Hoping the Yolks Not on Us - CLOSED

Stacks and Yolks

30281 Golden Lantern

Laguna Niguel, CA 92677

Breakfast can either ruin your whole day or give you the energy to power your way through a productive day. Nevermind the quality of the food you are going to consume at the start of your day,  I'm talking about the amount of food you are going to eat. I have very little willpower when it comes to the first meal of the day, so I usually go big and then want to come back home and take a nap after eating out for breakfast. Not too smart, since I had just woken up about two hours earlier, and I'm pretty much food wasted for the rest of the day.

Checking out Stacks and Yolks, newly opened in Laguna Niguel, I had a feeling I wouldn't be very useful the rest of the day after eating here. So, I decided that if I was going to be down and out for the rest of the day, I was not going to be alone. I enlisted the rest of my family to come and try out the new breakfast spot in town.

Stacks and Yolks is an import from Las Vegas, not that you'd probably know that since their two locations are well off the strip hidden in North Las Vegas. From what I can gather they opened in 2010 under the name Griddle Cakes and changed their name in 2014 to Stacks and Yolks. Their second location opened in 2016, and they have now branched out with an outpost in Laguna Niguel of all places. Maybe one of the owners was tired of the desert heat and wanted to be closer to the beach?

This Laguna Niguel spot, located in the Laguna Heights Marketplace, on the corner of Marina Hills and Golden Lantern has not really had a very auspicious opening. Opened since early this year, I had heard that they had a kitchen fire that had them close for a bit, and their service and food has really taken a beating on Yelp, which has resulted in a 2 and a half star rating, with over 100 reviews and counting so far. I'm not a big fan of Yelp ratings, so we had to give Stacks and Yolks a try for ourselves.

Our party of seven showed up on a recent Sunday morning,  just before nine, and we were met with a nearly empty restaurant, which I thought was a little odd for such a new place. The decor here could best be described as peppy and colorful. There's a patio out front, which did not get used during the entirety of our visit. Inside, there are about fifteen tables, which are spaced a little too close for comfort to each other for my liking.

This is a breakfast-centric restaurant, although they do serve lunch as well until they close at 3pm. The breakfast menu features plenty in the way of different types of pancakes, egg dishes, and a number of house specialties. I had already known what I was going to have before leaving home, so I just had to wait for the rest of our indecisive party to make their selections. They finally did, and this is how everything turned out for us on this visit.

I was a little surprised that my sister in law Emily went with this Florentine Benedict ($12.99), as she's a very basic eater usually, just opting for a simple egg dish most mornings. She must have been feeling pretty adventurous getting this benedict with its three poached eggs, spinach, tomato, home fries, hollandaise sauce, all perched atop a split English muffin. True to form she only ate a quarter of this, but did take the rest home. She liked this well enough but did not think it was anything above average. The hollandaise sauce was very thick and kind of overpowered the rest of the dish. The poached eggs were overcooked, but she did enjoy the home fries which were hidden underneath.

Both of my brother in law's got the Lumberjack Breakfast ($13,99) which comes with two buttermilk pancakes, three eggs, home fries, and choice of bacon or sausage. They both thought this was okay, but nothing that really blew them away. Jason felt his pancakes were a little on the doughy side, and could have been a little better if they were left on the griddle a bit longer. Eggs were done the way they had requested and the bacon was cooked nice and crisp. Potatoes were definitely on the dry side and needed to be seasoned up a bit, along with some ketchup added to moisten them up.

I'm always partial to skillet breakfasts because I feel you get to experience almost all of the breakfast items in the kitchen all on one plate. When I read the description of this Meat Lovers Scramble ($12.99) I knew I was going to order it. Three eggs piled on top of home fries and then topped with the holy trinity of breakfast meats; ham, bacon, and sausage, and then finished off with grated cheese. As if that was not enough, the plate also featured a split biscuit with plenty of gravy. Let's start with the biscuits and gravy. The biscuits seemed to be a little on the stale side, and I'm not sure that they were even made here. The gravy was okay, but no depth of flavor. The scramble was fine, but I expected a little more from it. The breakfast meats kind of canceled each other out and I could not get a really good bite of this massive heaping of food. It might have been better if I had gotten my eggs sunny side up instead of scrambled because the yolk would have been a good binding agent on this. It was fine, but kind of disappointing because I had expected a bit more from this based on the description on the menu.

Another one of my things when eating out at a breakfast restaurant, I always need a good mix of sweet to go along with my savory dish. This morning that meant I had to get a Short Stack of Elvis Pancakes ($8.99). These pancakes used a peanut butter batter and were studded with a good amount of chocolate chips and whipped cream. I liked my pancakes, as there was an abundance of chocolate included, but I did not get the slightest tinge of peanut butter from the pancakes themselves. Definitely forgo the short stack here, as these pancakes are about the size of a human head, and one will feed most people easily.

My sister in law Sara loves French Toast ($7.99) and she went big here with three slices, which she shared with her well behaved son, Andrew. Predictably she only ate half a slice, and Andrew was more interested in watching YouTube videos than eating anything. She did claim that the french toast was pretty good, but this is coming from someone that thinks the best Mexican restaurant in OC is Javier's. So misguided is my sister in law Sara.

Katie stuck to her usual when eating breakfast out when she got this Breakfast Burrito ($10.99). This burrito was filled with ham, green peppers, onions, and shredded cheese. She ended up liking this a lot more than she thought she would, but she would get this with avocado next time to boost it up a bit. She was not a big fan of the salsa that was served on the side of this burrito, as she called it salsa that you could get at any supermarket in the Midwest.

With a few exceptions, none of us were all too thrilled with what we had at Stacks and Yolks on this particular morning. Nothing was too awful, but in an area that has quite a few options for good breakfast spots, Stacks and Yolks are going to have to step up their game to compete. Not even close to the great breakfasts at Stacks Pancake House, Paul's Pantry, Mollies Country Kitchen, or What A Dish, but they were probably on par with your local Denny's and definitely better than the atrocious meal I had at the Broken Yolk in Mission Viejo. Service was not awful like a lot of the online reviews have stated, but while we were here there seemed to be one server for each of the occupied tables, so maybe service suffers when they are busier.  True to form, and with the help of the huge portions and my lack of willpower, I was in a food coma for the rest of this Sunday.

Out of five ziggurats, (because one of the most dominant features of the city of Laguna Niguel is the Chet Holifield Federal Building, which resembles a ziggurat), five being best to zero being worst, Stacks and Yolks gets 2.5 ziggurats.

For more information about Stacks and Yolks, head to their website here: http://www.stacksnyolks.com/