The Minute Cafe, Bandon OR

The Minute Cafe is located in historic downtown Bandon, Oregon, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. A popular breakfast spot, especially during tourist season, the Minute excels at both pancakes and biscuits & gravy.

For just $5.00, the "Granny's Special" comes with coffee, an egg cooked to order, your choice of a bacon strip or sausage link, and two biscuits covered in white sausage gravy. This may be the most economical B&G that I've ever enjoyed. They could charge $9.00 for this dish, and I wouldn't complain... other than the fact that I'd notice the dramatic price increase, and that's never fun.

The biscuits are medium in size, and somehow both dense and fluffy. I always make note of the flavor and texture of the Minute's biscuits, especially the perfectly toasted upper crust. This would probably be a very decent biscuit even if it wasn't smothered in gravy.

The gravy at the Minute Cafe is thick, very creamy and quite rich, with a great balance between saltiness & sweetness, and chunks of sausage. Their gravy is decadent, verging on gourmet, almost dessert-like. Yet it doesn't sit heavy, or leave a greasy aftertaste.

I'm not often impressed with white gravies, as they are most often found in mediocre B&G dishes. However at the Minute Cafe, they make a
delicious white gravy. It doesn't look like a lot of food on the plate, but the richness of the gravy, on top of dense biscuits makes for a very filling breakfast.

As you can see from the picture, the sausage isn't your run of the mill skinny, wrinkly, shriveled up and overcooked link. It's a fresh, flavorful, seasoned link in its original casing.

As stated above, the Minute Cafe also makes very good pancakes. I believe this is the only breakfast restaurant in which I've ordered the B&G, and a pancake on the side. I do this knowing that I won't be able to finish the entire meal, and I hate to leave good B&G on the table, but these are some good pancakes.

The Minute Cafe
145 2nd St SE
Bandon, OR 97411-9663

Roscoe's House of Chicken n Waffles, Los Angeles, California

Roscoe's House of Chicken n Waffles is a small chain. The one I visited is just off Sunset, in Los Angeles.

I'm not sure why they offer B&G... The biscuits are merely adequate. Where they really fail is the gravy. It's a brown gravy, almost certainly from a mix, the likes of which you'd expect on a cheap piece of meat. It makes you wonder if they even known what B&G is all about, or if they've ever had it elsewhere.

Need I explain the flavor of brown gravy on biscuits? It's just... weird. Not terrible, actually, but certainly not wonderful. I did finish most of the dish - thinking that maybe it's weirdness would start to grow on me. It did not.

Perhaps B&G isn't a popular dish in southern California. When I got up to pay my bill and leave, the very friendly host asked "You're not from around here are you?". I explained I was from Oregon. He replied that only people from the South and the Northwest order B&G. I didn't feel like telling him that nobody from the South or the Northwest would ever order B&G twice from Roscoe's.

To be fair to Roscoe's, they do not claim to specialize in B&G. Like many restaurants, they include it on the menu in order to offer a thorough array of breakfast options. The place was fairly busy, on a weekday morning. They must do something right... probably waffles. And chicken.

B&G like this makes me think that breakfast restaurants should only offer B&G if they consider it a specialty. B&G should never be listed on the menu for merely obligatory purposes.

The Pancake Mill, North Bend, Oregon

Located on HWY101, just north of the Mill Casino, the Pancake Mill is a popular breakfast restaurant. As the name would suggest, they have great pancakes, and they're also known for their omelets, but they make an excellent biscuits & gravy.

The biscuits are dense, and rich. The gravy is somewhat chowdery, tan in color, with salty overtones, and chunks of sausage, It is a rich and thick gravy. Perfectly seasoned, this is an example of a B&G dish in which all of the elements come together in harmony. With each bite you're not just tasting gravy on biscuits, you're tasting a magical "third" flavor, the convergence of the two elements, like multiple notes in a single chord.

The dish comes with 2 eggs, cooked to order. Fried, over-easy, is the obvious choice.

The biscuits & Gravy at the Pancake Mill is dependable and consistent. I've been visiting this restaurant for about 10 years, ordering B&G every single time, and with the exception of the biscuits being slightly undercooked on one occasion (which did not ruin the experience), the dish is always the same, and always enjoyable.

On a recent trip, a guy sitting at the booth behind me was having B&G, and kept talking to his wife about how great it was, at one point telling her that it might be the best he'd ever had. I was waiting for the opportunity to say something to him like "Isn't this just great", but I was reluctant to admit that I'd been eavesdropping. However when the gentlemen got up to leave, he saw my B&G, and loudly stated "Biscuits and gravy! How do you like it???". I turned around and said "Buddy, I come here for this all the time".

In spite of their reputation for making an excellent B&G, the Pancake Mill seems oblivious this fact. It's not easy to find on their menu - I go to the Pancake Mill at least once every two months, and every time I find myself frantically scanning the menu, sometimes asking my wife "Where's the biscuits & gravy??? Do they still have it???" If they knew what they had, it would be front & center on the breakfast menu, and there would be a sign outside, boasting of their B&G.

The Pancake Mill is a popular breakfast restaurant on the southern Oregon coast, located near a popular Indian Casino & Hotel. Expect to wait for a table on weekends.

Pancake Mill
2390 Tremont Street
HWY101, North Bend, OR 97459