For years now the good folks at Clinton Street Baking Company and Restaurant, led by Neil Kleinberg and DeDe Lahman, have been cooking up one the best brunches in town. In fact, pretty much everything is superb, all day and all night, at this cozy spot on the Lower East Side's "restaurant row", from the baked goods (obviously) and the full, fluffy omelets, to the spicy shrimp and cheese grits, the veggie sandwiches, and the burgers, shakes, and salty russet fries. Basically, you can't go wrong at the Clinton St. Baking... but you can go extra-special-RIGHT by ordering a stack of Kleinberg's ethereal, game-changing pancakes. 

It's Clinton St. Baking's pancakes that gets us standing on line during prime brunch-time, and showing up at night, or, when we can, during the week, when the scene is a lot less hectic. And now in February, Kleinberg ups the ante by offering a special pancake plate every weekday, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, all month long. We stopped by tonight for... er... "dinner" to sample his first new flavor, Chocolate and Blood Orange, and it was truly spectacular, the moist, airy cakes topped and layered with melty dark-chocolate chunks and candied orange peels, sitting in a pool of candied orange glaze, accompanied by a crock of warm maple butter. Unbelievably good. And just about every table in the place was devouring a stack of their own!     

And that's just the first of Kleinberg's concoctions for Pancake Month! We'll definitely be back on February 8th or 9th for his Fresh Coconut, Passion Fruit and Banana stack... and on the 16th or 17th for the Brown Sugar Pecan and Cinnamon Maple Butter variety... and, what the heck, on the 25th or 26th for a plate of the insane-sounding Crunchy Banana and Cinnamon-Chili-Chocolate Sauce Pancakes. For a complete calender listing all of Clinton St. Baking's Pancake Month specials, click here.