With six branches scattered around SoCal (in Bellflower, Lawndale, Long Beach, two in Santa Ana and one right here on the eastern edge of Gardena) the Loaded Café chain has become a byword for big breakfasts at a small price — high-value restaurants for those who wake up more than a little hungry and don’t feel like going the IHOP route.
Sorry folks, but I’m not a fan of IHOP. This has caused certain family issues, since it’s my mother-in-law’s favorite restaurant, where she insists on going for all special occasions. If I could shake her loose from her IHOP-philia, I’d take my mother-in-law to the Loaded Café, which sits in an El Segundo Boulevard mini-mall that’s memorable mostly for the presence of Loaded. Like IHOP, it serves lots of pancakes. But in this case, the pancakes are amazing, awesome, dazzling and a culinary work of art. This is breakfast, risen to the very edge of gourmet dining — or at least gourmand.
Want a serious blast of sugar and caffeine to get you going in the morning? Check out the Hot Sweet Cream Coffee, a drink not sold at Starbucks, made with coffee, caramel, coconut, Swiss chocolate and French vanilla. There’s also a yummy iced coffee version of it. It is not a diet beverage. But as denizens of the Loaded Café know well, this is a restaurant that believes firmly that more is good…and even more is better.
Consider the breakfast combo called Little Piggy — two eggs (any style, as ever), two bacon strips, two pork sausages, two ham strips, two buttermilk pancakes and hash browns (or country potatoes for a couple of bucks more). And just in case, if the towering orders of strawberry banana topped pancakes, honey blueberry multigrain pancakes and double blueberry pancakes aren’t enough, you can make it a combo, with the addition of two eggs, bacon or sausages, hash browns and more.
My favorite particular bit of tasty excess is the breakfast called a Country Fried Steak Loaded Tato, which looks a lot like the sort of kitchen sink dish I’ve made when staying in a cabin in the woods, and this is what’s in the pantry — a madcap combo of hash browns layered with Swiss cheese, over two eggs, diced country fried steak, covered with “our delicious” sausage gravy with green bell peppers and onions on top of that. It’s kind of a non-Hawaiian version of a loco moco. It comes with a pair of buttermilk pancakes. Just in case you’re feeling a tad peckish.
And speaking of gravy, it reappears in different forms on the plate of country biscuits & gravy — which, of course, isn’t just country biscuits & gravy. It’s also hash browns, two eggs and four pork sausages, or steak & eggs.
Those who want to eat a bit less “country” might gravitate to the crepes, with choices of sweet and savory — I liked the spinach chicken Hollandaise crepe, served as a twosome, topped with spinach, onions, mushrooms and Swiss. As if the dish isn’t sufficiently substantial, the Hollandaise sauce topping gilds an already well-gilded lily. This dish made me want to go back to bed. For the week.
There’s a certain quantity of alternative language used here. I’m not sure why oversized layered dishes are called “Loaded Tato’s” (the possessive apostrophe is theirs, not mine). Nor why another world of scrambled eggs, cheese and hash browns, with lots of stuff added, are “Stackers” — the Super Stacker is given its super powers with a pile made of two scrambled eggs, bell peppers, onions and spinach with Swiss cheese chicken breast strips, mushrooms and Hollandaise. And hash browns.
The menu says also, a “sprinkle of seasoning.” A “sprinkle”? At Loaded, nothing is served by the sprinkle.
And, for the record, there are some nicely turned burgers and grilled sandwiches (“Grillers” of course), a handful of large salads, all four of them made with chicken, and several soups — including a Cheesy Potato that’s a meal by itself. Chicken wings come Buffaloed, and there are Buffaloed strips.
Aside from large portions of very good food, what Loaded is loaded with, is a lot of chicken dishes. No problem, I like chicken. I always feel righteous if I’ve eaten chicken. I think of it as a diet dish — even if it’s deep-fried and served with french fries and honey mustard in a basket.
Merrill Shindler is a Los Angeles-based freelance dining critic. Email mreats@aol.com.
Loaded Café
- Rating: 2.5 stars
- Address: 1701-1/2 El Segundo Blvd., Gardena, 323-777-2760 (Also: 15700 Bellflower Blvd., Bellflower, 562-210-5467; 15126-B Hawthorne Blvd., Lawndale, 310-676-4505)
- Information: www.loadedcafe.com
- Cuisine: American Big Breakfast
- When: Breakfast and lunch, every day
- Details: Coffee and soft drinks; no reservations
- Atmosphere: Casual neighborhood mini-mall breakfast and lunch café, notable for fast service, and outlandishly large breakfasts, piled high with toppings and much goodness, with exotic juices and fruit drinks to boot — a tasty destination.
- Prices: About $15 per person
- Suggested dishes: 10 Crepes ($5.99-$14.99), 4 Pancakes ($4.99-$12.99), 8 French Toast & Waffles ($5.99-$14.99), 13 Stackers ($5.99-$16.99), 10 South of the Border ($7.99-$16.99), 8 Burgers & Grillers ($8.99-$12.99), 4 Salads ($10.99-$11.69), 21 Specials ($6.99), 7 Specialties ($6.49-$13.99)
- Credit Cards: MC, V
- What the stars mean: 4 (World class! Worth a trip from anywhere!), 3 (Most excellent, even exceptional. Worth a trip from anywhere in Southern California.), 2 (A good place to go for a meal. Worth a trip from anywhere in the neighborhood.) 1 (If you’re hungry, and it’s nearby, but don’t get stuck in traffic going.) 0 (Honestly, not worth writing about.)
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