Transcending the decades

My mom was pretty bored on Maundy Thursday, so she asked if I wanted to accompany her, driving around the Makati and Taguig areas to see what exactly was left open. Having nothing better to do, we got into my car and hit the road.

Much to our chagrin, Greenbelt and Glorietta were virtual ghost towns. Skipping Makati, we crossed EDSA and went to Bonifacio Global City. Pootling around, we noticed Bonifacio High Street was open. We parked, disembarked and spelunked for a closer look. It turned out much of High Street, Serendra and Market! Market! was also closed down, but there were a lot of people gathered round due to the massive, artistic Stations of the Cross exhibits littering the center garden of High Street. What remained open were some restaurants, hoping to capitalize on the visitors.

After walking around, my mom thought of having an afternoon snack at Pancake House. She had told me it used to be their hangout in the 1970s and 1980s, especially when the Magallanes locale of Makati was a much busier place than it is today. In those halcyon days when she worked there, there was a bowling alley, a cinema and a branch each of Magoo's Pizza, Dayrit's, the steak house Mingoy's and Pancake House.

A panorama shot of Pancake House Bonifacio High Street's interior.

The branch in Bonifacio High Street sure doesn't look like a typical Pancake House branch. They took more liberties with the decor, mixing a collection of movie posters with post-modern architecture in the franchise's trademark orange motif.

Bacon Waffles. The bacon is embedded :)

Mom had their Bacon Waffles (PhP160), while I had a three-piece order of Peach Pancakes (PhP175). Both of us had a cup of brewed coffee (PhP70; PhP78 with one refill) to go along with it.

That's some bad-ass coffee!

It has to be said, Pancake House's coffee is some of the strongest you'll ever find in a restaurant. Emptying one sachet of brown sugar into the glass, it still tastes wickedly black. It's a full-bodied brew that Starbucks mixed-drink aficionados might find overpowering. We actually ordered a refill, but as this was already 4pm in the afternoon and the brew was much more potent than expected, we requested the refill be canceled.

I didn't get to try the Bacon Waffles, so I'll talk about the Peach Pancakes, which were pretty interesting. You get a stack of three moderately thick pancakes, along with six peach slices and a small dollop of whipped cream on top. A small beaker accompanies the dish with what looks like peach-flavored syrup.

Peach Pancakes, quite obviously :) Check out the syrup beaker.

The pancakes themselves are fluffy and cake-like, and not very dense. Indeed, if your fork has a large piece of pancake skewered on it, chances are it will tear off and plop back onto your plate after some resistance. I grew up in a household that prefers dense pancakes, but I can appreciate Pancake House's recipe as it's not overly thin or floppy. The peach syrup is surprisingly not very sweet, imparting a just-right kind of taste to go along with the pancakes and peach slices.

Overall it's a good, filling, carbo-loaded breakfast or snack. And that potent coffee is just something else. I usually don't frequent Pancake House but I now might have reasons to go back more often.