Phipps Feeding Fiasco

The experience

As you may know, I worked last night and I would be going to a continuing medical education work function tonight; eager to participate in another feeding fiasco, I sacrificed sleep to have a breakfast date with my two favorite guys, Benji and Ogre.  I gave Ogre a couple of suggestions and we decided on Cafe de France in Plano.  We packed up Benji (Mina was already in school) and headed out. 

I was impressed when we walked in to see that on their Welcome sign in a bunch of different languages, there was one for Tagalog (the main Filipino dialect) especially since I had just written a blog about growing up as a Filipina on my “other” blog.  Ogre and Benji settled into the booth while I took a picture.  As I walked towards our table I noticed that we were the only ones in there under the age of 60.  I mentioned this to Ogre and he asked me what was wrong with that.  I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, it was just an observation.  They all kept looking over and smiling at Benjamin, so we felt very welcome (or Maligayang Pagdating)!

IMMEDIATELY, Ogre started complaining about how hot it was.  I thought the temperature was perfect.  More evidence, according to Ogre, that it was, in fact, way too hot in the restaurant.  Admittedly, I wear a jacket even in the summer in Texas.  It reminded him of when we actually were in France.  He complained the entire time that we were in France that all the restaurants were too sweltering.  I love France.

They didn’t give us anything to entertain little Benjamin.  Ogre ordered his coffee before I walked up so when the waiter returned with his coffee and to get my drink, he had some little creamers.  We gave these to Benji to play with.  He kept wanting “mo mo,” and, luckily, Ogre likes to have cream in his coffee.  I ordered the Caramel Latte and a chocolate milk for Benji since Ogre neglected to order anything for him.

Benjamin was in a weird mood.  He wasn’t totally happy, and a little whiny.  I suspected it was because he didn’t get his morning yogurt.  Benjamin has a morning routine that includes yogurt and he is always a little off when we stray from it.  When I got my coffee, Benjamin immediately wanted some.  He wouldn’t even try his chocolate milk.  We resorted to fooling him again.  I pretended to pour my coffee into his chocolate milk cup and he fell for it everytime and drank it.  I don’t know why he kept thinking that after a few sips and gulps I needed to refill it, but, he is only 18 months old, who knows what goes on in their little heads.

I had to ask the waiter if they had a kids menu and he pointed it out on the back of the menu.  Doh!  I decide to get the French Toast with bacon for Benji.  The waiter tells me the Crepes are “really good” and he has an excited to look on his face so I order the strawberry variety with whipped cream.  Ogre asks the waiter if he should get the Croque Madame or Ham and Cheese Crepes and the waiter says excitedly that he must go with the Croque Madame. 

Ogre continues to complain about how hot is and how it’s so hot that he can’t even drink his coffee.  His cries are validated when a waitress overhears him and comments that she thinks it is hot, too, but that it might just be her.  I just roll my eyes. It’s perfect.  I continue faking Benji out with the coffee/chocolate milk exchange.

Ridiculous.

Our food arrives shortly, thereafter, and I cut up Benji’s french toast.  My crepes smell very syrupy.  I’m not too excited about it.  Ogre thinks his Croque Madame smells very buttery, he is very excited about that.  We dig in.  I’m not to pleased with my dish.   Ogre is swooning over his.  He offers to switch or share with me, but I know that Ogre does not like “dessert-y” breakfast dishes, so I decline his offer and muddle through mine.  Benjamin is having a good time dipping his fried potatoes in the ketchup.  He sucks the ketchup off his potato and then pops it his mouth to eat.  He is doing a good job of eating his food, in fact, too good of a job.  Benjamin has this problem of shoveling food into his mouth before I would think he has throuroughly chewed his food or swallowed creating an ever enlarging bolus of food in his mouth.  He usually gets it down with just some tearing of his eyes, but this time, he must’ve gagged because out comes most of his breakfast and chocolate milk.  Eww.  Good thing we were sitting in a vinyl covered booth.  Ogre cleans it up and Benjamin happily goes back to eating.  I’m pretty grossed out now and ready to call it quits.  Ogre offers up the last few bites of his breakfast knowing that I did not really enjoy mine.

Papa scoots away from poor pukey Benji...

I eat a few bites and Benjamin is getting antsy so we finish up and settle our tab.  Benjamin smiles at all his new friends as we walk out. 

The food

I did not think they served very good crepes.  It had a weird texture -definitely not delicate tasting; it was too dense and did not have a good flavor -it tasted bland and uninspired (that sounded almost like a real food critic!).  Ogre totally disagrees with me on this.  He liked it, but said that he doesn’t like it when the crepes are too sweet.  That was a weird comment, in my opinion, because while the crepes were bland, they were swimming in what seemed to be plain old corn syrup. (The menu described them as being sauteed in a caramel sauce).  The strawberries that sat atop the crepes did not seem fresh and I was not impressed with their whipped cream.  Overall, I was disappointed in the crepes.

Ogre LOVED his Croque Madame.  The eggs were very buttery and the ham and cheese matched up very nicely.  I agreed with this.  His dish was much better than mine.

I tried Benji’s French Toast and I just didn’t think there was anything special there.  It wasn’t bad, it was just “okay.” Their bacon was not as good as The Original Pancake House, but that’s pretty difficult to beat.  I did enjoy their fried potatoes (as did Benji, of course).  The kids menu, at breakfast, offers eggs, pancakes, or french toast at a very reasonable price (1.99-3.75), the portions are appropriately small.

The service

While I didn’t think our server’s crepe recommendation was “on target,” he was overall a very attentive server and our food came out at a nice tempo.  No problems with the service this morning.  Ogre obviously had issues with the temperature of the restaurant, but once the waitress picked up on his complaints, they turned on the air conditioning and it started to cool off.

The kids

They do have kids menu items, but other than that, it wasn’t outwardly kid friendly.  Bring your own entertainment, if needed, or do what we did and turn those little creamer tubs into toys.

Total: $26.24

What did Guidelive say?  Note, that they are not discussing breakfast in their review.

Rants, Raves, and Ramblings

On the way home, Ogre commented that we should have used a 5 star rating.  I told him that we were only 1/10th of the way to our goal, so if he wants me to change it, then I better do it now.  His passive aggressive lack of response is prompting me to change it.  So, I will be reassigning star quality to the restaurants we’ve visited and will go with a 5 star rating from now on.  Still, I want to emphasize that it’s the experience and not the star rating that is important to me!

Also, if anyone else has had the crepes or orders the crepes in the future, PLEASE comment on what you thought of them.  Ogre and I are in total disagreement over this one!

Related Fiascos

• Breads Do Win at Bread Winners
• Les Phipps a La Madeleine
• Growing up in the Waffle House
• Poor Ogre Forced to Eat at Poor Richard’s Cafe
• Major Screw up at Black Walnut Cafe