Breakfast at its best at Spyro’s

By Ryan DuVall

The Journal Gazette

Although I rarely drag myself out of bed early enough to enjoy it, breakfast is one of my favorite meals to eat out.

I mean, take today, for instance. Getting up and taking Mom and the family out for some flapjacks, eggs, bacon, sausage or biscuits and gravy, it really makes my heart feel ... Well, let’s just say I enjoy it and leave the rest to the dietitians.

When I actually got up early one recent Saturday morning, I decided to check out Spyro’s Pancake House at the corner of Bluffton and Sand Point roads.

The place was packed and it stayed that way every time I visited. Now I know why. Although it is a simple breakfast-and-lunch diner, the attention to detail when it comes to the food and service there makes Spyro’s stand above its peers. It’s simple done superbly.

So if you are taking mom out for breakfast or lunch today, pay attention.

The first thing I noticed as I sat down at Spyro’s was a big juicer just off the dining room in front of the kitchen.

“Surely they don’t offer fresh-squeezed orange juice,” I thought.

But to my surprise and delight, they did.

If fresh-squeezed O.J. doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to you, you obviously have never had good fresh-squeezed juice. Spyro’s juice was smooth and full of flavor, not overly sweet and just darn good.

Even if you are there for lunch, get some of this juice; it is awesome.

Now, as I said before, Spyro’s is busy and its quarters are a little tight.

It’s not exactly a quiet place for breakfast, so if you can, get a booth near the front where at least the clamor from the kitchen won’t bother you.

As soon as I was seated, I was offered coffee and never had to ask for more as they kept my cup filled. The staff also took care to make sure my little one was comfortable with crayons and crackers.

Although I love breakfast out, I hate having to decide what to have. Is it a pancake morning, a biscuits and gravy morning, an omelet morning or a fresh fruit and yogurt morning? O.K., it’s never a fresh fruit and yogurt morning for me, but give me points for trying.

I found my answer in one of Spyro’s skillet breakfasts and got a little bit of everything, even some fruit.

The countryman’s skillet consisted of hash browns topped with chunks of country fried steak, onions and sausage gravy and eggs any style. And get this: I was given the choice between toast and pancakes, a no-brainer in my book.

The pancakes were big and fluffy and made the toast look like, well, toast. The only knock on these beauties was that they were served with “snow” as my waitresses called it, a heavy sprinkling of powdered sugar. I don’t mind a bit of powdered sugar on French toast or German pancakes, but I didn’t care for it on my regular flapjacks. The extra sugar made my syrup a bit too sweet. I noticed other patrons, obvious regulars who knew the routine, ordering theirs without “snow,” so I’ll know better next time.

I am no countryman, so I was unable to finish this big skillet. The perfectly browned and crisped potatoes on the bottom of the cast iron dish were great and made even better when soaked with the white gravy that had a good amount of finely ground sausage in it. It also went well with the diner-standard, peppery country fried steak pieces. After hacking my over-easy eggs up on top of it, I had a delicious mess. There was so much of it that the lone wedge of cantaloupe that garnished my pancakes, that fruit I was telling you about, never got a second look.

Also worth noting, biscuits cannot be substituted for toast or pancakes, so if you want to sop up your extra gravy with one, it’ll cost you.

Another breakfast meal that caught my eye was the skirt steak and eggs. Skirt steak is kind of a fad food these days as people are rediscovering that its uses extend far beyond fajitas.

Spyro’s skirt steak, I was told, is marinated for more than 24 hours to ensure the leathery cut of beef is tender. And what I got was a very tender cut of meat that had great flavor. Now a sirloin or even chopped steak is great with eggs, but you just can’t get skirt steak anywhere (as a matter of fact, I’m not sure I have seen it on any other menu in the Summit City) and it is well worth a try.

Spyro’s breakfast menu was as affordable as it was diverse. The restaurant offers a variety of combos, several omelets, waffles, crepes and blintzes all for less than $5 each. At $7.95, the skirt steak and eggs was the priciest breakfast it carried and even it was a bargain considering the size and taste.

My second visit to Spyro’s was during the lunch hour. Yes, I still had a glass of fresh O.J., but I stayed away from the breakfast menu this time.

Spyro’s offers a variety of different soups each day. The beef barley soup was chock full of onions, carrots, celery and plenty of barley bits and chunks of meat. It didn’t disappoint, especially since you can add it to a burger-fries combo for just $1.

For my combo, I chose the supreme burger with bacon, mushrooms, grilled onions and American cheese on a sesame-seed bun. It, too, was a fine choice.

This burger was big and juicy and the grilled onions and mushrooms (which were steakhouse quality) made it messy, but worth the extra work. The bacon on this sandwich, and the bacon that is served at breakfast, is also a cut above. The thick slabs are more meat than fat, the kind of bacon you would get from a butcher.

Spyro’s chef salad also was simple, but not to a fault. This platter full of mixed greens had a load of meat and cheese strips topping it along with tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs. It was more than big enough to be a meal in itself.

Much like the soup, dessert varies from day to day. And although the restaurant’s name is Greek, baklava is only available when, according to my waitress, “I get in the mood to make it.” But that is O.K. because the strawberry shortcake I had didn’t make me wish for anything else.

I was warned that the shortcake at Spyro’s was served over a biscuit and not actual shortcake, a detail that would have made my dad, who only likes his “shortcake” in biscuit form, smile. And in the end, I was smiling, too, as the more-dense-than-flaky biscuit really worked will with the sweet, syrupy strawberries and fresh whipped cream.

The biscuit was so good, I know next time I will pay the extra to get them to go with my breakfast gravy.

Now I don’t know when I will get up early enough or when I will have enough time to have breakfast out – “out” usually means grabbing a sandwich at a drive-through while hitting the road – but when I do, I know where I will go.

And actually, because breakfast is served all day, I won’t have to get up that early at all to try Spyro’s again.

Either way, you can be sure I’ll be having a glass of orange juice and I’ll probably leave satisfied.

Restaurant: Spyro’s Pancake House

Address: 4410 Bluffton Road

Phone: 478-4976

Hours: 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. every day

Smoking status: Non-smoking

Handicapped accessible: Yes

Alcohol served: None

Kid-Friendly: Yes

Menu: Countryman’s skillet ($5.50), skirt steak with eggs ($7.95), supreme burger ($5.95), chef’s salad ($5.50), fresh-squeezed orange juice ($1.50-$2.50), cake or pie of day ($1.95), country strawberry shortcake ($2.55)

Note: Restaurants are categorized by price range: $ (less than $20 for three-course meal), $$ ($20-$29); $$$ ($30-$39), $$$$ ($40-$49), $$$$$ ($50 and up).

Spyro’s Pancake House

* * * * ½ 

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