Had it with Clinton Street Baking. Casa Mono keeps rocking!
Nothing wrong with the always-good pancake dishes. The service had always been good. It’s just that the no-reservation policy during the day at Clinton have finally dampened any enthusiasm for me to eat there. The obvious worldwide popularity of this tiny place, with tourists from all over lining up for hours for tables, has made waiting unbearably longer than, say, a few years ago.
A couple of months ago, I took some visiting relatives for some pancake lunch at 1:30 pm on a Tuesday and we waited 1 hour 45 minutes. Yes they provide a cell-phone text alert, but by the time we made our way back for our pancakes, we’d already had a few drinks and some tasty Italian tapas at Inoteca on Rivington. After the tapas, my guests were already quite full and were not that impressed with CSB.
Then last Thursday, wife and I went at 12:30 and were told that the wait would be an hour-and-a-half to 2 hours. We gave our name and cell-pone number, but decided to scamper off to Casa Mono where we took the seats by the bar and had one of the best lunch we’ve had together in a while. The sweetbreads dish, the beef tongue dish and the sliced jamon were the highlights among many.
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I would say that what's wrong with Clinton Street Baking pancakes is: (1) mundane buttermilk pancakes, (2) blueberries as goo on top rather than as berries in the batter, and (3) "maple" butter with hardly a hint of maple flavor rather than maple syrup. The prospect of absurd waiting times and being given the bums rush as soon as I was done eating, even though on that occasion there was no line, removed what little appeal was left after the underwhelming pancakes.
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re: rpk
To some extent, I agree with you.
It's almost a given for us to have to find nearby eateries to tide our hunger over while waiting out the standard one-and-a-half hour for a seat at Clinton Street Baking. We've done this quite a few times and by then, most of the the allure of those pancakes are gone. I'll just leave it to the Japanese, Chinese and European tourists to compete for the long waiting times for those pancakes.
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