Everyone in the San Antonio area knows the Bill Miller Bar-B-Q chain. At least 50 locations offer barbecue plates and fried chicken, etc. and usually there is a line both inside and at the drive-thru. The barbecue is good — not great — and the fried chicken has a lot of fans. The sweet tea and brownies have legions of followers. And while I grab the occasional lunch or dinner there, I have come to feel that it’s the breakfast offerings that really shine.
I commute from a NE suburb into San Antonio every work day, and I leave early to beat the traffic. Quite often, I find myself pulling in to a fast food place to get breakfast. There is a Bill Miller’s across from where I work, and a couple of years ago I saw that the location was open for breakfast. So I gave it a try.
I love breakfast tacos, and the Bill Miller ones are really good. One of the best features is the bacon. The strips are meaty and substantial, not flimsy and pinkish as they are at many other places. One of the best tacos is the egg and bacon, with a warm flour tortilla filled with fresh scrambled eggs and a nice strip of bacon.
A bacon and egg taco from Bill Miller’s
And I am also a fan of the meaty and flavorful carne guisada, shown here with cheese.
A carne guisada taco with cheese
The tacos are a bit pricier that you’ll find at other places, but most of the time, a single taco is so substantial that one will do. And many mornings there are taco specials, usually bean and cheese or potato and egg (the potato being the Bill Miller hash brown, which is pretty good). Both flour and corn tortillas are available, and the hot sauce is pretty decent and packs a good bit of heat.
There are also various breakfast plates on the menu. One is the Cowboy breakfast, which features a huge biscuit and gravy. It usually comes with grilled ham, but for me, bacon rules, so I order it with bacon, for no extra charge. At $3.19, this is both a filling plate and a good deal.
The Bill Miller Cowboy Breakfast with bacon
I have been wanting to order the griddle cakes, and so this morning, feeling that I could virtuously do so because I wanted to write up this blog, I did so. I had to wait about 4 minutes for my order, but it was really worth it. From the minute the bag was handed to me, the aroma of fresh griddle cakes filled my car.
Bill Miller Griddle Cakes
Yes, the three hot, fresh griddle cakes literally filled the plate. They came with butter and syrup and of course, I chose the bacon to accompany them.
Griddle cakes in syrup and butter
These griddle cakes were SO good. The syrup was warm, a bit thin, but tasted great. And the portion was so generous that I could only finish about 2/3 of the cakes, and trust me, I wanted to finish the rest. One order is truly enough to share (but don’t ask me to share, because I want my own). The cakes are $3.29 for an order; with bacon the plate runs $5.39.
If you haven’t tried the Bill Miller breakfast, and you love breakfast like I do, and you like hearty food and good portions, I recommend that you try it. You can see the breakfast menu here: http://www.billmillerbbq.com/2/lp_108/pg_generichtml.html
