Gold Coffee and Pancake House: A Solid Performance

Gold Coffee and Pancake House, 80-something S. Emerson in the strip mall across the street from the new super-Kroger at Emerson & County Line Road, is a nice little breakfast and lunch-only place but nothing special, decor-wise:  dark wood booths and tables, pictures of breakfast dishes on the wall, etc.  The food, however, is where GC&P shines.  Our favorite pancakes are Denny's newest buttermilk ones, but these are as good if not just a little better. They were a little more done, browned at the edges, and yet they had a light and fluffy middle.  They were just sweet enough to be interesting, too. I could go on at length about the hash browns (but will try not to!), since I seem to be obsessed with the obscure peripherals of a meal, like drinks and sides.  A nicely brewed iced tea, for instance, is a wonderful thing, and hash browns prepared to my liking, like these, are a rare delicacy.  Most places (including Waffle House, dangit) give you what looks like a small pile of wet noodles; they hardly brown them at all, probably to save time, I guess.  But Gold's were nicely browned as if they'd spread them out on the griddle and flipped 'em a couple of times so that there was some crispy goodness in every bite.  The scrambled eggs were perfectly moist and tasty, too.  The service was fast and friendly, and the prices were very reasonable, so for breakfast or lunch I would gladly ditch the Metro Diner.  C'est Magnifique! 

Larrison's Diner: Old-School Cool

As you can tell, we've eaten at a lot of small-town restaurants with widely varying experiences, and it's not just the food that makes a place memorable.  There's that one really odd place, for example, in Markle (or was it Markleville?) that smelled like a musty old library because they actually sold old books and antique kitsch items as well as food.  It may be the name, like Come 'N Git It! in Martinsville, or it may be the wide variety of food (also Come 'N Git It!)  

With Larrison's Diner, located on the far, far, south side of Indy in Seymour, Indiana, it's hard to articulate exactly why I like it so much. The food's decent for sure, but the menu is just the basic breakfast, burgers, and sandwiches.  Their space in a couple of old storefronts in a building downtown is clean and simple but nothing fancy, with a row of booths, a row of 2-person tables, a lunch counter with stools and a menu board up on the wall, and two small dining rooms in the back.  I think it's that it is somehow just so, so COMFORTABLE overall.  The food ain't bad, either!