Pamela's

Ok, on the demand of a blog reader, here's a 'lighter' post :) (Yeah, I better keep the anyway small number of readers happy!)

So, Pamela's is the name of this awesome restaurant chain in Pittsburgh. And I moved into an apartment just one-fourth of a block from one of the locations. Pamela's serves breakfast all day (I guess that makes it a diner or something?). And that breakfast has some of the best hotcakes, french toasts and what not.

Before this apartment, the only location of Pamela's which was easy enough for access was near CMU. Moreover, I had heard about the place a lot from all the friends here. Hence, I just had to make questionable excuses which would allow me to go to Pamela's. The place used to open at 7:30a.m. in the morning. Some 'plans' used to look like,

• On the eve before submission of a big assignment: 'Hey, lets waste our time playing foosball and monopoly till dinner. Then work and put a night-out (and screw our next whole day) and then have a fantastic breakfast at Pamela's in the morning!'
• On the India-Australia Cricket final match, even though we all had important meetings next day: 'Hey, lets watch the amazing cricket on our office computers and put a night-out (and get a warning for over-usage of bandwidth) and then have a scrumptious breakfast at Pamela's in the morning!'
• On a general work day: 'Hey, lets work normally, just sleep in Wean Hall on one of the public couches (and get a back-ache) and then have an awesome breakfast at Pamela's in the morning!'
• On a more mundane day: 'Hey, lets just roam outside Pamela's till it opens'

Strangely, all of these plans looked reasonable then! And yes, I have implemented each of them. (ok, may be not the last one!) :)

Pamela's has in fact caused much heart-burn! Once, I managed to convince two of my friends that the way to spend a perfectly nice Sunday morning was to stay hungry till 12:00p.m. and then go and have the Sunday brunch at Pamela's. The plan was made that we all meet near school at 11:45a.m. sharp and then take the bus to the place. As it happened, in between frantic phone calls, all of us messed up the synchronization and turned up slightly late, and we ended up wasting 2hours, hungry and angry, in front of the school waiting for the next bus to take us there. We finally got the next bus and reached at about 3:00p.m. Early evening and we three haven't eaten anything yet the whole day. Turns out, the restaurant was closed - as it was some holiday which we all managed to over-look! Hurt and dejected, we tried finding some other place. But only one place was still open - Subway. :) After all this, we finally ate at one place we all mutually kind of hated!

Another time, on my birthday in fact, after braving through 3 buses, I reached there only to find that I had no cash. They only accept cash, and sadly there was not a PNCBank ATM within a km. With my steely resolve, I managed to locate a sidey ATM and get the cash. And guess what, it was 5p.m. already - their closing time!

But in spite of all this, my enthusiasm for that place has not decreased - for the great food and easy atmosphere. And it is reasonably cheap. And it is a nice way to hang-out with friends on Sundays :)

So, if you ever happen to be in Pittsburgh, give me a call, and we can go to Pamela's together for that perfect breakfast :) Call me before 5p.m. though and have enough cash for both of us!