Egg Crate Cafe helps fill breakfast demands
Review: Egg Crate Cafe
Rating: Three forks out of four
Where: 8606 W. 13th, Suite 150; 316-295-2822
Hours: 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily
Type of food: Breakfast and lunch
Alcohol: No
While working for food distributor Ben E. Keith, Jeff Miller noticed something missing from northwest Wichita's menu of restaurants.
Breakfast.
He tried to persuade a few clients to open a place focused on the morning meal before finally deciding to do it himself.
Miller kept his eye on the spot in Northwest Centre that once housed Marbella for several years. Once the strip center's owner finished a recent renovation, Miller made his move.
Two months after opening, Miller's sure it was a good move. Egg Crate Cafe, which serves breakfast and lunch daily, has waiting lists on weekend mornings, and weekdays aren't too shabby, either.
ON THE MENU: The restaurant, which is open daily from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., serves standard breakfast items, from bacon and eggs to biscuits and gravy, as well as skillets, waffles, omelets and pancakes.The lunch menu is an array of sandwiches, salads, burgers and homestyle entrees such as pastas, chicken dishes and a K.C. strip steak.
DON'T-MISS DISHES: On a recent visit, we split our stomachs between breakfast and lunch items and were pleased with both.
Among our favorite of the breakfast dishes was the country-fried steak combo ($7.85) -a massive plate of food that also included generous helpings of eggs, hash browns and a biscuit. All were delicious, especially the steak, which had a flavorful breading, a thick white gravy and a pleasant lack of grease.
We also opted to build our own skillet, choosing smoked ham, green peppers, cheddar cheese and two eggs over easy. (It cost $5.35 plus 40 cents for each of our three chosen toppings.) We'd like to compliment ourselves on our skillet skills because we were sopping up every last morsel with the toast that came on the side.
From the lunch menu, we took a risk and ordered the pan-fried catfish sandwich ($6.98), which was topped with tartar sauce on a Kaiser roll. The star of the sandwich was the fish, which was nicely breaded, not too greasy and quite mild.
Also good was the bleu cheese burger ($6.50 with fries), a patty topped with blue cheese dressing and fried onions. It was a nice flavor combination, though the burger was a tad heavy on the dressing and we would have preferred blue cheese crumbles. AMBIENCE: The dining room has an odd L-shape layout, but Miller has made the most of it. It's sunny, bright and clean. PRICE RANGE: It's not the cheapest breakfast in town - plates range from about $5.50 to $8 - but Egg Crate's portions are generous. Lunch items are $6.50 to $8.95. SERVICE: Our food took a while to arrive on a busy Sunday morning, but our server was friendly and competent.
This story was originally published January 11, 2008 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Egg Crate Cafe helps fill breakfast demands."