Falls Manor Restaurant

Broasted chicken is the first thing to understand about Falls Manor. The kitchen pressure-cooks it the old way, and the menu treats it less like a dish than like a foundation: it shows up as a quarter, half, or whole bird, in three- and four-piece plates called The Homesteader and The Platter, as broasted wings tossed mild, medium, hot, honey garlic, or naked, and in the Wing Dingers whole wings with celery and blue cheese. Falls Manor calls itself Niagara Region's original home of broasted chicken, and the rest of the food is built to sit beside it — broasted potatoes, creamy coleslaw, family packs that carry the same bird home. The kitchen has run on Lundy's Lane since 1953.

Breakfast is the other half of the story, and it runs all day. Golden dipped pancakes are the signature, but the lineup goes deep: the Panhandler stacks pancakes or French toast with two eggs, bacon, and sausage; the Hungry Jack adds peameal bacon and Texas toast; the Sundowner puts house Hungarian sausage on an English muffin with cheddar, home fries, and smokehouse baked beans. There are omelettes built six ways, eggs Benedict on peameal, and a Belgian waffle in the seniors' section. The rest of the menu fills in around chicken and eggs with the kind of food a Niagara family restaurant is expected to carry — fish fry, kettle-cooked back ribs, French onion soup with a garlic bun, perogies with bacon and sour cream, lemon and coconut cream pies.