Monster Munching: Flappy Jack's

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Flappy Jack's - Orange

I wish places like Flappy Jack's opened past 3 p.m. Its food is the kind I'd rather be eating for dinner. But it closes early because our custom of relegating the best stuff that American cuisine has to offer (bacon, eggs, pancakes and hash browns) to the daylight hours is so ingrained, breakfast-centric places like Flappy Jack's would be deserted if it tried. Proof? The place used to Spires, which is a diner just like Flappy Jack's is, but open at all hours.

The fact is, even though there's nothing in our body clocks that would go haywire if we ate a McMuffin for supper, it's just weird for most people.

And that's too bad, because Flappy Jack's--which has Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Elvis kitsch trifecta of statues in the middle of the restaurant--serves glorious breakfasts that would be great anytime of day or night. These are platters of egg-centered morning meals surrounded by satellites of more food on the side.

My spicy Polish sausage, over-hard eggs, and hash browns in crispy shaved ribbons (oh those hash browns!) came with a separate plate of pancakes I didn't even touch. There was corned beef hash that didn't taste like it was scooped out of a can, but chipped off from a Saint Patrick's feast. There were waffles with pineapple and drizzled with coconut syrup that would sing a sweet Don Ho melody even if it wasn't called the "Hawaiian Waffle". There was a Dutch pancake, fluffy, eggy, like a thicker version of a crepe wrapped around fruit as though a burrito.

The greatest dishes are the omelets--gigantic flotillas of eggs that deliver your chosen cargo of protein, vegetables and cheese inside a hull of fluffiness. Did you know that the French eat omelets for dinner?

Heck, even Ron Swanson eats breakfast for dinner.