Brunch in North Shore: Walker Brothers Pancake House

Cuisine: American/ Brunch
Location: 153 Green Bay Rd., Wilmette, IL
Price: $$
Food: ****
Service: ****
Overall: ****
 
There’s something just so comforting about brunch – it starts with basic staples, like French toast or pancakes if you’ve got a sweet tooth, or eggs and potatoes if you’re more of a savory type. Add in proteins like bacon and sausage, throw in a slice of toast, some OJ and coffee (or Bloody Marys and Mimosas, if you’re in the drinking mood), and you’ve got a meal that is almost impossible to mess up. It’s so easy to you can whip up all of the basics in your own kitchen, yet the communal nature of fighting off a killer hangover to drown the poor decisions of last night in greasy food like syrup on a stack of pancakes never fails to bring people out for the tried and true tradition of Sunday brunch.

In the immediate Northwestern area alone, both Clark’s and Le Peep serve brunch food within walking distance of campus – yet that doesn’t stop hordes of college kids and Evanston residents alike from flocking to Walker Brothers Pancake House on Sunday morning.

I’ve been before a couple of times, but on my last trip there I encountered a twist on a breakfast staple so ingenious and so delicious, it blew my mind. As per the norm, I had my usual brunch quandary of deciding between sweet and savory items – a battle that the omelets and skillet eggs of the world win over the combined forces of pancakes and French toast about 98.5% of the time. This time around, I stuck to my guns and went with the crunchy French toast with bananas – coated in corn flakes and fried, then dusted in powdered sugar, they gave a nice little twist on traditional egg battered French toast.

Unable to completely say no to my craving for something salty, I decided to add to my order hash browns with pico de gallo and habanero cheese – a side dish with so many components it cost near five dollars when all was said and done, almost as much as my entire French toast did. 

And oh, man, was getting those hash browns a fantastic idea. Stripping away upscale brunch locales and sticking with the most basic of breakfast foods – I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a take on hash brown this delicious without pumping it full of exotic and expensive ingredients. The hash browns begin with a layer of beautifully fried potatoes, crunchy with every bite while also retaining the chew that perfect hash browns have – this alone would have been delicious in its own rights. Then, a layer of pico de gallo is heaped on top – giving it not only that bright burst of green and red that makes a beautiful plate, but also the freshness of the tomatoes and onion and the punch of cilantro. Not to be outdone, the entire creation is then smothered in habanero cheese, which melts through everything to permeate each and every bite of the dish.

I had never even heard of habanero cheese up until I went to Walker Bros. for these hash browns – as it is, they taste like a way spicier version of pepper jack cheese. However, the cheese doesn’t melt like a regular cheese does, without body – somehow, the habanero cheese Walker Bros. makes has a slightly queso fresco feel to it, coating the hash browns in some areas but being slightly lumpy and mixed in with the pico de gallo in others. What this does is it allows for certain bites to contain an obscene amount of habanero cheese – an issue I had absolutely no problem with as the cheese waged war on my taste buds, a relentless spicy assault that left me a sniveling mess of sweat and tears.

Most Northwestern students past and present have wandered up to Walker Bros. a few times – it’s hard to go out of my way to heap praise on it other than to say they do traditional brunch very well, for a reasonable price (by Chicago standards, at least – students still complain that it’s on the pricy time all the time). If you’ve never been, I’d certainly suggest it – from their famed puffed dutch apple pancakes to perfectly baked omelets that rise up to form a small mountain on your table, you really can’t go wrong at Walker Bros. However, the addition of this dynamic side dish – this hash brown with pico de gallo and habanero cheese – make this place a must visit for your next Sunday brunch, to experience this ridiculously delicious creation that the geniuses behind this Evanston institution have drummed up.