Deluca’s @ Strip District

Deluca’s, the other famous breakfast diner in Pittsburgh.  Like Pamela’s, its independently owned, but offers amazing breakfast/brunch/lunch foods.  On weekends they have Lobser Bisque!  Every time I went to Strip District I’ve always seen kajillion people outside waiting in line, so I decided that I want to try it.

Like Pamela’s, they offer a variety of breakfast foods, although more.  The options range from omelets to pancakes to hot cakes and crepes and waffles, and then sandwiches and soups.  I ordered Nutella Chocolate Banana Crepe, and the Sheep ordered their special for today, Cheeseburger Omelets which came with homefries.

Nutella Chocolate Banana Crepe

Cheeseburger Omlet

I really loved my crepe.  It was wrapped around creamy ricotta cheese, a banana, chocolate chips, and Nutella spread.  However, the crepe itself was thicker than I expected – I would say it was more like a hotcake.  However, they also have hotcakes and pancakes, so I’m assuming hotcakes are even thicker (or greasier, since the Pamela’s ones are).  The thing that I loved about the meal was that it was not greasy.  Pamela’s is too greasy for me; it makes me feel like I just chugged a bottle of oil by the time I finish the meal.  Also, the ricotta cheese inside the crepe was amazing.  It was creamy, and went really well to balance out the sweetness of Nutella and chocolate chips.  Overall, this is possibly the best crepe I have ever had.

The Sheep really liked the cheeseburger omelet too.  He said that it just tasted like hamburger meat and eggs at first, but as he ate closer to the center it became really cheesey, and he loved it.  The home fries were crispy and was good.  He really loved his meal too.

The only problem with this diner is that the wait was very long.  It took us probably 20 minutes to get in, which was around 9:30am.  By the time we left, probably 10:30 ish the line was still as long.  I would say it is very much worth the wait, even under the hot sun.  =)

Pamela’s P&G Diner – Oakland

For my first post, I’m going to talk about the Sheep and my lovely brunch this morning – Pamela’s!  Pamela’s is really popular in Pittsburgh, so I’m only willing to go if we arrive the restaurant before 10.  Usually by noon there’s more than 20 people waiting outside the door (at all the Pamela’s locations I’ve seen so far) and I don’t think they accept reservations.  I’ve seen a lot of people order take out, but I’m not interested in cold food so we’ve always ate at the restaurant.

Anyway, this is actually my third time going to Pamela’s.  The first two times I tried their stuffed hotcakes – the Chocolate Chip Banana Hotcakes and the Banana Walnut Hotcakes.  Both were amazing, except a bit too greasy for my liking.  Also, for some reason the menus are different depending on which location you go to.  I don’t really get why they do that, but they do.  Also, they don’t accept card, which is kind of annoying, but I digress…

Only once slice of toast because I ate one haha

Butterrrrrr

This time I ordered chorizo patties with 2 eggs, lyonnaise potatoes and toast.  Chorizo is a kind of spicy sausage, and it was supposedly “fresh pressed.”  The lyonnaise potatoes were amazing, of course.  I think they were pretty much homefries that had were somewhat crispy. The toast was scarily buttery – a bite into the center of the toast would cause butter to ooze out.  Of course, everything was incredibly greasy (woot for greasy American diners) but the food tasted so good.

The Sheep got their Morning special, which was two eggs, three sausages and two hotcakes.  The hotcakes weren’t stuffed but it had butter on it.  He loves butter, and so he used all of the butter on the two slices of hotcakes.  The thing about the hotcakes that makes it so good is that its soft in the middle, but crunchy on the edges.  They’re thin, almost crepe like, but somehow also pancake like.  I personally don’t think the stuffed hotcakes are as good – they usually add whipped cream or sour cream, which makes the hotcakes soggy.  I hate soggy pancakes/hotcakes/crepes.  But anyway, is a picture of their famous stuffed hotcakes that I had last time.

Chocolate Chip Banana Hotcakes! You can see the chocolate chip and banana sticking out on the top right =)