351 Rice Lake Square
Wheaton, IL 60187
March 22 and April 10, 2007
Our first trip to Butterfield's wasn't promising. We were seated immediately but didn't see our waitress for almost 15 minutes. We received our coffee but had to wait ten minutes for cream because she had to help cook something in the kitchen. My order was completely wrong (though this could have been immediately addressed if I'd actually been paying attention when it was brought out to us) and it took 10 minutes for any waitress to even approach our area of the dining room for me to point this out. I was then playfully chided for this, like it was my fault.
And yet, I wanted to go back again, because I didn't want to just write this place off completely. The food certainly wasn't bad and the restaurant itself was really nice. Maybe they were just shorthanded before, and we came on a bad day. On our first trip I ordered the mudslide pancakes, which I'd highly recommend for anyone with a serious sweet tooth. But like most non-alcoholic Kahlua products, they were missing a little something that would have made them just a little more satisfying.
Our second time in was much better, with much faster service and none of the misunderstandings of our first time in. I wasn't feeling quite as adventurous, and just ordered a plain serving of buttermilk pancakes and washed them down with some freshly squeezed orange juice; Butterfield's has a fair share of exotic choices on its menu, but sometimes the basics can be just as good.
We dined at their Wheaton location, but there's another in Naperville as well. Oh, and another in Arizona, too, for some reason.
Amanda here. The first time we came in, I ordered the strawberry blintzes and Joe got the Mudslide pancakes. Or at least, that was what he requested, but what he initially received instead was a short stack of pancakes heaped with strawberries and some sort of unsavory, yellowish, vaguely pus-like liquid that turned out to be banana-flavored...uh...I don't know what to call it, really. Syrup? Sauce? It wasn't horrible, and hey, we got it for free (since the waitress later brought out his correct order and let us keep the one she'd given us), so I'm not complaining. The mudslide pancakes were pretty good too.
The stuffed French toast, which I got on our second visit, was excellent. You really can't go wrong with stuffed French toast. Unless you stuffed it with something disgusting, like hamster brains, but that's pretty unusual. What I got was more like strawberry flavored cream cheese. Mmm.
My strawberry blintzes were good, about what you'd expect. Nothing earth-shattering here.
