Having not indulged in pancakes since our food tour when we first moved to the city, we were craving a sweet breakfast doused in syrup. Savoury brunches are all well and good (better than good, even), but sometimes you have a hankering for something sweet when you wake up and pancakes or waffles are the only cure.
So, having slightly exhausted our options at Pancakes! on previous visits, we looked for somewhere new. There are a handful of names of pancake restaurants that always come up on “top lists” across the internet and The Pancake Bakery was one such place. We cycled over with growling stomachs to see what all the fuss was about.
As soon as we saw people queuing at the door, we realised this is definitely a tourist spot. Relatively hidden off one of the main canal streets of the centre, it’s a prime spot for visitors. In fact, we were probably the only people in the restaurant that weren’t just visiting the city for a few days.
But I never let that get the better of me. Amsterdam is a major tourist city, after all, and visitors have to eat somewhere. But the sticker shock of the menu confirmed that this definitely wasn’t a small family-run neighbourhood establishment. If I needed re-confirmation of this, it was given when I asked for a tap water and was told “We only sell bottled water”. Erm, well I wasn’t asking you to “sell” me some tap water, I just wanted you to get it for me out of the tap. Or are they suggesting that they don’t have a running tap anywhere in the building? Surely that’s against health and safety.
Undeterred, I ordered a classic Nutella and banana Dutch pancake, while Scott ordered the poffertjes (small, fluffy, round pancakes topped with butter and sugar). I apologise in advance for the use of flash in these photos, but it is so dark in the basement restaurant that there was no other way to capture the food.
My large pancake was thin and light, with a good amount of banana cooked into it and a decent-sized pot of Nutella on top, which I delighted in spooning out and eating after the pancake was done. The edges were crispy and the banana was soft and mushy, just how I like it when eaten with pancakes.
Scott’s poffertjes were decent – buttery and soft – so no real complaints there. His only complaint was that I had twice as much food as he did, but poffertjes are always a small portion, so don’t order them on their own if you’re *really* hungry.
We had no real misgivings about the food; it was good by all standards. However the prices, the atmosphere and the service left a lot to be desired. I didn’t really feel like I’d had good value for money once the bill came and probably would have felt that even more so if I’d caved and bought a bottle of water or a coffee.
I’m going to try as many pancake places as I can while I live in Amsterdam, but for now I’ll be sticking to my fail-safe that is Pancakes!
- Prinsengracht 191
- Open daily 9am – 9.30pm
- pancake.nl
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