Anyone who knows us personally, or who has read our blogs, will know our favourite place to breakfast is Cracker Barrel. Oh what a joy it is to be in Cracker Barrel, we love every single thing about it.
Day one of our holiday, up we get and straight off to Cracker Barrel for our first breakfast in Orlando. Now don’t get us wrong, there are loads of fantastic places to breakfast, and we’ve been to loads, Denny’s, IHOP, Garden Grill in Epcot, Perkins, Golden Corral, Applebee’s, the list goes on, and we love pretty much all of them, but Cracker Barrel is right up there as our number one fave!
We’re not sure exactly what it is about this place – it’s probably a combination of everything, the food, the way it looks, the way it smells, the staff and servers, the shop (that we always have to have a mooch around before and after our breakfast – they stock some amazing stuff)! And of course the famous outside porch with the rocking chairs where you can just have yourself a quite few minutes letting your breakfast go down.
The staff at Cracker Barrel are always good, always friendly, always make you feel like you’re important. That gorgeous southern welcome – feels like a real homecoming. The restaurants themselves look like you’ve travelled back in time to a more simple way of life, at the heart of the country, wood everywhere, farming tools and lots of old photos and pictures and plaques. The food always smells good, fresh coffee smells wafting around and bacon and cinnamon apples and maple syrup – very American and very Floridian. The shops sells some absolutely fantastic things – they have lots of seasonal trinkets and treats and if you go around Halloween or Christmas you are in for a surprise – we once had a cackling witch on a broomstick sneak up behind us while we were no doubt deep in thought wondering what Moon Pies taste like! They stock candies and snacks and you can even buy their famous pancake mix (but definitely do put that in your hold luggage otherwise you’ll be in a right pickle at the airport when the TSA agents need to establish exactly the bag of powdered stuff in your hand luggage is!). The porch outside makes you feel like you really are in the Southern States (which you are!). We’re ready for some critters to come by or the newspaper to get flung onto the porch by a youngster on a bicycle.
Onto the food – and we generally order a combination of the things we like, which come with so many sides and extras that we have a veritable feast in front of us. I always go for the Egg Sandwich and Rob generally has Mommas Pancake Breakfast which is basically bacon and eggs but also comes with three fluffy pancakes, fried cinnamon apples and warm maple syrup in a super cute teeny tiny bottle. So we share the pancakes after we’ve eaten the other things. This will pretty much keep us full until mid-afternoon! Some of the menu items are called super cute names like ‘Pancakes n’ such’ – that sounds so lovely with a Floridian accent.
In a quest to feel a bit closer to our friends in Orlando we decided today to try and re-create the Cracker Barrel Egg Sandwich – which incidentally is one of the cheapest breakfast items on the menu and is super value because it’s amazingly filling. What’s an egg sandwich you ask – well it’s two slices of sourdough bread, lightly toasted, one has mayonnaise and two big slices of beefsteak tomato on it and the other has eggs, which you can have any way you want, I generally have scrambled eggs (which you can have with cheese too – yum) and then it’s served with either the fried apples or the hashbrown casserole. Now I am told the hashbrown casserole is delicious, but as it is cooked with bacon liquor (and I’m vegetarian) I have to have the plain hashbrown (which is still very delicious I can tell you). So today’s breakfast here in the Oh! Orlando kitchen – the egg sandwich.
So here’s us preparing and eating our copy Cracker Barrel egg sandwich this morning.
I even popped out to sit on our decking – not quite a rocking chair and the sky is definitely not as blue as the usual Orlando sky, but hey it cheered us up this morning.
Did it taste the same – no – but it was still good. Obviously the ingredients sourced from the UK were never going to taste the same, but it was a decent substitute. We had fun making it and it made us think of our lovely friends at Cracker Barrel and wish ourselves there! Next time we go we really must buy the little peg game that’s on every table, and that everyone seems to be playing while they wait for their food. Then maybe it will feel a little more like the real thing next time we try it.
We’ve got a few more treats and recipes from the Oh Orlando kitchen to share with you in the coming weeks, so keep your eyes peeled for our attempts to recreate our favourite dishes, Disney snacks and heaven knows what else!
Stay safe folks, stay home, stay well and we’ll hopefully see you all very soon. Much love.
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