When I was a kid, my parents would take my brother and me on a vacation in the summer. These were not elaborate or extravagant trips by any means. In fact, they were always road trips and we always stayed in a “motel.” You know what I’m talking about, right? Not a Holiday Inn or a Ramada. No. A motel. A long ranch-style sleeping accommodation that advertised “cable TV” and “outdoor pool” on the sign in front. You pulled up to the “office” on the far side of the building and asked for a room. Usually the office had a rack of postcards with a photo of the motel on the front so you could send one out to a loved one back at home before you left the next morning, and they would be able to follow your travels based on the postcards you sent. (That was my favorite part of a motel- the postcards. I always sent them to my grandparents or friends and I’d keep one for a scrapbook or a journal.)
Every private room of the motel opened to the outside and you could park your car right in front of your door. The polyester bedding was an especially slippery material and donned such an obnoxious and colorful design, you wouldn’t know if it was dirty. As a kid though, we thought we were living the life of luxury when we got to stay in one of these. My parents were teachers so summertime was a break for all four of us and we made the most of it. Those trips were planned meticulously by my mom, who loved lists and maps. She would plot out the entire trip and it always included something educational. The Badlands and Mount Rushmore, Springfield, IL to see all the Lincoln sites, National Parks, State Parks, Wisconsin to see the old family cabin and take in some obscure museum. She was so good at that. She would pack all kinds of meats, cheeses, breads, goodies and fruit for our lunches and I can’t remember dinner, but if we went out I know it wasn’t over the top. But the thing I remember the most was breakfast. Mom and Dad had a knack for picking the best breakfast places, which they called “Mom & Pop Restaurants.” We would stay in a motel in some random town my mom found on a map and in the morning, we would get ready and set out and find a Mom and Pop place for breakfast. And I can promise you, in every one of those restaurants, in every summer, without fail, I ordered the French toast. Even at the ripe old age of 12, I was a food critic and I can still remember the best French toast I ever had because that restaurant was filthy. Apparently, the health department wasn’t a thing in the 80’s and if it was, these people were an undercover breakfast operation that was frying eggs off the grid and out of site of the local government. I even remember the look on my mom’s face when we sat down and all the men at the counter, who looked very large and very mean, stared at us for quite some time before turning around and going back to their biscuits and gravy. I didn’t care. I was hungry, so whatever. Suck rope, big, ugly dudes. This girl’s about ta smash on some French toast.
Fast forward to my life as an adult… I no longer eat French toast. It’s not that I don’t want to. I want to eat it every day. But as you get older your body starts to tell you that you need to take good care of yourself if you want to stick around. So here I am, eating non-French toast breakfasts, which I’m not crazy about. That is, until I recently had breakfast with Scott the Hubs at Flips in Bettendorf. Now, Scott the Hubs and I stopped going out to breakfast on Saturday mornings after our favorite little small-town joint closed their restaurant doors and now only serves prepared meals. You might remember that from an earlier blog. But one morning, I woke up hungry and it wasn’t going to get satisfied by a couple of egg bites from Starbucks.
The first time we went, we drove out to Competition Drive by TBK in Bettendorf. It hadn’t been open for long but they already had at least two locations in the Quad Cities (Moline and Davenport) so we figured they must be on to something. And they are. “Creative”- that’s the first word I would use to describe them. Of course they have all the basics, right? So if you’re not the kind of person who wants to get all bougie with breakfast, you can still eat here and leave completely satisfied.
My first Flips breakfast was the Urban County Eggs Benedict- flank steak, Gruyere cheese, chipotle hollandaise, served on a garlic cheddar biscuit. If I had eaten this meal at home, I would have licked my plate. I do that at home. Only at home. And only in the presence of my husband and maybe my two adult boys. I have not licked my plate in front of my step-mom yet. I don’t want her to leave my dad because I have no manners in the confines of my own personal space.
I can’t remember what Scott the Hubs had. I don’t think I even looked at him when our meal came to the table and I took my first bite. I don’t remember having a conversation during that meal. I just know that was the best eggs benny I have ever had.
A few weeks later, we decided to try the newly opened Flips, just down the street from us on Tanglefoot Lane in Bettendorf. That’s two Flips in Bettendorf, friends. Two. These people know how to do breakfast. I’m sure they know how to do lunch too, but right now I can only focus on breakfast because I have not found a breakfast that I love this much in a long time.
Now, I could be wrong about this but I think the menus between the two places are slightly different, which I find intriguing. Here’s why…I don’t remember seeing the Urban County Eggs Benedict on the Tanglefoot Lane menu and at first, I was slightly disappointed. But then… I spotted a savory crepe on the menu- it was a meat, cheese and egg crepe and it was delightful. I had bacon, of course, because, well… bacon. That, friends, was an outstanding little combination of flavors. You might be thinking, ‘what’s the big deal about bacon eggs and cheese?’ and normally I would agree. Big whoop. But this bacon, egg and cheese is wrapped up all cozy-like into an ever-so-slightly sweet and fluffy blanket of crepe goodness. I felt like I was lifted gently out of my seat and serenely floating on a cloud while I ate it. Also, I was not expecting three crepes, but was pleasantly surprised that I could have round two for breakfast the next day.
Scott the Hubs decided to tempt his fate and order the French toast, right in front of me, and then proceeded to eat it with butter and syrup. He didn’t even look at me while he ate, so I know he knows it was wrong. I made sure he paid for breakfast to make up for his thoughtless transgressions, but he was, at least, kind enough to offer me a piece that had two full bites, just so I could try it, a gesture for which I was quite grateful. And let me tell you… this french toast beats the eggs out of any other I have had in my fifty years on this earth. Crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. Not soggy in the least bit. And their syrup was maple-ly perfection.
I miss those French toast days, but I miss a lot of things that disappeared as I grew older. Gone are the postcards from motels and gone are a lot of the motels themselves. The picnic lunches Mom packed are just a memory and the maps she used have been repurposed in some of my travel scrapbook pages. But breakfast is still a thing and if you want a creative option, provided with excellent service and comfortable and homey decor, flippin get to one of their four locations and try Flips.