Issaquah Cafe Serves It Up Good And Plenty

12th Avenue Cafe, 1235 12th Ave. West, Issaquah. 392-5975. Breakfast and lunch. Eat in or take out. Hours: 6 a.m.-2 p.m. Mon.-Fri.; 7 a.m.-2 p.m. Sat.; 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Sun.

Are you one of those delicate eaters? The type who prefers spinach salads rather than pizza burgers for lunch? Who is willing to settle for the bagel without the lox, the apple pie without the ice cream?

Then Issaquah's 12th Avenue Cafe may not be the place for you.

This odd little restaurant specializes in breakfasts (served all day, joined at 11 a.m. by a new lunch menu). The cuisine has one prevailing characteristic: The portions are gigantic. The humongous, stomach-stuffing platefuls of food can be weighed in pounds, not ounces.

And the genuine country-style food is outstanding.

Just off Issaquah's main shopping avenue, Gilman Boulevard, the 12th Avenue Cafe is a cross between a truck stop and a down-home breakfast room. Shaped like an inverted coffee cup, it features a cozy, old-style lunch counter that separates the dining room from the kitchen, allowing customers to watch the food being prepared.

The crowd is a curious cross between trucker and aging yuppie. It's not unusual to see people wearing cowboy hats mixing with clean-cut young parents trying to corral their offspring.

The place takes great pride in its friendly atmosphere and hearty food. Although it warns on its menu that "our service takes longer than fast-food restaurants," it offers customers something to do while they wait the 10 minutes or so it takes the chef to rustle something up in the kitchen.

Kids have a variety of toys and books to play with, provided by the management. And owner Gary Woodring recently expanded the entertain-the-customer theme to include adults, who are now treated to newspapers, magazines and literature.

The restaurant's food is in keeping with its interesting clientele. Country-fried spuds, fried egg sandwiches and pigs in a blanket (three sausages wrapped in pancakes) share space on the menu with five kinds of omelets (not including the "Contractor's Omelet," which allows the diner to "build your own" from 15 different ingredients).

Meat-lover alert! At the 12th Avenue, the movement against red meat seems to have been stopped at the front door. The breakfast selection goes well beyond your standard bacon and sausage. There are two kinds of specialty sausages (hot Italian and German, both $2.55 as side orders), sausage links ($2.25) and that all-time truckers' favorite, sausage gravy poured over powder milk biscuits ($3.95 for a full order, $3 a half order and $1.25 for a side order).

None of the above, however, can even hint at the pure mass (in both size and flavor) of the 12th Avenue's real specialty - the Montana Special. These huge mounds of fried potatoes are mixed with peppers, onions, ham, bacon and Wisconsin sharp cheese. Put a couple of fried eggs on top, and you've got a truly heart-stopping version of the old English tradition, hash browns and eggs.

For a slightly more healthful (and also slightly more expensive) version, the cafe makes a "Vegetana Special," where generous portions of veggies are substituted for the meat.

Both Montanas and Vegetanas come in three sizes - mini ($4.50, $4.75), small ($5.95 and $6.25) and large ($7.65 and $7.95). One hint: If you go for the large size, bring along a gang of trucker friends to help you finish it off.

And all that is just for breakfast. We haven't visited the 12th Avenue Cafe to try its lunch menu yet. But if its breakfasts are any clue, we should prepare to go by skipping food for a day or two.

Restaurant reviews are a regular Thursday feature of the Seattle Times Eastside Life section. Reviewers visit restaurants unannounced and pay in full for all their meals. When they interview members of the restaurant management and staff, they do so only after the meals and services have been appraised.