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Review: The French Toast from The National Exemplar


Today's choice off the Breakfast Menu was the French Toast from the National Exemplar.

Today, the wife and I hit the National Exemplar in beautiful Mariemont . I had never tried it before, and their pancakes were votedBest in the City’ by Cincinnati Magazine.  It is a nice restaurant inside the Mariemont inn. The menu had some good looking items on it, but I knew I wanted the French Toast, and my wife wanted a Blueberry pancake.  We ordered quite a bit of food, so this is going to be a heftier review than the ones previous.




Restaurant:

The National Exemplar was nicely decorated and had a wonderful atmosphere. It was a little loud inside, due to the crowd. We had a 15 minute wait that went pretty quickly. The waitresses were very nice and professional. They were prompts, and attentive to our table. The waitress told us that her grandmother had worked for the restaurant in the 50’s and her father washed dishes there in the 70’s. According to her there had been a restaurant in that location for 56 years, and that it had been the National Exemplar for over 20 years.

Their menu was pretty good, offering Frittatas, Pancakes, waffles, and something called Crepeggs. Crepegss were said to be crepes combined with whipped eggs.  I did not try those, because I wanted to try the French toast, but I did try one of the frittatas. Looking at the information on the menu and the meals on the tables it seemed like the food was going to be good.  

The Food:



I ordered the French Toast which was $5.99 without fruit and coconut.  I also had the Frittata Special. My wife had the Sensational Skillet and a single blueberry pancake.

The menu says:
French Toast - sourdough or cinnamon raisin bread cooked in a homemade batter made with pure vanilla, imported cinnamon, brown sugar, cream and eggs, then topped with creamy butter and powdered sugar

The verdict:
 Let’s go down the list, one by one.



The French Toast was delicious. It was probably the best flavored French Toast I had ever had. It was very flavorful with a slightly eggy taste, and vanilla. The syrup didn’t overpower it and actually enhanced the flavor. They put powdered sugar on it but it wasn’t too much, and it didn’t overpower the meal.



The Frittata special was made with egg, feta cheese, caramelized onions, red peppers, broccoli and bacon. I loved it. It was an interesting combination of flavors. I had never had broccoli in an egg dish before so that was interesting. My wife felt it was too cheesy, but I thought the cheese was just right. I really liked it.



My wife loved the Sensational skillet. It had Onions and Bacon. I personally did not like the potatoes that came as a side with my Frittata but the skillet potatoes were awesome, with bacon and cheese. She got hers with an egg fried hard over the top. It was crispy and the gg was cooked just to her specifications. She said she liked the crunch, and it was well seasoned, so much as she did not have to flavor it with hot sauce like she usually does. I tasted her meal and it was great.



My wife also ordered the blueberry pancakes. She loved it. It was fluffy and a little crisp on the outside. It had a blueberry kick to it that made it very flavorful.  My wife couldn’t stop eating it. The pancakes were also pretty large, and we couldn’t imagine eating more than one. It was quite easily one of the best blueberry pancakes I had eaten in quite a while.

Overall Experience:

I give the whole experience 4.5 out of 5 broken eggs:

It was almost a near perfect experience, and my wife and I could not decide what it would have taken for it to be better, but it was pretty close to perfect.

For more information on the location:

The National Exemplar
6880 Wooster Pike
Mariemont, Ohio 45227
513-271-2103

Hours:
Breakfast & Lunch
Mon-Sun 7a-2:30p

Dinner
Mon-Thu 5p-9:30p
Fri-Sat 5p-10p
Sun 5p-9p


The National Exemplar on Urbanspoon

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