Nancy’s Kitchen

• Nancy’s Kitchen website (actually, CitySearch, can’t find restaurant site)
• Location: Pearl district
• Cost to fill up two people: $20 or so

Had some time this morning, so Robyn and I tried doing brunch instead of dinner (and since it was on a Thursday, we didn’t worry about lines). We headed for a place called Nancy’s Kitchen in the Pearl, just off Glisan and 16th, across the street from the Mission Pub & Theatre.

The first thing you notice about this place is that you actually can find parking, normally a near-impossibility. In fact, there’s a spacious parking lot, which is a strong incentive to come here even if the food isn’t good.

But not to worry–the food is very good.

Robyn and I had some work to do, so we started with lattes–good, not incredible, but good. We’d intended to string things out until they started serving lunch at 11:30, but the breakfast menu just looked too good. The blintzes looked dreamy but semi-sensible was the order of the day, so she ordered the Greek omelet with tsatziki; I got the corned beef hash. Both were good, hash especially so. Instead of the little cubes, this was kitchen potatoes with shredded corned beef, very tasty, topped with two eggs.

Then, as we worked, other stuff dribbled in. I opted for a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice, which per the server’s warning turned out to be refrigerated, pre-squeezed bottled stuff but wasn’t horrible. Robyn got a very tasty cinnamon roll, hot out of the oven with this creamy white icing stuff, definitely better than your run-of-mill cinnabuns. They didn’t seem to mind us sitting there, working, and were attentive with beverage refills.

We paid $28 for all that over about 2 hours, with an attentive, friendly server, but you could absolutely get filled up for under $10 each.

Tip: While this is a nice place to just sit and dish for hours (and from the looks of the over-70 lunch crowd that started ganging up as we left, that’s exactly what happens), Nancy’s is NOT set up for laptops. Not an electrical outlet to be had, no wireless. Robyn fortunately had an Air card so we were OK until her battery died. Fair warning.