The Bongo Room

The Bongo Room

1470 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, IL

1152 S Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL

The wait for the Bongo Room tends to be crazy long on weekends, but stop by during the week and it's half-empty and a very pleasant place for breakfast. And actually, I think the food is better on weekdays too - when the kitchen gets slammed, they seem to take it out on the potatoes. Like plenty of other breakfast hot-spots, The Bongo Room suffers from being somewhat over-hyped and a touch on the pricey side, but unlike Orange, the food is actually quite good, and sometimes it's even amazing. The problem with a menu that changes seasonally is that I may never get to taste the absolutely transcendent lemon flapjacks with rasberry coulis and lemon creme that I ate there last summer. Those were some of the tastiest pancakes I've ever had in my life, and I have to say, nothing at the Bongo Room has ever reached those heights since. Their pancake combinations are inspired and interesting (currently on offer: rasberry-oreo flapjacks, strawberry-banana hotcakes, lemon-ricotta pancakes, berry and banana cheesecake flapacks, and white chocolate and caramel covered pretzel pancakes), but none has really called to me in the same way. 

Today I went with the breakfast sandwich, eggs done however you'd like (I went with over medium) on a croissant with Muenster cheese and bacon. The croissant was just the right blend of flaky and chewy, the bacon was perfectly crisped and the eggs, I thought, were just right. Jen, who ordered the vegetarian variant with her eggs done the same way thought that they were a bit too hard, but she may have a different mental gradient when it comes to eggs. The potatoes were great, tender on the inside, crispy on the outside, and well seasoned with an array of herbs - I think rosemary was involved? Yum.

While my initial adoration of the Bongo Room faded when the lemon flapjacks vanished, I still like the place, and am happy to stop by on a weekday for a leisurely meal. I definitely wanna get back there to try the breakfast burrito, which sounds great, even though burritos generally intimidate me (they're so big!) and seem like way too much for breakfast. While I think that the place is somewhat over-rated, I'm kind of happy that most people uncritically accept it as best and keep it packed on the weekends, thus freeing up space at superior establishments for me.