Max ordered the Mini Stack (AU$5.90) off the kids’ menu, 3 mini pancakes served with a perfect scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

On our table (as on every table in the restaurant) was a tall bottle of maple syrup complete with pouring nozzle, which was well used by Max and me. And next to the bottle, an important motto: anytime is pancakes time! So true (not that I need reminding :D)!

I helped Max pour maple syrup over his pancakes and ice cream while he waited eagerly to dig in with his spoon.

Savannah also ordered from the kids’ menu – her choice was the Chocolate Mountain (AU$5.90), a pancake topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, smothered in lashings of chocolate sauce and a generous sprinkling of hundreds and thousands.

Jac ordered one of her favourite breakfast dishes, Eggs Benedict (AU$14.90). At Pancakes at Carillon, eggs Benedict consists of sliced ham, two poached eggs and homemade hollandaise sauce, all served on top of a pancake, with three hash browns on the side. She very kindly shared her hash browns with us and we enjoyed them so much we ordered another serving of hash browns halfway through our meal. They were just plain old commercially made hash browns, like the kind you get at hotel breakfast buffets, but they are so tasty fresh out of the deep-fryer – crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside.*

Jac enjoyed her eggs Benedict. The hollandaise sauce was tasty, the poached eggs gooey in the middle. But she wasn’t so keen on the pancake – she found it to be a little too soft and spongey, though I think it boiled down to personal taste rather than something wrong with the pancake – Jac prefers crepes to fluffy style buttermilk pancakes. She also would have preferred the ham to be sliced thicker so you’d taste it more in every mouthful with all the other components.

I ordered the Pancakes Aussie Sunrise (AU$14.90), which comes with two fluffy buttermilk pancakes, a fried egg, grilled banana and pineapple rings, and your choice of bacon or sausages. Regular readers won’t be surprised to read that I chose bacon! I drizzled maple syrup over the bacon and pancakes, and sprinkled pepper on my egg yolk. The aroma of butter, bacon and sweet grilled fruit was fantastic!

I loved the combination of whipped butter and maple syrup on my pancakes.

The grilled banana was beautifully soft and caramelised, the pineapple rings sweet and juicy. The salty bacon went so well with the grilled fruit. I’d love to eat my bacon with grilled banana and pineapple every time I had a breakfast fry-up.

I washed my breakfast down with a tall glass of icy cold 100% orange juice (AU$4.50). Jac had an iced coffee with cream and ice cream (AU$4.90). The kids had chocolate milk and caramel milk (not pictured).

I really like Pancakes at Carillon. The restaurant has been around for years (since 1983, to be exact!). I remember going there for breakfast with my high school friends and really enjoying it. In addition to fluffy buttermilk pancakes, they serve savoury filled crepes and dessert pancakes. If you’d like something less elaborate, more “classic pancakes”, you can get a stack of pancakes topped with whipped butter and special syrup (add AU$2.00 for cream and ice cream), or crepes with sugar and lemon. They also serve more than pancakes and crepes – nachos, garlic bread, burgers, steak and salads. And of course, there’s a children’s menu (for kids aged up to 12). Best of all, you don’t have to order from the breakfast menu at breakfast time – which is awesome if you feel like something other than bacon and eggs variations (see my previous post – Sunday brunch at Pancakes at Carillon).