Slappy Cakes

It has been a rough couple months.  Without going into too much detail, we lost our baby at about 5 and a half months into the pregnancy. It was terrible.  It was scary.  I cried a lot.  I had to take a lot of time off work.  But it’s all over now.  And after all that bad stuff, we’ve decided this month we are having fun.  October is party month.  So I’m hitting some of the restaurants I’ve been meaing to try for a while, making the most of my new schedule at work and generally trying to enjoy life.

One of my first stops on this tour was Slappy Cakes.  Here’s the deal with Slappy Cakes: you cook your own pancakes.  Unfortunately, my husband is not into that.  He does not believe in going to a restaurants where you pay to cook your own food.  I get it.  Why pay good money, to do the work yourself?  But… for some reason, that still sounds like fun to me.  So I went with my mother-in-law, Cathy,  instead and we had a great time.

We stopped in on a weekday morning and were seated right away.  The first thing you’ll notice,  is the hot griddle in the middle of your table. They keep a cover on it until you’re ready to cook, but keep that in mind if you have kids.   That said, the place is packed with children, so I’m sure most can handle it.  Cathy and I decided to each order our own pancakes then share a regular entree.  Ordering pancakes is a real “mix-n-match” situation, they have a number of types of batter, fillings and toppings.  I ordered the buttermilk batter with bananas and homemade nutella.  Cathy ordered gluten-free batter, with blueberries, walnuts, and sausage.

The server brought the batter in squeeze bottles, gave us some advice on the best way to cook them, then left us to it.  It took 5-10 minutes to make the first batch and it went really well.  They cooked all the way through and had a beautiful brown color.  Mine had a great flavor and came out nice and moist (banana helps) but the best part was a homemade nutella.  It was sweet, nutty and melted beautifully on the hot pancakes.  Cathy said she was very impressed with the taste  and consistency of the gluten-free pancakes.

We also ordered off the regular breakfast menu, the one where THEY cook for you.  We shared  the Shirred Eggs, which are baked with apple, leeks and big chunks of bacon.  They were GREAT, but it was too much food.  In hindsight, we did not need TWO orders of pancake batter.  So we ended up eating only about half the eggs and taking the rest home.

Overall, I absolutley recommend Slappy Cakes.  Can you get a better breakfast in Portland?  Yes, for sure.  Is Slappy Cakes a gimmick?  Yes.  But it’s a gimmick that works.  The food is accesable to any palate, from 1 to 100 years old and much better than anything you’d get at Denny’s or Shari’s.  And for someone like me, who’s just looking to have a little fun (cue Sheryl Crow here), it was perfect.

SLAPPY CAKES
4246 SE BELMONT
M-F 8AM-2PM, WEEKEND 8AM-3PM