Tag: gluten free pancakes

Sage Plant Based Bistro: Cornbread Cakes

…if you’re going to carb up you might as well do it right.

Sage Plant Based Bistro in Culver City, CA was calling my name one random morning in the week between Christmas and New Years when time is in limbo and no one is quite sure what day it is. Despite being a hardcore meat lover, I’ve never missed it at this vegan restaurant. They have three locations in Southern California and one of the best meat-free taco salads I’ve ever had. But today was about pancakes.

I ordered the Cornbread Jalapeño Pancakes, served with the standard vegan butter and syrup, plus avocado, black beans, and rice. I also ordered hash browns because if you’re going to carb up you might as well do it right. These pancakes are gluten-free and soy-free too if you’re keeping track of those things. 

My first bite sans butter or syrup was good but a little plain. I added butter and an appropriate amount of syrup which easily elevated these to outstanding. Imagine perfectly moist cornbread in pancake form, lightly soaked in buttery syrup, spice, and deliciousness. 

The pancakes had tiny jalapeño flecks inside and a cute little kick to them. In case that’s not enough heat for someone (me), they also added three jalapeño slices on top. A sweet, spicy, melt-in-your-mouth cornbread pancake is hard to beat. Cafe Vida, also in Culver City, comes close but is missing that punch I can’t get enough of. 

The hash browns were similarly outstanding, perfectly crisped on top. I liked that the pancakes came with black beans, rice, and avocado. It felt like a complete (and completely decadent) meal. Go here and eat cornbread the way it should be eaten – as a pancake.

JUST THE STACKS – 9.5/10 TASTY STACKS

Overall Taste: Tasty as fuck. 

Mouthfeel: Melt-in-your-mouth happiness.

Size: Cute-sized.

Presentation: Three pancakes each topped with a delightful jalapeño slice.

Price: $16.00

Location: 4130 Sepulveda Blvd, Culver City, CA 90230

tastystacks

Birthday Stacks: Haute Cakes Caffe


Three different mouthfeels!

If you’re me, birthday celebrations almost always involve decadence and pancakes. I went to Haute Cakes Caffee, in Newport Beach, with some friends as the second stop in my pancake birthday tour. (The first stop was Nighthawk, obviously.) Haute Cakes, besides having a cute name, offers a variety of tempting pancake options: Buttermilk, Blueberry Cornmeal, Gluten-Free Oatmeal Blueberry, and Orange Ricotta Haute Cakes.

  • Image via TastyStacks.
  • Image via TastyStacks.
  • Image via TastyStacks.
  • Image via TastyStacks.
  • Image via TastyStacks.

We tried all of them except the plain Buttermilk. People on Yelp rave about the Orange Ricotta Haute Cakes, and I was most excited for those. They were good, but I found the orange flavor overpowering. I also found the consistency inside to be more like a regular pancake, and less like a ricotta pancake. I was expecting a slightly crispier outside and a slightly more moist inside.

The Blueberry Cornmeal pancakes tasted exactly like cornbread, which isn’t a bad thing unless you don’t like cornbread. These were my favorite, but my mouth was continually confused, because I’m not a huge cornbread fan. Apparently it really works for me in pancake form. You should definitely use the generous tab of butter they give you with these for the full cornbread pancake experience.

The Gluten-Free Oatmeal Blueberry Haute Cakes were impressively fluffy for gluten free pancakes and I am all about pancake fluff. I didn’t get a lot of oatmeal flavor in my mouth with these, which was a little disappointing, but these were still solid, well-crafted pancakes.

The Orange Ricotta and Blueberry Cornmeal Cakes were both topped with a medley of blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. Sadly, the berries were clearly previously frozen. There is absolutely no reason I would accept for this restaurant to be serving frozen fucking berries. I am pretty sure that even Mel’s Drive-In, the recipient of my worst pancake review, serves their pancakes with fresh berries.

Overall these pancakes were a lot of fun because I was in birthday mode and I get a kick out of ordering extreme quantities of food. Taste-wise they were all good but not great, and my craving for perfectly moist ricotta pancakes is still unfulfilled.

JUST THE STACKS – 7/10 TASTY STACKS

Overall Taste: Good, not exceptional.

Mouthfeel: Three different mouthfeels! Cornbread, gluten-free, and semi-moist ricotta. Yes, these are all mouthfeels.

Size: Appropriately sized, not too big or small.

Presentation: Definitely aesthetically pleasing, especially if you order at least three plates of pancakes. The berry presentation looked nice, I admit, but I can’t get over the fact that they weren’t fresh.

Price: $9.50 – $10.75

Location: 1807 Westcliff Dr, Newport Beach, CA 92660

tastystacks3 Comments

Erewhon: Are These Even Pancakes?


Pancakes should bring joy and delight, and maybe evoke pleasant memories of smiley-face chocolate chip pancakes.

I have been irritated by these pancakes ever since Erewhon started selling them. They’re tiny. They cost $10.95 and don’t even have any gluten in them. Gluten is delicious but I understand some people can’t or won’t eat it. 

I gave these pancakes the benefit of the doubt. I put them on a real plate and heated them up, but not too much, because I didn’t want them to lose their “raw” integrity. I tried to eat them with an open mind and paired them with a good cup of coffee.

  • Image via TastyStacks.
  • Image via TastyStacks.
  • Image via TastyStacks.
  • Image via TastyStacks.

I felt like I was eating mashed up fruit & nuts sculpted into a circular shape. They tasted exactly like their ingredients: pecan, cashew, banana, apple juice, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, Himalayan salt, red maca. This wasn’t necessarily bad, but it did not delight my taste-buds. I felt cheated out of a pancake experience.

These mini “pancakes” come with syrup and a coconut cream spread. The coconut cream was pretty tasty and added an interesting layer of sweetness but didn’t do much to improve my opinion. The syrup was a nice touch but didn’t make me feel like I was eating pancakes. 

Do these even meet the definition of a pancake? 

Merriam-Webster defines a pancake as “a flat cake made of thin batter and cooked (as on a griddle) on both sides.” I don’t mean to be a pancake militant, but according to this definition and my gut feeling, these aren’t pancakes. Pancakes should bring joy and delight, and maybe evoke pleasant memories of smiley-face chocolate chip pancakes. These did none of that for me.

If I wanted an expensive fruit nut mush snack, I might get these again, but I doubt it. I think there are better vegan, gluten-free pancake options out there. But if you are desperately craving pancakes and you pretend real fucking hard, these might work for you.

Just the Stacks – 2/10 Tasty Stacks 

Overall Taste: These had a definite health bar taste to them.

Mouthfeel: Sweet and mushy, but the coconut cream had a very nice texture to it.

Size: Perfect for a dollhouse.  

Presentation: Not the most aesthetically pleasing.

Price: $10.95

Location:  585 Venice Blvd, Venice, CA 90291

tastystacks