Papa Bear - Aurora, IL

I had been trying to meet up with a dealer from the western suburbs of Chicago on a handful of occasions over the summer months and our schedules just never came together.  A few weeks ago, we finally made an appointment to have breakfast at a place just off I-88 at the Farnsworth exit and just across from the Chicago Premium Outlets mall in Aurora.  The name of the place was also unique and sort of fun - Papa Bear.  We met there on a sunny Friday morning on a recent trip into Chicago.  (see map)

Pete Andrelopopouls is the owner of Papa Bear which originally opened in 1982.  It's a family style restaurant that features breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It's open 7 days a week at 6 a.m., closing at 10 p.m. (9 p.m. on Sundays.)  

I was a little early for the breakfast meeting and waited at the hostess stand for my dealer to show up.  There are two dining areas at Papa Bear - the front room has a traditional counter behind a half wall.  When my dealer showed up, we were seated in a booth in the back dining room.  

The breakfast menu at Papa Bear is rather extensive.   There were the normal egg dishes including three egg omelets, pancakes, a number of skillet entrees and a surprising number of Mexican-style breakfasts on the menu.  They also had crepes, baked goods, steak entrees and breakfast sandwiches on the menu.  There was no way I was going to be able to take less than 10 minutes to dissect the menu.  

A couple things jumped out at me - the corned beef hash special came with two eggs, hash browns and choice of toast or pancakes; and the Farmer's skillet with corned beef hash, hash browns, eggs your way, fried onions and melted cheese.  I've been on sort of a corned beef hash kick for breakfast lately.  (And I still can't understand why restaurants serve hash browns with corned beef hash.  It's sort of a duplicity, in my book.)

But then I saw the cinnamon-swirl French toast.  I asked our waitress if I could get blueberries with them and she said it was no problem.  "How about whipped cream," she asked.  I couldn't say no.  My dealer went light - a bowl of oatmeal and an English muffin.  I also got a side of bacon to go along with the French toast.

When she brought out the cinnamon-swirl French toast, our eyes much have gone the size of silver dollars.  It was topped with a generous portion of blueberries and a large amount of whipped cream.  The cinnamon-swirl bread was cut thick, dipped in a vanilla batter and flat grilled.  (I thought I could also tell a bit of nutmeg in the batter, as well.)  The taste of the French toast on its own was very good.  Adding the blueberries gave it an even better taste and the whipped cream was, well, the icing on the cake, so to speak.  The bacon - four pieces - was crisp and thick.  I ended up sharing a couple pieces of the bacon with my dealer because I had a lot of food on my plate.  I was almost embarrassed by what I got compared to my dealers breakfast.  And I had a hard time putting down the fork to not overeat.  The cinnamon-swirl French toast topped with blueberries and whipped cream was a decadent start to my day.  

I'll have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by how good the cinnamon-swirl French toast was at Papa Bear.  Topping it off with blueberries and whipped cream made it even better.  This was a lot of food - I ended up skipping lunch that day as I was not hungry until dinner that evening.  Their breakfast menu had a lot of choices, the service was efficient and friendly, the restaurant was clean and comfortable and the breakfast I had at Papa Bear was very good to excellent.  This is simply a great place for breakfast and I'm sure their lunch and dinner choices are good, as well. 

Comments

[Steph's Mom]

Wow! Look at that breakfast! I've seen this place many times when we've gone to the outlet mall and always thought it had a cute name. That french toast looks great!