The brand “Pancake House” has to be copyrighted somewhere because we’ve been experiencing different restaurants carrying the same name for years now. First, there’s the famous Pancake House we know of in the Philippines and secondly, a few years ago there was also a Pancake House that was built near King Fahad Road (which we wrote about back then here). Recently, after conquering my usual Friday hikes at the Diplomatic Quarters, my friends and I relinquished our hunger by arriving at (another branch) of The Pancake House that resides within the Al Kindi Plaza of the DQ.
It’s a quaint little restaurant that is happily open during the early mornings of Fridays, closes at 12 noon and resumes business by 4PM. For the rest of the weekdays, they are open during regular working hours. They have a small outdoor seating of 5 to 6 tables and an indoor seating that’s good for 20 to 30 people. We opted to seat outside and do a little people watching as we waited for our order.
Their menu is extensive with breakfast selections called the “Magical Breakfast Mix.” You may opt for the variants of pancakes that range from carrot, blueberry, chocolate chip, strawberry banana and nutella flavors. Each order is made up of four pancakes but you can choose to only have two. For me, I just had the 1×1 breakfast order made up of just one piece of bacon, one piece sausage, one egg and one fluffy pancake. My friends ordered the 2×2 which is just 2 pieces of everything I had.
Granted that we’re inside the DQ, the ambiance is quite relaxed and open. You can expect a lot of Westerners and and families enjoying their breakfast as if they were not in Saudi Arabia. The place was a bit packed during our visit so somehow, I’d like to think that the fairly slow service accounted for that. We were in a good mood after our hike so I guess that meant less grumpiness on my part for my bacon to arrive.
My 1×1 Breakfast finally came and it really is suited for one person’s average consumption. The bacon was crispy and cooked with just the right amount of char in it. The sausage and egg were just okay but the pancake, well, let’s just say that their pancakes lived up to the expectation: it was fluffy and made fresh. Perhaps next time, I would try and order more of the pancakes instead.
My friends ordered extra hasbrowns and bacon and apparently, some parsley too! Haha. I know it’s meant to serve as a garnish and it makes the dish look colorful, but it was just one huge parsley garnish after another. I felt sorry for the bacons that the parsleys took all the limelight. LOL.
I would say overall, the perks of this place is the location, ambience and the food. If you can manage to enter the DQ during the weekends, this would be a nice refuge from the usual brunch places in the city. Although, you might have to come in early as people can crowd up the tables easily and the service needs a fair amount of improvement. The pancakes are really good and if you come there for that, then you won’t be disappointed. It seems like they’ve made their better compared to J’s experience in their main branch years ago. Apart from their breakfast offerings, they also do have a standard menu of steaks, chicken and salads.
The Pancake House
Al Kindi Plaza, Diplomatic Quarters
Location Map:
