Life is Uncertain -- Eat Dessert First

Dinner on Tuesday night was all out of order. Started with dessert and ended with an order of pancakes. It was all because I have been hearing about the "best pancakes ever" at Clinton Street Baking Company non stop for the past few months. The wait for brunch on the weekends are 2 hours or more. However, February is their pancake month and they always serve their blueberry ones for dinner, so a group of us decided that dinner was our best bet to try these infamous pancakes. We arrived expecting a little bit of a wait and were told 45 minutes by the very nice hostess. No wonder there are 2 hour waits on the weekends, the restaurant is tiny and only seats 30 people at a time. Don't go here if you're more than four people because you will be waiting forever.

It was already 7:45 at this point and we couldn't wait 45 minutes to eat something so we walked next door to the new Dessert Truck restaurant. If you work in Midtown, you probably know what the Dessert Truck is -- but it's one of those mobile food trucks that serves unbelievable desserts from chocolate molten cake to doughnuts and ice cream. I didn't even notice that I stopped seeing the Dessert Truck around but now it all makes sense! They opened a dessert shop instead, next to Clinton Street Baking Co. and are now only using the truck for private events. We ordered the chocolate banana bread pudding for the four of us and ate it in almost four bites. The place has only been opened 2 weeks but I suggest everyone go and keep it in business because the desserts are great and the staff was friendly.

It had been about 30 minutes so we checked on our table at Clinton Street and ended up waiting for a total of an hour and 15 minutes for our table. The wait system there is a crap shoot and depending on when you show up you could be waiting for 30 minutes or 2 hours. One of the main reasons we waited so long was that one of the only tables for 4 had the slowest eater imaginable at the table. I've never seen a woman eat pancakes so slow - it was the most irritating thing. But back to the food...

Lindsey ordered for us before we all took off our jackets and the biscuits were brought out to us quickly. We got four different entrees to share and saved the pancakes for last as a second dessert.

First were the fish tacos and the cheeseburger (also award winning). It was a favorite of the night. Topped with cheddar cheese, it was cooked well and was probably a pound in size. We got it with sweet potato fries, cole slaw and a pickle. The fish tacos were messy and didn't have that many pieces of fish in them but were also good. Next we got the goat cheese, truffle oil, mushroom and onion pizza which was delicious! You could smell the truffles before the pizza was even brought to the table. The dough wasn't too crunchy and it was already cut into 4 slices.

Then last but not least, came the blueberry pancakes. Three or four of them come in an order that are almost Frisbee sized. Blueberries are mixed in with the batter and are put on top. On the side is this amazing warm maple butter that you have to have in every bite. The butter definitely makes the pancakes world famous. I would have rather had chocolate chips instead of blueberries but those don't exist and would have settled for anything at that point of starvation.

We didn't order the special pancake ones but here is the schedule and my sister is going on Monday so maybe I'll have a follow up post about her experience. http://www.clintonstreetbaking.com/?page=about-pancakemonth

Monday and Tuesday are also half off bottle of wine nights at Clinton St. so that could have increased the crowds. For minimal wait time I suggest going on a Wednesday night not during Pancake month and you will probably have a better experience than us.

The food was great and the prices are too, but I don't see myself rushing back to wait two hours in a tiny restaurant. The pancakes were yum, but I also think my mom's Bisquick chocolate chip ones are too, so maybe I'm not the best judge.