My year in pancakes

Thai roti lady is your next YouTube wormhole

I credit my mom for my long-standing love of pancakes. She’s from Vermont, the proud maple syrup state, and growing up, we’d have pancakes for breakfast on the weekends and for dinner at least once a month. 

Nowadays, I look for pancakes everywhere I go because it turns out pan-cooked bread is one of the most ubiquitous and versatile foods that lends itself to nearly every culture’s spice rack. I even went so far as to book this all-you-can-eat pancake cruise in Amsterdam a few years back which served up fresh apple, cheese, or bacon pancakes on a cozy boat meandering through some of the larger canals by night.

This year I spent four months traveling through Asia and Australia which gave me the chance to taste an even wider variety of pancakes, and as the year comes to a close, I thought I’d rank each experience.

The best pancakes I ate this year

5. Japanese fluffy pancakes

These made-for-Instagram, sky-high stacks were one of my must-eats before leaving the country, so I ushered my family out of the cozy confines of our Airbnb into the chilly Tokyo rain.

Donning transparent umbrellas given to us by the hotel – apparently a Japanese favorite – we battled a relentless downpour to arrive at Hoshino Coffee, a cafe located in a swanky mall food court and decorated in a style that can only be described as the winter reading room of an old English manor house. We settled into the cozy benches and each ordered coffee and a double stack of the fluffy pancakes.

They arrived 20 minutes later, hot and photogenic as ever, but I must admit I wasn’t wowed by the flavor. They were good, but basically just a fluffier version of good diner pancakes. Conclusion: overhyped.

4 Australian church pancakes

In our final Aussie escapade, we essentially invited ourselves to the 30th birthday bash of Mohamed's former flatmate. We were out until the early hours of the morning, leaving us with a three-hour window before our 6 a.m. flight to Bali. Enter: The Pancake Manor, a former church-turned-24/7 diner. The interior was a bizarre combination of deep brown brick, cowboy decor, and stained glass windows, with a slightly funky historic church smell.

For a place that has pancake in the name, the short stack was OK, probably less flavorful than the fluffy Japanese ones. But our tiredness, stickiness, and the total randomness of the place made the whole situation hilarious – sometimes the craziest moments stick with you even if the food doesn't.

Pancake Manor, via Google.

3. Okonomiyaki (Japanese seafood pancakes)

I’ll take sweet over salty pretty much any day but for Okonomiyaki I can make an exception. The city of Osaka is known for its fresh seafood and seafood pancakes, so one afternoon we specifically went looking for them. Lo and behold, we stumbled upon a tiny, hidden gem of a joint, owned and operated by a spirited, older Japanese woman. She sat us at the bar in front of her and served soda which seemed to have been bottled a decade ago and had lost its fizz – but we weren’t there for the soda, anyway. 

The batter was waiting in a pitcher in the fridge and she quickly whipped the fresh veggies into it. She griddled the octopus and shrimp separately before adding them to the top of the half-cooked pancakes. Her rule was never squish the pancake flat, an instruction she conveyed by crossing her spatulas with a firm "No!" There was such a hominess to the whole scene as if she was my Japanese grandmother teaching me how to make her special recipe in her own kitchen.

When the pancake was perfectly golden brown, she slathered them with mayonnaise and a special Japanese barbecue sauce along with plenty of seaweed flakes. The flavor was intensely fishy, salty, and slightly sweet. It was heavy, in a good way, and before we said goodbye, we snapped a few funny photos with her in front of the restaurant.

2. Thai roti

Thailand was the first stop on our trip through Asia this year, so I spent some time watching videos about the best food to try while there. That’s when I stumbled upon the “Thai roti lady” subset of YouTube which features dozens of videos of attractive women making the beloved street food pancake called roti. Roti dough is fried in oil on a rounded pan, then folded with a filling inside, often sliced bananas, and topped with a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk.

Although I spent a week in Bangkok, I didn’t find the roti lady, nor did I get to try the roti there, mainly because the Thais eat it as a sweet snack or dessert in the evening. In tourist areas, however, you can find roti shops that open in the morning and sell them all day long. They were the perfect breakfast food because they could be made savory with eggs and cheese, or sweet, like the one above with fresh coconut meat inside – thin and crispy perfection, made even better when paired with an iced Thai espresso from 7-Eleven.

1. Mom’s pancakes 

You already knew this was coming, but I can’t help it – my mom’s blueberry pancakes truly are the best (she’s also my most enthusiastic subscriber and I don’t want to lose my audience). For starters, she replaces about half of the flour with oatmeal, which gives the pancakes a more substantial flavor and texture. She also keeps her batter relatively thin so that the pancakes don’t come out too heavy. She cooks them in a cast iron skillet so she adds a generous scoop of both butter and coconut oil which has the effect of frying the pancakes and creating crispy edges with a soft interior. And blueberries, lots of blueberries. The recipe is fairly simple but, try as I might, I genuinely cannot make them as good myself. Have a go at it, if you’d like:

• 1 cup (120 grams) flour

• 1 cup (80 grams) oatmeal

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• 1 tablespoon baking powder

• 2 eggs

• 1 cup (236 milliliters) milk (plus a bit more if the batter seems too thick)

• 2 tablespoons melted butter and/or coconut oil

In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Make a well and add eggs and milk. Mix until combined, a lumpy batter is fine. Heat butter or oil in the frying pan you’ll use to cook the pancakes and add the excess to the batter. Spoon batter into pan on low/medium heat and push a few fresh or frozen blueberries into the top of the wet batter. Pancakes need about 3 minutes on each side or until they are golden brown.

Blueberry syrup:

On medium heat, add 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries to a saucepan and cover with maple syrup. Add a squeeze of lemon juice, a dash of cinnamon, and a pinch of salt. Let cook uncovered until mixture is warm and blueberries are soft.

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Let me know if you have a favorite type of pancake or if there’s a particular food you look for every time you travel! If you enjoyed this newsletter, I’d be so grateful if you subscribed. It’s free and you’ll get my food and travel updates straight to your inbox.