A Happy Pancake The Hanare — Restaurant in Osaka

No queues! The is a medium sized shop with 10x double tables. We walked here from the Shinsaibashi branch when we saw there were like 50 people waiting in the queue, it took about 15 minutes to walk.

The entire store smells like delicious buttery goodness.

The original happy pancake is only 1000 yen, and came with a nice manuka honey whipped butter. It also came with some kind of caramel sauce in a pourer that tasted quite bitter and maybe a bit burnt. The happy pancake with chocolate sauce came with a huge amount of melted dark chocolates poured over one side, and a huge amount of sweet thick whipped cream poured over the other. It was great, would highly recommend! I was relieved it was melted chocolate, and not just a cheap chocolate sauce from a bottle. Pancakes took about 25 minutes to come out, and were super light and a bit jiggly as expected.

The menus mentioned a minimum of one order per person and we assumed that meant pancakes, but we saw some people arrive and order just a single pancake between two people, along with a drink each.

Other reviewers mentioned the pancakes are super eggy, and this was correct. They tasted a bit like a very light, very mild omelette. The chocolate sauce and cream flavours over the top were stronger though!

Overall would definitely recommend, if you don't need to queue. If you need to queue, I'd...

If you are a foodie, this is not the place for you. If you just want a regular pancake, this place is okay. Here’s our experience:

We travelled through the desert-like terrain, braving the heat and sweat, all the way from Dobutsuen-Mae. “This will be worth it”, I thought. Our labour will not be in vain.

The service was excellent, and we were served relatively quickly. However, to my dismay, the pancakes were not soufflé. They were chewy, thick and dry, unlike the soufflé pancakes this chain is known for. It was oily, and tasted like egg. The coffee was overpriced. The chocolate sauce was cold, and did not flow out of the cup. I had to scrape it out with my fork. Fork!

Truly a disappointing experience. The pancakes made me sadder. To be honest, the food was okay, if they didn’t set the expectation that I would be eating soufflé pancakes. Because the pancakes were eggy, it tasted more like an egg McMuffin. Therefore, I give a one star rating to this place, unless they change their name to one of two things:

A Pancake. A Happy...

We got to the restaurant at 11 am just before opening time so we were one of the first people who got seated. It’s currently 12 pm and they still haven’t brought our drinks (one plain iced coffee -which doesn’t really require a lot of effort and time- and one orange juice). We have also ordered 2 pancakes and I don’t even want to know when they will bring them… It’s not worth waiting this much

I am aware that this is a new opening but it appears that the restaurant is understaffed and the few employees are preparing the food so slowly that even if the food is good that wouldn’t outweigh the extremely long waiting times.

(I’m saying all of this not having tried any of their food yet, this is why im giving them 2 stars instead of 1, just in case the food is life changing)

(*update: they brought the first plate at 12:05 and the second one after 10 minutes with the drinks, the dishes were very average given the waiting time -especially the savory pancakes- and the orange juice did not even taste freshly squeezed. I changed my...