the grove cafe

"One pancake at the Grove Cafe, a little pig meat on the side, is a meal." - Michael Stern

From Road Food: "Of the many fine pancakes we have eaten coast to coast, we have a special spot in our heart for those made at Grove Café. When you order one, the very word will take on new shades of meaning, for in this place a pancake is, in fact, a pan cake – a good-size cake that has been cooked on the griddle. It is nearly an inch thick in its center and wide as its plate – a pillow-soft round of steamy cooked batter that has an appealing pale orange hue. With a couple of peppery, piggy Iowa sausage patties, one of these cakes is a mighty big meal. Two of them are listed on the menu as a “short stack” – a meal strictly for the tallest appetite."

After hearing this review of The Grove Cafe in Ames on the Road Food segment of The Splendid Table several times, we got to experience these fine pancakes for ourselves this morning. For Heidi, half of the pancake was a meal and it was wonderful!