ribbed about having a coffee facebook theme…
– Why coffee?
– It kinda came from being at Jodie’s, although I never have coffee at diners… I’m always disappointed… But yeah, every one was having coffee in those diner type cups… made me nostalgic for my youth – going out for breakfast and having coffee. That’s back before any Starbuck’s and there was only one Peet’s in Berkeley. It was hard to get good coffee…

I think Jodie would be happy if he heard that. 🙂

At Jodie's, one very early morning in July.

At Jodie’s, one very early morning in July.

Jodie’s is located at 902 Masonic Avenue, Albany, CA 94706. (510) 526-1109. They’re open 8 am – 3 pm Wednesday through Friday and 8 am – 4 pm Saturday and Sunday. Visit Jodie’s website.

Kitchen hour: quasi-Osaka Okonomiyaki

July 13, 2012 By: Mai Truong Category: Comfort food, Japanese, RECIPES, savory snacks


When I walked down that aisle, I beamed with pride. In my hand, a bag of okonomiyaki flour, a bag of katsuobushi, bottles of sauces and aonori. Kristen took care of the cabbage and meats. Pancake day. Osaka style. At least that was the plan.

We didn’t plan on being authentic. We couldn’t. An American-born Taiwanese and a Vietnamese who haven’t lived in Japan at all are not gonna make an “authentic okonomiyaki” on first try. That’s why we chose premixed okonomiyaki flour instead of grating a nagaimo, bottled mayonnaise instead of whipping up eggs and oil ourselves. But just the thought of making our own okonomiyaki in whatever shape we want and however we want it, not having to go anywhere and regretting over soggy, over-salted mashes called okonomiyaki, generated the we-can-own-this attitude that guaranteed pride no matter what the outcome. It’s a sort of defiance after too many letdowns. Instead of mixing flour with water, we boiled roasted corn and mixed flour with corn tea.

Apart from that and the avoidance of green onion (I’d add green onion if I’m making pajeon – green onion pancake, but not okonomiyaki), and impatience – pouring more corn tea than I should, then the batter was too thin and I added some more flour and the batter went too thick, eventually I got double what I intended for, which also helped because we had a lot of cabbage – we followed the Best Okonomiyaki recipe pretty closely until the next-to-last step. Once I made too big a pancake, so when I flipped it, only half got flipped. I got omelet instead of okonomiyaki, but shape doesn’t matter, right? Ah, there was also a time when I forgot to layer the bacon on top of the pancake before flipping it, so the bacon was added to the bottom instead of the top, but that’s just a matter of perspective. 😉


Quasi-Osaka Okonomiyaki (serving 2)
[adapted from Best Okonomiyaki recipe]

1 cup okonomiyaki flour (100 g)
2/3 cup corn tea
2 eggs
1/5 head of cabbage, sliced into 2-mm-thick strips
9 strips of fresh bacon, cut into 3-inch-long (8 cm) pieces or however you like
100g raw shrimp, peeled and diced
Kewpie mayonnaise
Okonomiyaki sauce
Aonori (seaweed flake)
Katsuobushi (bonito flakes)


Boil the roasted corn kernels to make corn tea (옥수수 차 oksusu cha). I just take a handful and throw in a pot of water, you should rather go heavy than light on the kernel, it makes the tea sweeter. Let the tea cool.


Chop the cabbage. Time to show your prowess of chopping without looking, which I can’t do. You’d end up with a LOT of cabbage. Make cabbage salad with kimchi.


Mix flour with corn tea.


Add cabbage, diced shrimp and eggs into the flour. Mix like you never mix before.


Plop some of the mix onto a hot, lightly oiled skillet and spread it into whatever shape, canonically a disk. Four inches across will make it easiest to flip and big enough to be a meal.


Layer bacon strips on top. Let it sit for 3-4 minutes on medium-high heat.


Flip. And DO NOT PRESS it down. You want the air in there for crunch. Let it cook for another 2-3 minutes.


Spatula it out onto a plate. Sprinkle copious amount of aonori and katsuobushi (which we forgot to do! But we used tempura shrimp to make up for that later). Squeeze mayonnaise and okonomi-sauce into your desired pattern. Or make a heart-shaped pancake, like Kristen.

Here, a lesser writer would put something cliche like “this is the best okonomiyaki I’ve ever gulfed down”.

This is the best okonomiyaki I’ve ever gulfed down.


If you bought extra shrimp, make shrimp tempura. We decided this on a wimp and protected ourselves from flying oil with plastic bags. Recommended for entertainment. 😉


With leftover batter after deep frying the shrimps, make fried dough. Drizzle syrup and eat them as dessert. Can you see the shrimp imposter? 😉

Future prospects: grating nagaimo, making our own sauce, other styles of okonomiyaki.

Cheap eats at Koreana

July 05, 2012 By: Mai Truong Category: California - The Bay Area, Comfort food, Korean, savory snacks


Put me next to a pig foot and I turn into a total nut case. But boy, these chunkies, sweet, salty, chewy, just a little spicy… I cleaned the bones until they were white.


A feeble attempt at including some starch to our lunch: ground beef and pork coins covered in batter and fried.

Dessert: ho tteok (호떡) – chewy sweet pancake with some kind of syrup or melted brown sugar filling, and the best part? They’re not too sweet!

Ready-to-go lunch for two: ~$15
Address: Koreana Plaza
2370 Telegraph Avenue
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 986-1234

Friday afternoon, Bistro 1491

March 30, 2012 By: Mai Truong Category: American, California - The Bay Area, Comfort food, One shot

The sky is grey. The ipod plays Gustav Mahler’s piano quartet in A minor. One hand turns the page to Der Prokurator. The other hand maneuvers the fork into a stack of three pancakes. Oozing chocolate chips and a thick strip of bacon.


Bistro 1491 sits, in fact, at 1491 Solano Avenue. Somehow I keep thinking that the name is 1941. It feels so. The burn orange walls, the abstract paintings, the white-haired ladies by the window.

The pancakes are fluffy, soft, good at first, the bacon is at the right saltiness. The maple syrup errs on the watery side, or maybe it’s just overwhelmed by what’s supposed to be dark chocolate but turns out too sweet. About 60% dark. A heavy feel sets in after the pancakes are gone, what’s left on the plate are messy streaks of brown chocolate and faint yellow syrup. It could almost make a hasty painting. But hasty does not suit this scene.

Address: Bistro 1491
1491 Solano Ave
(between Santa Fe Ave & Curtis St)
Albany, CA 94706
(510) 526-9601
Breakfast at noon: dark chocolate & bacon pancakes – $8.65

The unpredictable Myung Dong

October 16, 2011 By: Mai Truong Category: Comfort food, Houston, Korean, noodle soup


Unpredictability #1: “Are you opened today?”
Before you set your GPS to Myung Dong in Houston, make sure you call and ask that question in the clearest, simplest way possible. Aaron tried different versions, most were a bit too elaborately polite with a perfect American accent, and only succeeded in confusing the poor old man. I tried it once and got the answer “Yes, open.” We hopped en route.


(If you don’t call, there’s a slim chance that your schedule will coincide with the owner couple’s schedule, which depends on the lady’s health, and she’s the only chef. That slim chance didn’t happen for me the first time I set out for Myung Dong.) The limited English conversation is nothing uncommon at Korean and Vietnamese mom-and-pop diners, but I have to mention it because it’s one of those things that make me classify Myung Dong as more “authentic” than the other Korean restaurants in Houston. The second thing is that its name doesn’t contain “Seoul” or “Korean”, they go more local: Myungdong (명동) is a part of Seoul (in Vietnam, its equivalent would be a phường). The third thing is that its name contains its specialty: kalguksu (칼국수). In fact, that’s the only part of the name still visible on the sign, the Myungdong part has faded completely, which explains why we couldn’t find it the first time (aside from the other fact that we couldn’t read Korean at the time)*.

Of course we ordered it. It was the first kalguksu I’ve ever had. It’s a handmade, knife-cut noodle in soup, and this version has only noodle, broth, and vegetables. The broth was sweet and deep, the noodles were wonderfully chewy. But kalguksu is like fireworks, the first two minutes are great, then you ask yourself “just when is it gonna end?”. Now that I’ve had kalguksu, unless I get a two-minute-size bowl, I doubt I will gather enough curiosity for a second kalguksu in my life**.


But kalguksu was still a memorable thing. In my Commis post I went off on the memorability of meals, and here I go again. Myungdong has something worth remembering: the portion (Unpredictability #2). Aaron and I each ordered a dish, him the kimchi duaeji bokkeum (김치 돼지 볶음, stir-fried pork with kimchi) and me the kalguksu, and we decided to share a pajeon (it was a really good pajeon too, thick, crispy, airy, and chewy, oh, and not oily). The usual banchans came. We were both starving like baby goats. Then the big stuff came, covering the whole table. A diligent hour later, in Aaron’s words, “it looks like we hadn’t eaten anything at all”. We looked at the old man with hopeful eyes, for boxes. Many boxes. Also in Aaron’s words, “he’s quietly laughing at us: gotcha, foreigners, didn’t know what you were getting into, did you”. He did laugh with us, a very congenial laugh of old men, as he poured the goods into the containers and loaded the containers into a cardboard box. Aaron had enough food for the next week. And Aaron is no timid diner.


Address: Myung Dong Kalguksu
6415 Bissonnet St
Houston, TX 77074
(713) 779-5530

Dinner for so many more than two: $50. See Menu pages 1 and 2.

(*) It’s a neon green one-story house with no door sign. Very noticeable. If in doubt, ask the people in the same parking lot, they’ll confirm “The Chinese restaurant? Yes, that’s it there!”
(**) This is why I didn’t get kalguksu at To Hyang, although it’s one of their recommended’s. In a few ways, such as the homemade kimchis on the table, Myung Dong is similar to To Hyang. When my Korean is better, I’ll ask them if they grow herbs in the back too.

Breakfast at the Guenther House

June 13, 2011 By: Mai Truong Category: American, Comfort food


San Antonio sleeps in on Sunday. It may be the seventh largest city in the States but it acts like either a college student or an old man who can’t sleep at night and frequently doses off in the day: Saturday night – cars, tourists and horse carriages packed Houston, Commerce and the streets about, Sunday morning – there may be 50 cars on the freeway and 3 people wandering downtown: us. The plus side for walking the pavements at 6 am is you can pose for pictures without being embarrassed about acting like a tourist. The downside is the restaurants aren’t opened, actually, they remain closed for the rest of the day.


Just when we thought about settling for the hotel breakfast, the internet came to rescue: the Guenther House in Arsenal, an 1860 old-house-turned-museum with a late Victorian styled parlor, German-imported porcelain and a terrace looking out to the river, serves breakfast all day.


The pancakes are fluffy. The white gravy is thick like melted cheese. The pineapples and oranges are sweet.


But the best of all was the so-called Southern Sweet Cream Waffle. I’m a pancake gobbler but in this pancake vs. waffle match, the crispy, airy waffle with subtly sweet dough and syrup-filled pockets won hands down.

A red head exercising down the river, across the street from the Guenther House

They sell the waffle mix upstairs the Guenther House for $6.50 per 15 oz. We cleansed our palates with a perfumed-cool, lingering sip of raspberry sage ice tea and filled our lungs with the river breeze as we prepared to drive back to Houston. Another town has been added to our list of retirement havens.
For a mini tour of the villa, click on Mr. Red Head’s beak.


Address: The Guenther House
205 East Guenther
San Antonio, TX 78204
(210) 227-1061

Country-styled breakfast for three: $25.63

Millbrae Pancake House – Old country breakfast with a berry good twist

July 27, 2010 By: Mai Truong Category: American, California - The Bay Area, Comfort food, One shot


The most irresistible American meal is the full country breakfast. I know it’s derived from the full English breakfast and all, and it’s probably so irresistible just because who in their right mind would refuse food after a long night with an empty stomach (hence the word “fast” – not eating, in “breakfast”). And yes, there’s nothing speedy about the old country breakfast. Making pancakes, scrambling eggs, frying sausages takes a good hour off your morning, not to mention scrubbing the skillets afterwards. I probably will never make a full country breakfast at home until I have nothing better to do, but thank God for blessing America with countless roadside brick houses opened up just to serve breakfast. And may those like Millbrae Pancake House flourish despite the swamping force of IHOP and the likes, because they serve freaking good breakfast.


I said freaking good because I happened to order the one dish that, it turns out for the first time, everyone on Yelp seems to agree to be MPH’s best. The Swedish pancake with lingonberry butter. Have no idea how Swedish this really is, but the pancake is not the fluffy butter kind IHOP is known for, instead it’s a small flat crepe. It’s dense and has a slight sweet chew. And the lingonberry butter is butter mixed with lingonberry bits. And I spread a ton of it on my pancake. And I ate it by itself, like eating chocolate. Americans, maybe it’s time to mix raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, gooseberry, and maybe other fruits too into your butter. It kills. Just sayin’.

The rest of the breakfast was really just so so. Hash brown, two runny eggs, and four sausage links were as good as they could(should) be, but nothing unexpected. That’s ok, the Swedish deal wowed me enough.

MPH is cheap too. All that was for $7.95. The thing is, it was too much. I couldn’t finish everything, had to lean against the wall for 10 minutes in the restaurant, and almost needed a walker to get to the car. Maybe I’d be in better shape if I gorge up on these more often.

Address: Millbrae Pancake House
1301 El Camino Real
Millbrae, CA 94030-1410
(650) 589-2080‎