A Little Bit About a Lot of Things

It’s always hard for me to pick a place for brunch. My inner lazy-bones tells me that I just want to roll out of bed and down the block for food….but my inner food snob tells me to expand my horizons. Enter the Friendly Toast. I had heard people raving about this place for months now. So one rainy Sunday we trek out to Cambridge in search of the perfect pancake. Go before 10:30am or face long waits for tables. The place is pretty retro cool with kitschy decorations in every inch of the room. We are seated almost immediately even though the place is packed (they have tons of seating). There are so many choices on the menu, it’s hard to choose…

They have a cool bar area in the front but it has more of a diner feel towards the back. Some of the menu items are really creative and they have a lot of options on the menu that can be made gluten free.

We start by sharing the fruit with granola ($5)-Honeydew, raspberries, kiwi, bananas, strawberries, and cantaloupe with granola made from  oats, pecans, honey, cashews, maple and vanilla. The granola is excellent-it has a sticky consistency and is SO good on top of the (super) fresh fruit (you can also get it with yogurt!!).

My eyes are totally bigger than my stomach. You can get one or two pancakes, I got two, but totally should have had one! (one for $6 or 2 for $7.75) Think pancakes the size of dinner plates-and they are filling. I got the coconut cakes, cashews, shredded coconut, and chocolate chips drizzled with coconut sauce. Sweet and delicious, it tastes like a dessert-and it’s not overwhelmed by the coconut-the flavor is subtle.

The king cakes are two mini pancakes with chocolate chips and banana inside and peanut butter in between with real whipped cream on top with bacon ($10.25). These pancakes are quite a bit smaller than mine (thus “mini”) but equally filling. These are EXCELLENT! The combination of flavors is something you can’t go wrong with. The bacon is cooked perfectly, not too chewy not too crisp. The peanut butter starts to get melty the longer it sits in between the pancakes…making it that much better!

How can you go wrong with a place that makes M&M pancakes, or pancakes with toffee crumbles, gingerbread waffles or home made bread? You can’t. The service was pretty decent considering how crowded it was there.  I wonder how many Sundays I would have to go here to try everything on the menu…

Friendly Toast

1 Hampshire Street, Cambridge MA (Kendall Square)

[617] 621-1200

http://www.thefriendlytoast.net/

Sun-Wed 8am-10pm; Thurs, Fri, Sat 8am-1am

Tags: breakfast, casual, restaurant