Pancake Wars

First of all, happy fathers day to all you dads out there.

I would also like to mention that our hero of this story Danosaur should currently be where I would like to be today - at the free Jonas' Brothers concert in New York. That lucky dogg. Now on to the good stuff.

So there is this town called Mt. Carmel, which is in Coal Mining country PA (about 3 hours away from where I live now). The reason this town is so cool will have to wait for another blog, but their role in this story revolves around a diner in town that serves "Blastin Blueberry Pancakes" for the whopping price of three dollars and fifty cents for a stack.

Before my first visit to this amazing corner of the country my friend Sara (prior to my first visit to the town) had told me about these pancakes, singing their praises like she was a widowed black mother who had lost her son in a gun fight praying to the good lord on sunday morning church in her starkingly large pink hat and matching petticoat. I have to tell you I was so excited for these pancakes that my hairs stood on end. While we were out drinking the night before I had the honor of trying these pancakes all I could think about was these delicious breakfast materials and how good they would taste to me after a long night of drinking 50 cent beers and chugging energy drinks mixed with vodka for five or six hours straight.

I was not let down.

These pancakes, be it because of novelty, price, or the feeling of overwhelming joy you get when you are hungover and food finds its way into your mouth, were the absolute best pancakes I had ever had in my entire life. They were not only cheap, but they were just enough to rid my stomach of that "holy shit I might throw up stomach bile" feeling, and good freakin lord they tasted so god damned delicious. I am telling you that the ratio of pancake to blueberry was absolutley perfect (keep this in mind), and though the pancakes were no different than any other diner food that I had ever tried, the fact that they were, and still were after the second time I indulged on my second trip up there, the best pancakes I had ever tried had resonated in my mind every morning I woke up with an hour to spare for breakfast food.

HOWEVER!

This weekend my friend Holly took Dan and I to breakfast for my birthday. We went to a cozy little place that I had been to once before, a small diner/grocery store on Spring Garden street in Philadelphia. I was struggling with the menu for about five minutes, half hungry for hash browns, half hungry for eggs, when I heard Holly say, "I'm having the banana pancakes". I looked up at her, eyes *trying* to be wide open, and said, "Yes".

These pancakes came to my table completely opposite of what I expected. I was waiting for these thigns to show up just bana flavored, like they had squirt some kind of crazy syrup into the mix to make them banana flavored. No. Completely wrong. These pancakes, and I cannot express in words how suprised I was, showed up SUPER fluffy, bigger in height than any pancake at a diner that I had eaten at. They were super light, but completely cooked, like the chef had some exquisite super power on knowing exactly when they would be awesome. But the best part was that they had banana slices COOKED INTO the pancakes.

I know that sounds like its nothing special. But you have to understand that after a morning of dancing and house music and beer and Wii and expecting just some shitty diner food breakfast, that these pancakes were like getting the red power ring for the first time in the original Zelda game. The ultimate expression of power in pancakes. The. Best. Breakfast. Ever. Now I gotta make this quick cause I have a father's day thing to do....

I immediately thought about the Blastin Blues. How did these pancakes chalk up to that? Well:

1. They were lighter and fluffier
2. They had more flavor to offer: While the blueberries were good, they were way sweet. These bananas weren't overpowering in sweetness, they were just enough to lighten up the taste.
3. I used mad syrup with the blastin blues. These banana pancakes only needed the slightest touch of that. They were already juicy from the banana mush being inbedded in them.
4. They were a dollar more expensive. In my eyes, that was totally worth it.
5. Blastin blues are 3 hours away. Banana-cakes are only 1.

So, in lieu of that, I hereby declare the banana pancakes the new King of Pancakes.