Angelo's

Angelo's is another beloved Ann Arbor institution. It even has a song (you can hear it on the website)! If you ask someone where to go for breakfast/brunch/lunch, you'll probably hear "Angelo's".

Warning: Angelo's is very popular, but also a little on the small side, and the two together aren't necessarily a great combination. While it makes for a very local, casual atmosphere, it also makes for horrible parking and sometimes a long wait. They have two parking lots, one behind the restaurant and one across the street, but they're both on the small side. There are parking structures and street parking in the area, but that doesn't mean you're going to find a spot on the first go. As Angelo's is located just off the University of Michigan medical campus, the parking structures are reserved for cars with permits (e.g. staff); and as Angelo's is also located near a residential rea which also houses a university research building, the nursing school, and two dental offices, open street parking is often hard to find. Moral of that story being - set aside time to find parking if you're planning on meeting someone there.

On two out three visits that I remember, I've been lucky not to have a wait ahead of me to be seated. Another time there was a bit of a wait. If you're someone who's just in the mood for something quick like breakfast pastries and coffee or soup or a sandwich to go, Angelo's on the Side - a branch of the restaurant next door - is at your service. Here, you can pick up baked goods, coffee, and takeout orders. The actual Angelo's has kind of a homey, diner-y feel to it. There's some great Michigan football art on the wall which I hear is painted by one of the staff. That aside, let's get to the important stuff - the food!

Angelo's is only open for breakfast and lunch, and you can get breakfast all day. BT and I went last Friday and again this Friday, this time joined two friends. Last week, we were insanely hungry, a bit overwhelmed by particular items on the menu, and took much longer than necessary to put in our order. BT had her heart set on breakfast food, I had my heart set on any food. The first thing that caught my eye was an item on the breakfast specials menu, the crab cake benedict. I love crab cakes, and I love eggs benedict. Naturally, this should be double love. We kind of had our orders set... then saw a server bring over a plate to a table next to us that made our jaws drop. A huge mountain of some sort of breakfasty goodness under a mound of fruit and whipped cream. After asking our server, we learned that it was deep fried French toast with strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream, and he recommended going with our other options over the deep fried French toast. And then we saw that Friday's special is fish and chips. Oh my goshhh, I think the last time I had really good fish and chips was in Saudi a very very long time ago. After much internal conflict, I went with my initial crab cake benedict and BT had pancakes (I think?) and a bowl of fruit. I didn't get a taste of the pancakes, but my crab cake benedict was awesome. Two big crab cakes served on two pieces of toast topped with poached eggs and hollandaise sauce. I was really happy with it, and I don't think it was just because I was hungry. Either the toast or the crab cake was drier than ideal, but the overall effect was more than satisfactory. I would definitely order it again. As for BT's order, my position is that pancakes are always good, and the fruit bowl gives you pretty much every fruit you could ask for at brunch - strawberries, blueberries, bananas, honeydew, and pineapple.

This past Friday gave us a little more variety and a second chance at the items we only got to dream about last week. Melanie started with a cup of hot chocolate (as per usual) and got the eggs benedict, Amanda had a cup of clam chowder, BT got the fish and chips (served with tartar sauce and a side of coleslaw), and I had the deep fried French toast. Eggs benedict are a little hard to share across the table reaching over a napkin holder, so I didn't have a taste of that. The eggs benedict comes with canadian bacon and green pepper (surprise!) on their homemade toast topped with hollandaise. I haven't met an egg I didn't like, and I enjoyed the hollandaise on my benny last week. Combine that with the salty kick of canadian bacon and the crunch of green pepper, and it can't fail. The clam chowder and fish and chips were more accessible to me, so I did get a taste of those. The clam chowder was really quite good, and Amanda was happy with it as well. It was creamy, had just the right amount of garlic, and was zesty, which I enjoyed as soup can sometimes be boring. The only fault is there was no actual clam in the chowder. Clam flavor, but no clam. Deceiving? Maybe they should advertise it as clam flavored chowder? Or maybe they should just throw some clam in it and call it a day. I can forgive them for skimping on the clam because it was good, and I would order it for myself next time. The fish and chips had me salivating before BT's order even came to the table. That's because the man right behind me ordered it as well and the smell wafted over and invited itself right up my nose and into the pleasure center of my brain. After BT had her fill, I snagged the leftovers. This might be a strange comment, but I really liked the tartar sauce. It wasn't too mayonnaise-y (which is gross) and not too pickly (the crunch was actually more reminiscent of straight up cucumber than pickle, so I was confused... was it even pickle?), it was just right. As for the actual fish, it wasn't bad, but I don't feel it was anything to write home about. It was good, not fabulous. It was probably better when it was hot, so it was potentially slightly better than good. Now... the moment you've been waiting for. Deep fried raisin toast with strawberries, blueberries, and whipped cream. So... sigh... ok. It didn't blow my pants off. First of all, I'm pretty sure I remember seeing the fruit and whipped cream piled on top of the toast last week, not set on the side in tiny cups (tiny cups = poor fruit/w.c. to toast ratio), the mouth-watering sight having stimulated that pleasure-center of my brain (it gets a lot of action, apparently). So I was a little disheartened right off the bat. Wow, disheartened is a little strong, so whatever word means that to a lesser degree. I arranged my fruit across the toast (which came with a very sad shower of powdered sugar. I'm sure I could have asked for more but I don't want to be that annoying customer) and then laid across the whipped cream. The fruit was just fruit. I expected it to be syrupy from being drenched in sugar, like at IHOP. 'Twas not the case. I took my first bite and decided I needed maple syrup. I poured some maple syrup over it, took another taste, decided I needed more maple syrup. The toast was dense, the fruit was not sweet, and I was basically disappointed. Maybe this is what my server last week was disguisedly (yes, that is a real word, look it up) warning me of. I couldn't finish it all - firstly because it was too heavy, and secondly because it didn't live up to my expectations, leaving me full but not satisfied. Maybe it someone else would have thought it was good, but I had my standards set to high and was didn't allow myself to enjoy it, I'm not sure.

I have to be up in 4 hours, so, though I have at least 4 more restaurants to write up, I'll leave you with this for now and call it a night. And by "call it a night", I mean catch up on last week's episodes of Conan and get 1.5 hours of sleep. I apologize for ending on a sour note with that deep fried French toast, and I hate to say anything bad about Angelo's. So let's me end by saying that Angelo's is an Ann Arbor legacy that you must try - just pass on the deep fried French toast :) I'll go back again to bring you more positive reviews like the crab cake benny and clam chowder. Yummers!!

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