Pancake

[bhchao]

What are some of the pancakes you have tasted worldwide?

My favorite is the Korean pancake 파전 (pa jeon), which is cooked pan-fried and slightly burnt on the edges. Several varieties of 파전 exist. The two most popular kinds are haemul pa jeon (cooked in a batter of flour and eggs mixed with seafood, green onions, sliced carrots and scallions), and kimchi pa jeon (cooked with similar ingredients, but with spicy flavor)

Ordering a plate of pa jeon at a restaurant costs on average $8.50 - $13 USD. I would say the median price is around $10. Some restaurants include pa jeon in the complementary side dishes, albeit in a much smaller size that is rarely as satisfying as a whole plate of pa jeon.

파전:

Most people on this forum have probably tasted 蔥油餅, which also is pan-fried and cooked with green onions and scallions. However pa jeon is much thinner than 蔥油餅, the latter being more of a pancake-looking flatbread that is crunchier than pa jeon.

Any pancakes from other cultures that you would strongly recommend?

[<<恒心>>]

Aha! I love those Korean pancakes... and Korean food in general. One of my favorite Chinese street foods though is 鸡蛋煎饼 which according to who you ask is either from Shandong or Tianjin. Onto the batter that is grilled in a food cart, an egg is added, along with (usually) chopped scallions, sesame seeds, some crispy fried dough, sesame sauce, and chili sauce. Then it's all wrapped up into a bundle and off you go...

So, on the left is 鸡蛋煎饼, exhibit A in my gallery of Favorite Pancakes of the World:

Exhibit B on the right is Okonomiyaki or お好み焼 which reputedly originated in Hiroshima. It's made of a batter loaded with cabbage and often squid, shrimp, etc., then grilled and topped with bits of norii, otafuku sauce, mayonaise, and then shaved fish. Because it's piping hot, the shaved fish tends to wave back and forth at you as the heat rises from the pancake...so it's dinner and a show all in one. How can you top that?

[trien27]

I've had Vietnamese version of pancakes?

[<<恒心>>]

What are they like? Are they crepe-like things? (Guess I should put crepes on my pancake list, too.)

[bhchao]

I had Turkish pancakes yesterday in NYC. They're great! They are pan-fried patties made with zucchini (the main ingredient), feta cheese, and onions.

It is called mucver, and is somewhat similar to kimchi pajeon. The latter is embedded with shreds of kimchi, while the former is embedded with shreds of zucchini. To complement the patties, a white cream sauce in a separate ceramic bowl is included. Similar to zhejiang vinegar being a complement to xiaolongbao.

The only problem I had with mucver is the portions (just three patties). Also it is served as an appetizer in my region of the world, instead as a separate entree. The price I paid was $7 (USD) just for the appetizer itself.

Mucver looks like this:

Turkish food is not cheap. A lot of lamb entrees and all the meat dishes averaged between $16-$19 (similar in price to Korean meat entrees)

[<<恒心>>]

Last night saw a birthday dinner for a friend at Peninsula Malaysian restaurant on Eat Street in MPLS (oddly, their Chinese name is 芭蕉室...) The fare was pretty standard Chinese-inspired dishes such as 铁板牛肉 and Singapore noodles, etc. I opted for an entree of lamb sauteed in a cinnamon sauce- quite good, and somewhat reminiscent of mole.

But with this thread in mind, I of course had to order the Malay pancake known as roti canai, and all things considered, it was my favorite of all the items I sampled during the evening. The pancake is reminiscent of Indian food to me, basically being a very large, flat, and thin pancake served in my case with a chicken curry dipping sauce. While the curry was a bit watery and tended to drip off the roti canai immediately, it was very very good and certainly rewarded the extra effort required.

Roti canai looks like this: