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Every Friday morning, I meet up with friends for breakfast before heading into work. The breakfast scene in the East Valley is woefully lacking. We usually end up at chains like Waffle House and Village Inn, which I don't mind, but I don't consider them particularly great. This morning, however, we met at Wonderful Wanda's Breakfast & Lunch. Wanda's is in a small stand alone building off of Chandler Blvd, just East of I-10. Stand alone non-corporate restaurants are rare in Phoenix as most tend to be located in strip malls.

The place itself is fairly small with only about 12 tables. The place was packed when we arrived, but luckily there was still one table open which we promptly grabbed. I don't know if Friday mornings are usually this busy at Wanda's, but they weren't prepared for the volume. There was only a single waitress on duty. She was running around like mad, but there was just too much going on for a single person to handle. As a result, it was a good 10 minutes before she finally got to our table to take our order. Fearing we might never see her again, we ordered our drinks and food at the same time.

Wanda's menu is fairly small. There's a selection of omelets, breakfast burritos, breakfast sandwiches, and assorted items such as biscuits & gravy, pancakes, and French toast. During a previous visit, I had tried one of the breakfast burritos, and it was pretty good. This time around, though, I was interested in an omelet. It just so happened that there was a special. $4.95 for a bacon and Swiss cheese omelet with onions and tomatoes, served with hash browns and a side of toast. Sounded good to me. My friend Moody ordered a breakfast burrito while Adam went with the biscuits & gravy.

Surprisingly, the food came up pretty fast considering how busy the place was. My omelet looked to be a three egg version and was nice and light. The first bite was a little disappointing, though. Both the egg and the filling were in desperate need of seasoning. I added some salt and pepper from the shakers, which helped a good bit, but it's never the same as when it's incorporated into the cooking process. My hash browns came out a little undercooked. They were about two inches thick, which meant that even though the outside was browned, the center was still a little raw.

All in all, my breakfast at Wanda's was ok, but it didn't rise to the level I had hoped. Moody really liked his breakfast burrito, and it seems like that might be what they do best. I'm sure I'll be back again, hopefully when things are a little less hectic and they have a little more help.