The Alley Cafe - Pinole, CA

It's really, really too bad that this place is so far away. I have a feeling it would rapidly become an LTH favorite.

I first heard about this place when I lived a block or so over, on Prune Street (right across from the largest meth-processing lab in the East Bay, and next to that was a Catholic school. Interesting people-watching there, at least until the meth lab got busted). The restaurant has been there since, well, it looks like it opened in 1964 and they haven't gotten around to freshening it up any. It's a tiny, dumpy place, with a few tables and a small wraparound bar surrounding a smallish grill on which all the food is cooked. And what food!

It's all very simple stuff. They only deal in the basics: omelettes, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, hashbrowns. All of it cooked perfectly with a patina of grease. But not only is it tasty, everything is also alarmingly large.

My first visit, I ordered pancakes. I thought it was odd that pancakes were sold individually, so I asked for the stack of three I normally get. The waitress stared at me for a second before saying, "Do you know how big the pancakes are?" I ended up getting one, and couldn't finish it. The damn thing was bigger than the plate, a good two inches thick, and served with an ice-cream scoop of butter on top. Granted, it was flavored with a hint of sausage and onion since all the menu items are cooked on the same tiny grill, but it was tasty nonetheless.

The food here has medicinal qualities, too; as one of my long-ago roommates noted, it was the greatest hangover food known to man. Al that grease and all those carbs hoover up any remaining alcohol and leave you feeling just fine.

Now that I live in Chicago, I obviously can't pop over for weekend breakfast anymore, but I'm glad to see it's still there all these years later. If I ever have reason to be in Pinole again, I will definitely stop by.