Chicago Part 1: Bongo Room

There are many reasons to love Chicago. At no point before this most recent visit did I think breakfast would rank high among them.

We arrived early on Saturday morning, 8am. We had been up for 4 hours so it was essentially lunch time - a real, full meal was necessary.

A little googling before we left told us that there was a highly recommended breakfast place right by our hotel. And yes, we google, chowhound, citysearch, and blogsearch every meal before we go on vacation. Sometimes I worry that it can take the spontaneity out of a trip - but when it works, there are no regrets.

The Bongo Room was such a hit, the Husband and I both went back for our last meals before our respective flights home.




The pancakes were said to be THE thing to order. This is a good time to tell you all, that apparently, I am much smarter in Chicago. There are some cities where I turn into an idiot, I can't order well, I can't find my way around, there is just something off. But in Chicago, I was on my game - and this meal was just the beginning, more on this tomorrow.

So back to the pancakes, there were ridiculous choices to be had with chocolate sauces, and fresh berries, and vanilla creams. It was hard to choose. But our research beforehand served us well.

Though not on the menu, we were tipped off that you could order a single pancake instead of the full order, a good way to sample more then one and balance the meal off with something from the salty side of the menu.

Here was our order:

Eggs Benedict with spinach pesto, fresh spinach, and thick cut smoked bacon.

One crushed oreo cookie flapjack with warm vanilla bean cream sauce. Topped with chocolate creme anglaise.

One blueberry pancake with vanilla creme anglaise and blueberry coulis.

Really, only pictures can do this meal justice.

The spinach made this seem somewhat healthy....


They brought us a full order of the oreo-banana pancakes by accident. Yes, we felt ridiculous with all this food - my well laid plan of one pancake foiled. But it did make for a better picture and sadly we ate more then one of the pancakes.



Yes, they were as rich and silly as they looked. It was like 12 year olds created the menu...really smart 12 year olds.



On my last visit, I ordered a single oreo banana pancake - my justification for returning (other then the obvious deliciousness reason) was that as soon as I got back to NY I would eat healthier.

hahahaha.