Who does Pancakes n Waffles right in Taipei and New Taipei? I’ll start:
The Diner: Esp the 101 location (superior chefs). The NTU one is good but 101 is amazing.
Second Floor Cafe (iirc, been a while) was good, too, but second floor gets second place vs Diner.
There was a place in TianMu next to the giant Starbucks that USED to be good, but when Covid hit, they started using cheapo ingredients and must’ve laid off the good chef. Had an expired (sour) buttermilk pancake that made me gag, then returned twice to give it another try and just both times were sad experiences (the food, not staff). What a shame. At one point, they used to beat Diner.
My apartment. I may sound like I’m bragging but it’s true. Good pancakes are ridiculously easy to make. People really don’t need instant pancake mix which it seems a lot of “diners” rely on here. Pancakes from scratch only require a few extra steps. Just need a good balance of flour, eggs, milk, baking powder, maybe a bit of butter, sugar, a few pinches of salt… mix wet ingredients with dry ingredients to produce batter, cook and flip in pan for 5 minutes, lather with real maple syrup and serve.
The one type of pancakes I would go out to eat here are the ridiculously fluffy Japanese style pancakes. But American flapjacks, I make at home.
(So you can make them at home too, @Lettuceman … instead of paying 300 NTD for a stack of sour milk, instant mix, undercooked coldcakes that’ll be inferior to what you can do at home for free)
Hehe yeahh home is best. I used to love Bisquik pancakes n waffles. It wasn’t insta but wasn’t from scratch, was a nice balance. Taiwan often skips the eggs and milk. Like literally mix n water to save money, ugh, so chalky. Or yeah, cheap honey instead of like Costco syrup.
Well, usually if they serve good pancakes n waffles you also have the whole mix of eggs, crispy bacon that doesn’t come from a can and cooked for only two seconds, etc. Home is best, but I want the whole Murkan breakfast sometimes. I have a kid, so it’d be nice to do nothing sometimes and boom - American breakfast.
Second Floor tries hard to imitate an American breakfast restaurant, but IHOP it ain’t. Every time I go I notice that something is off, like tasting something Taiwanese in an otherwise Western-looking meal or finding honey instead of maple syrup. It’s overpriced too.
