Guess who was really, really excited when they discovered that Seoul had an Original Pancake House. Go on, guess. Guess.

Me, obviously.

I love pancakes. Shrove Tuesday (Pancake day, in England), didn’t really happen for me this year, what with raw ingredients being ridiculously expensive and the fact that February wasn’t really an ‘ace month for me’ in the grand scheme of things – there wasn’t really a lot of time to indulge in making a ridiculous amount of batter and seeing who could flip pancakes with a (mostly) melted spatula and not stick them to the roof of the flat. Sad Times.

BUT THEN THINGS CHANGED.

(aka take me here for my birthday breakfast, I demand you to) 

The Original Pancake House Seoul is located in the Sinsa-dong area, just a little way up from Fin Cafe and Louis Club – and it is glorious. Upon first seeing it, I thought it was tiny, just a few tables and an outside terrace area, then we went inside and I was really quite surprised. It’s massive.

As you can see, we went at a time when eating pancakes wasn’t especially popular, apparently – aka it was really quiet and really empty. But that just means we got our food faster, which was a really good thing because, uhm, pancakes!

The menu has quite an interesting variety of things: pancakes (obviously), crepes, waffles, omelettes, breakfast dishes, dutch babies (not the human kind!!), sourdough pancakes, flapjacks (also not the usual kind, or at least, the kind I am most used to), salads and drinks – it was so hard to choose. They even have a special ‘Apple Pancake’ (slow roasted apples, anyone), which apparently takes an hour to make! Eventually we just went for a classic half-n-half setup, banana and blueberry. We tried to order the sourdough too, but apparently they’re only served on the weekends. (???)

In a word? YUM. In two? DOUBLE YUM.

No really, the pancakes were warm and fluffy, in the american style which I haven’t actually had before, other than the supermarket-bought kind, so this was a nice change. The pancakes came with whipped cream, blueberry sauce and a really nice orange glaze – we were both expecting melted butter, so that was a welcome surprise.

At 14,000won, you definitely get a lot of food for your money here. Dishes start from 8000won, I think the drinks start at 6000 – but I’m not sure. The omelettes looked absolutely amazing (we were sat by the kitchen and saw all the food being brought out – almost died), and huge. I don’t think they have small servings here. But why would you want small pancakes?

address: 523-20 Sinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
phone: (02) 511-7481
opening times: Monday – Friday : 11am – 10pm
                      Weekends : 8am – 10pm