Westside Market Cafe - Great Breakfast

With a brief window of good weather on Sunday, I hopped on the Motocycle and headed west to check out the breakfast/brunch at the Westside Market Cafe. Located at 1995 W. 25 St. in the Southeast corner of the Westside Market the Cafe is open even when the Market is closed. Walking in the Cafe has the decor is a bit nostalgic, but in a very genuine way. This is not a space that has been made to look old, rather it is an old space that has been carefully cleaned and taken care of. The overall feeling is that this is a comfortable neighborhood place. There is a bar/counter and two seating areas. The breakfast menu is medium length with most of the items being based around variations on eggs benedict. I went for the Market Special, 2 eggs, toast and home fries for $2.75 and a short stack of the buttermilk pancakes for $3.50. The special was very good, with the eggs cooked perfectly over easy and a large helping of finely diced home fries cooked crisp with onions, and green and red peppers added. But the highlight of the meal was the pancakes. They were nicely presented on a colorful plate with some powdered sugar. The pancakes were medium thick and had just the right buttermilk taste to offset the sweetness of the syrup. These were some of the best pancakes I have had in a while. My overall impression of the Cafe was that they are doing very simple food using the best ingredients and careful attention to details at very reasonable prices. A quick look at the daytime menu shows a number of items I will need to get back and try. Definately worth checking out.

Dinner Impossible - No Pork, No Pressure

I try to keep this blog mainly to restaurant reviews, but did have to mention that I caught the current episode of Dinner Impossible on Food Network last night and I highly recommend it. If you haven't seen the show they challenge the chef and his assistants to make meals under impossible conditions. The new season features Cleveland's own Michael Symon, Iron Chef and lover of all things Pork. Well to shake things up, this episode has Chef Symon at Park Synagogue cooking a Passover Meal for 100. Chef Symon has brought a whole different feel to the show, less yelling and panic and more of a feeling of having fun and dealing with the stress. This episode in which Symon cannot use any pork or dairy or a lot of other products is really fun, especially for anyone on Cleveland's East Side, so try and catch it.