Full disclosure: I am a pancake nut. In my opinion (that is, the opinion of a sweets addict), pancakes are the ideal. When done right, flapjacks are light and fluffy, like edible clouds for lack of a better simile. Nothing short of a dessert-lover's dream, they also enable you to eat cake for breakfast, the most important meal of the day.
It is this high opinion of pancakes that attracted me to the wonderful Cristy's Luncheonette in Westbrook, CT.
My friend introduced me to Cristy's a little over a year ago, when I was staying at her house in CT over winter break, freshman year. The morning of our visit was gray and damp, and she thought the Luncheonette would be a great breakfast destination, the perfect place to fuel up before our visit to the Mystic Aquarium. To get me on board she needed only say three magic words: "Connecticut's best pancakes."
That day, the trip to breakfast seemed inordinately long. With Connecticut's alleged "best pancakes" laying in wait, I sat in the passenger seat impatiently. Like one of the kids in that Ice Cube movie (Remember this?), I felt a near-uncontrollable urge to pester. But before I could utter the words "Are we there yet?" the wait came to an end, as it always does.
To my memory, Cristy's appeared commonplace at first glance, even drab. We found the eatery in a kind of concrete jungle, in a lot co-inhabited by a laundromat, an auto repair shop, a package store, and other such mundane shops. Located almost directly off the Connecticut Turnpike, we easily could have passed it by.
But believe it or not, Cristy's underwhelming facade gave me strange hope. In my mind I had formulated a theory, a highly irrational foodie formula based largely in my viewing of Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives," (a guilty pleasure). Hole-in-the-wall restaurants, I thought, must promise the most unexpectedly fantastic food. Always. "This place oughtta be off. The. Hook!" I thought to myself, preparing to cross the threshold of Flavortown.
Entering the Luncheonette's threshold, I was not disappointed in the slightest. Though not enough to fully prove my Triple D theory, the eatery's interior was far quainter than its exterior; it was a two-room space filled wood furniture and red tables. Located near my table there was a brick fireplace that (though purely decorative) added to this charm, giving the place a homey, living room-like warmth.
All of this comforting decor was merely a backdrop for the meal to come. The Cristy's menu was about two pages long. The first page offered rather standard breakfast fare, like omelets, two eggs "any style," french toast, etc. The second page, meanwhile, included an extensive array of "specialty pancakes." Unsurprisingly, this menu promptly stole my heart.
Choosing a pancake flavor at Cristy's was harder than selecting a college. (This statement, of course, reflects not an undervaluing of education, but what is probably an overvaluing of breakfast.) At my fingertips were a whole 32 varieties of flapjack, like Macadamia Nut Chocolate Chip and Raspberry oatmeal crunch. Adding to the overwhelmingness of it all, I was also assured I could combine any flavors I wanted.
After much deliberation, my friend ordered two Banana Chocolate Chip pancakes, while I customized a short stack of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip. Before long, the following creation was placed in front of me:
"Impressed" and "perplexed", I think, are the best descriptors for my initial emotions. Honestly, I could not wrap my head around how any chef could create such gargantuan pancakes: each, individually, was larger than my face. "Their spatulas must be enormous!" I thought.
After snapping a picture (or two, or three, or four), I dug in, and, to be perfectly frank, I think I shed a few tears. Of their own pancakes, the Cristy's menu had said the following in bold print:
"Often imitated... never duplicated."
In that first moment of feasting, I believed this phrase to be true. Sure, I had eaten some wonderful, near-perfect flapjacks in my day. But in all my pancake experiences, I had never tasted anything quite like the Cristy's variety.
Though probably fried in boat loads of butter, the cakes were not greasy, but perfectly crispy. With the application of fork and knife, this satisfying exterior gave way to a fluffy interior.
Although I can't speak for my friend and her stack of Banana Chocolate Chip, my flapjacks were also perfectly flavored. The pumpkin was prominent, but not so dominant that it overwhelmed the natural essence of the base pancake batter. The chocolate chips, furthermore, had not concentrated in a single area of the cakes (as is the case with so many restaurant flapjacks), but had distributed evenly such that each bite of pumpkin was complemented by a bit of cocoa.
Of course, these pancakes would have been more than sufficient on their own. Cristy's, however, did not stop here. Each stack was topped with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and...wait for it... *melted butter*. Needless to say, this garnish was the ideal complement: the sugar gave an added sweetness to the dish, while the butter seeped into each cake to up the ante on richness.
Truth be told, I could not finish my short stack. Despite all its perfection, its decadence probably would have incited cardiac arrest. Instead, I ate what I could and left the Luncheonette in the most contented of food comas.
Cristy's could have easily been a disappointment. I am, after all, a pancake maven, and I had visited the eatery expecting some of the greatest flapjacks in the New England area. In the end, however, I got what I came for. I had eaten Connecticut's best (or at least most inimitable) flapjacks, and no stack has dethroned them since.
