幸せのパンケーキ

A Happy Pancake Ikebukuro

I've never been a big pancake fan, but after seeing some friends post pictures, I wanted to check out this popular pancake chain. I went to the Ikebukuro location during Golden Week. We went before noon, and at first we were standing in the wrong line for the restaurant next door. Once we found the correct line, we were standing near the staircase without knowing that at the bottom of the stairs was a tablet where we had to put our name down (or rather get a number). The instructions at the top of the staircase just said to stand in line until a worker calls for us. It was very unclear, thus a lot of time was wasted while we watched others who came after us go down to get numbers before us. It was around 11:30 am when we finally got our number. It was estimated to be an hour half wait. My friend and I decided to go shopping nearby Ikebukuro Station. We set an alarm for an hour 15 mins to come back. When we got back, hoping our time would be up soon, the tablet said we still had over an hour left... after waiting over an hour too! The tablets estimate was off. We decided to stay in line and wait for the remaining time. I wish we just left to go eat somewhere else because by the time we sat down it was already 2 pm! The menu stated that the pancakes take about 20 mins to make. I wish they took our order beforehand so that the food would be ready when they seat us, but it appears that they cannot time anything right. It's not like the pancakes were hot and fresh when served to us either. To be honest, I wasn't impressed by the pancakes at all. My friend (who has been here before) ordered some pancakes with berries and said hers were flatter and cold when they were served. I ordered the pancakes with salmon and avocado because by this time I was really hungry from waiting over almost 3 hours to eat. My pancakes were pretty dry and bland. They looked more "wheaty" and healthy than my friends sweet pancakes that were too sweet for her that she could not finish it. Overall this was a pretty bad first experience, and I would never wait at this place again. I'm still unsure as to why these pancakes are so popular and why people would wait up to 3 hours for these. It didn't necessary taste bad, it was just not living up to the big hype for me, but maybe I was just really hangry.