All you can eat pancakes @ Charlie's Grind and Grill!

We are big fans of Charlie's burgers. The juicy meat, tasty and varied condiments plus the generous servings of the chunky fries. So imagine our excitement (!!!) when we found out that they now serve breakfast. YES BREAKFAST!

Breakfast is the best meal of the day, hands down. Maybe it has something to do with the thought of waking up to the smell of bacon & waffles that makes it so theoretically pleasing. Of course, having to prepare them yourself is another matter altogether. But I digress.

The breakfast menu

For P295, you get the Charlie's Breakfast Menu which includes:

- an all you can eat fresh buttermilk pancakes

- hashbrown or skillet potatoes

- scrambled eggs or sunny side up

- sausage patty, sage sausage, bacon or ham

plus refillable brewed coffee or Charlie's ice tea! (Available from 7AM-11AM)

The buttermilk pancakes

When our food arrived, we were ecstatic to taste these buttermilk pancakes. We never really bothered to know what buttermilk is. It just sounded so rich and flavorful, with the word butter sealing the deal. Imagine our disappointment when we took our first bite and found the pancakes to be a bit sour. We thought maybe they used the milk yesterday and forgot to check.

As it turns out (after some good ol' googling), Buttermilk is supposed to be slightly sour. It's the residual liquid which remains after a butter is churned. So no, it doesn't really contain butter. Sadly. Its flavor is actually reminiscent of unsweetened yogurt. Some recipes online even suggest that sour cream could be a substitute for buttermilk when making pancakes.

All this information is in retrospect of course. Because when we asked if the pancakes were really supposed to be sour, they didn't even explain all this residualfrombutterchurned concept. They were more than happy to replace the pancakes for us, even insisting that they cook another set of the sausage, bacon and eggs with it. They were very accommodating to our little 'complaint'. Maybe they're used to Filipino people not being accustomed to tangy pancakes. We were just glad that they were eager to replace our orders with pancakes that contain butter + milk.

Buttermilk pancakes, bacon, skillet potatoes, sunny side up eggs

After being replaced, Charlie's had a second shot at winning us over. The pancakes were fluffy indeed. I usually love putting a generous amount of syrup in my flapjacks but this didn't call for it. The bacon was crunchy, just as it should be. The skillet potatoes were not salty and was cooked right, not soggy or hard. The iced tea was brewed although I found it a bit sweeter than expected.

Buttermilk pancakes, sage sausage, hashbrown, sunny side up eggs

Overall, the experience was definitely worth it. However, we think the food wasn't really anything special. Maybe it wasn't even sulit, especially considering the fact that we weren't able to take advantage of the unlimited pancakes, coffee, and iced tea. We overestimated our pancake-stuffing capabilities.

The overall packaging was just too appealing, or maybe we just love the general idea of breakfast and having it together. <3 Hehe. Anyway, there really is a shortage of good breakfast places available during weekdays. You should try Charlie's once at least :)

Nugget of the day: Anyone can have lunch or dinner together out of convenience but breakfast takes effort (and love) :)

OVERALL RATING
Food: 3/5 (Good, but not great)
The burgers are a different matter though. Don't judge a burger place by its breakfast offering!
Service: 5/5
They were really accommodating when we complained about our pancakes. They even let us take home our leftovers, not an usual practice with eat-all-you-can meals. 
Value for money: 4/5

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Charlie's Grind and Grill
G /F Ronac Art Center,
Ortigas Avenue, Greenhills, San Juan