Mimi's Cafe

As most of you know, Doug and I were married a little over three months ago.  Of course, due to the commercialization of the wedding industry, we have received frequent reminders that we should purchase the remaining items on our registry.  Bed, Bath, & Beyond sent us a 10% off coupon awhile back, but a few weeks ago I got a notification that we could go into the store very early on a Saturday morning (8am; OK, so not *that* early) and buy the rest of the items on our registry for 20% off.

Most of the remaining stuff on the registry we don't really need, like a lazy susan serving tray or wall-mounted shampoo pumps for the shower.  But some of the things we really wanted, such as the rest of the dishes we picked out, a spice rack, and some little cool stuff like a corn stripper (it takes corn from corn on the cob and puts it into a little cup!  Awesome!).

So on a rainy Saturday morning, we headed up to Rogers to visit Bed, Bath, & Beyond.  I suppose this deserves a brief explanation as well.  Rogers is about 15 miles north of Fayetteville, but Fayetteville has it's own Bed, Bath & Beyond.  Why go to Rogers?  Well, Rogers was the place we originally registered when we happened to be up there, and now we had to go back there to complete our package.

With a fair amount of grouching from the male side of this couple (due to the earliness), we drove up to Rogers and visited BB&B.  Afterward, we figured we'd make the most of our trek up to Rogers and visit the new Fake Whole Foods that just opened, go to Pottery Barn, and perhaps visit the glory of TJ Maxx.  Before doing these things, however, we needed some breakfast.

Although Bob Evans was on the possibility list, we ended up at Mimi's Cafe, a chain restaurant that is in the Pinnacle Hills Shopping Center (which Doug calls the Arkansas "uptown" for those of you from Albuquerque).  We've been there once before but never for brunch, and let me tell you....we'll be back.

Mostly because of this:

What you see on the right is coffee.  I cannot speak to that, as I didn't have any, and as a chain restaurant, I'm guessing the coffee was nothing special.  On the left you see a chocolate  mousse muffin.

All of the main entrees come with a muffin, so this was something that just came with Doug's meal, just like you can get a cinnamon roll with your meal at Ann Sather in Chicago.  Before I get into the details of the muffin, I should note that it was served with two little wheels of butter.  Who on earth puts butter on a chocolate muffin?  Or do they just serve butter with every muffin?  Why not ask before doing it? Or maybe it's because this is a New Orleans themed restaurant....do people from Louisiana put butter on their chocolate?  We spent much of the meal remarking about this oddity.

Let me not detract from the muffin itself.  Light but flavorful, where the top had a nice crustiness to it and the middle was slightly warm and quite moist, this might be the Muffin of Champions.  Ya'll, it has MOUSSE in the middle, mixed into the muffin, with frosting and chocolate chips on top.  We gobbled it up, sans butter, in a heartbeat.

The rest of the meal was good too, I had apple crepes (yes, two desserts for breakfast, don't judge me) and Doug had some kind of omelette with delicious crusty potatos on the side.  But it all kind of paled in comparison to the muffin.  Next time we're up there I sense us going into Mimis, sitting at the bar, and ordering a beer and a chocolate mousse muffin.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.