"Slappycakes"

We have this restaurant nearby called Slappycakes.  You can follow the link to check it out or I can just tell you that the main draw is that you cook your own pancakes on a griddle built into your table.  They have a variety of batter options which are delivered to your table in a condiment dispenser sort of device so you can just squeeze it out onto the griddle.  They also have a variety of add in options from fresh fruit to chocolate chips.

I've never actually eaten there, but Davan has.  She and Lena went with Lena's host mom for Lena's birthday.  It's very popular, particularly with kids.  This morning I passed by there while out walking Ranger and noticed two kids who went in with what appeared to be their mom, jumping up and down in excitement about having breakfast there.  My projection about what was happening there is that they were doing a special advent activity and had never actually eaten there before or they would have been jumping up and down when they pulled up rather than when they got inside and saw what it was all about.

I've kind of wanted to eat there and kind of haven't.  I mean, we make pancakes once a week at home.  They only have one vegan option for batter.  With the toppings being extra, the cost can add up.  Pancakes are actually pretty cheap to make.  But, it seems like fun.  Anyway, I've had all these ambivalent feelings about it.

Seeing those kids so excited and, assuming it was their advent activity, made me want to go there with Davan for a special treat.  However, we're trying to limit our eating out and it would be kind of rude of us to use up an eating out event when Anthony couldn't join us.  Plus, there's still some ambivalence there.  But then I had a brain storm.

I came home and doubted myself a bit, but I brought up my idea to Davan anyway and she was excited.  So we did it.

We created two batters - one a kind of traditional pancake batter (but, you know, vegan and with whole wheat pastry flour and just a little agave rather than sugar and all) and the other a vegan buckwheat pancake.  We decided on toppings and prepared them.  As we're also staying away from sugar except for special occasions, the toppings did not include chocolate chips.  We had bananas, chopped apples, apple sauce, peanut butter, homemade chocolate sauce (made with nuts and dates), raspberry compote (both this and chocolate sauce were left over from Sunday pancakes), cinnamon, grapenuts, and dried cherries.

We set up our griddle in the middle of the table and went to it.

We had to use a ladle rather than a squeeze bottle, had to share the spatula and had to do the work ourselves, but it was really fun.  Not an everyday breakfast, for sure, but one to add to the repertoire for special occasions or advent activities.

We both ended up liking the more traditional pancakes the best, but had a lot more of the buckwheat batter made.

So, as we were drawing to a close with making pancakes for ourselves, we started cooking up the buckwheat ones with some of the leftover ingredients that work for Ranger.  Two of these four pancakes are for Ranger.

She'd already had breakfast, plus a few nibbles in the cooking processes, so she didn't get them this morning, but she'll have them to eat over the next couple days.  We had a lot of leftover buckwheat.  LOL

Yay for homespun Slappycakes.  We'll be visiting you again someday.