Butter Squared - DuPar's Pancakes

I wanted to do something special for you this week, but really, all I want to do is talk about the best pancakes in the world.  I hope that is special enough for you.

I grew up on pancakes made from Krusteaz mix (or it's generic counterpart), pancakes from quick service restaurants (Denny's, Village Inn) and a few I tried to make for myself, with varying degrees of success.  When I became a teenager, and my metabolism threatened to literally burn me alive, I began to eschew carbs for more lasting satiation and focused on fat and protein.  This started my love affair with cheese and bacon.  At this point, we could have said "And they lived happily ever after . . ." without lying. But, that leaves me a thousand words or so short of a full post. 

I actually don't like pancakes that much.  They are kind of a nothing food.  They are vehicles for other things.  Pancakes are an intentionally bland bread that is intended to deliver maple syrup to us.  (I have never written or said that statement before and, now that I see it, I wonder if pancakes are actually the result of a conspiracy within the maple-industrial complex to increase sales of syrup).  Whether the origin of pancakes is benign or full of cloak and dagger intrigue, the fact remains that pancakes are intentionally a non-thing.  They are a wheat sponge for sweet things like maple syrup, blackberry syrup, boysenberry syrup, corn syrup and basically all syrups (except for those of the cough variety).  

Because I was not a big fan of the pancake, I never really made them for myself.  One of the first times I ever made pancakes, was by coercion.  I was the wilderness cook on a dude ranch and pancakes were on the menu.  I was in the wilds of Yellowstone country.  We would take guests on horseback into the wilderness so they could fish, see sights and be afraid of grizzly attacks.  On the menu was pancakes.  I was nervous.  In fact, I was nervous about all of my meals.  I was not qualified for my job.  My interview went like this:

My Boss: Kade, can you cook?

Me: Not really.  I can scramble eggs, I guess.

My Boss: Kade, you are the cook now.  You can use [the former cook's] menu. 

[note: Does this qualify as a meritocracy? What is the word for a system where desperation governs the selection of leaders?]

With that thorough vetting, at age 17 I was in the backcountry, taking full grown humans (who were fully capable of lawsuits) into uncivilized lands.  I bluffed my way through cooking two meals a day (lunch was just a sack lunch), remembering snippets of advice from my parents (the trick with pork chops is to cook them enough to be safe, but not so much that they are tough) which turned out to be very subjective and hard to reproduce without practice.  Overall, it went well.  I had more hits than misses.  

So, you may ask, what about the pancakes?  Well, one day I made them.  It was magical.  I don't remember all the details.  Hormones had clouded my brain such that it was like living with a form of dementia, affecting the way important memories about pancakes are stored.  I think bacon grease was used as the shortening.  I think the altitude changed how quickly they cooked.  I remember they were slightly crispy on the outside.  I remember kind of liking them.  I remember the guests (or "dudes" if you will) LOVED them.  And I was never able to make them that good again.  I wasn't in organized sports in high school so that batch of pancakes constitute my glory days.

So, 23 years later, I don't love pancakes, but I really like really good pancakes.  So now I can tell you about the best ones I've ever found:

 

These are DuPar's pancakes.  My son is pouring syrup on them, like the Maple Cabal (based in Vermont, I assume) has programmed him to.  They are thick.  They are fluffy.  They have a moments of slight crispiness on the outside.  They taste like butter in heaven.  I don't know what else to say, other than they are the best.  The only pancakes close to these are from the Original Pancake House.  I think they may be related.    This picture is three pancakes.  That's how thick they are.  It takes a significant amount of gumption, stick-to-itiveness, true grit and resolve to eat more than two of these in one sitting.  No one eats a big stack of these unless they have type 2 diabetes and don't give a damn what their glucose levels are.

DuPar's is a restaurant with a rich and colorful history.  You can read about it on their menu (I have to work tomorrow, so I have to wrap this up). 

DuPar's also has eggs!  Here are two of them:

 

That is four pieces of bacon.  This is significant because this place is not cheap.  But the portions are clearly generous.  

Here is a muffin:

 

It is a banana muffin.  It's ok.  DuPar's fancies itself a bakery.  They have pies, muffins and a few donuts.  I haven't tried them, but they look good.  The fact that DuPar's has a video that they play showing how they make these things shows that DuPar's at least thinks they're good.  

So, go to DuPar's (they have two location in Vegas).  Bring a friend.  Have your friend order a bunch of pancakes and you order an omelet.  Split the pancakes, split the omelet and then take a nap.  It's the American way (brought to you by the Secret and Glorious Society for the Furtherance of Maple Syrup and Maple Syrup By-Product Consumption).