Strictly Pancakes

When I moved to Singapore I was adamant I wouldn’t miss out on any of the traditions that I had maintained (and inflicted on my friends) whilst I was living in London.

            Sadly, I fell at the first hurdle when Burn’s Night awkwardly landed on the first weekend I was in Singapore. In the end, other plans took over, meaning I didn’t get to serve up haggis and whiskey to everyone I could force to try it. In hindsight, this was probably for the best, as I still have no idea where I would find a haggis in Singapore. I can offer you all the chicken feet you could possibly want, fish heads by the bowlful, more organ soup than you mind can fathom and a selection of fruits that smell like death (seriously, it’s illegal to take durian on the underground or into public buildings because it smells so freaking vile!), but I am struggling to find a good pork sausage or nice bacon. I think haggis would be asking way too much of the local markets. Sometimes I really do miss Sainsburys.

            Still, with Shrove Tuesday fast approaching, I was adamant that I would maintain the tradition of having pancakes for dinner, regardless of what our plans were. It turns out that we are actually going to see Eric Clapton tomorrow night with a number of Nick’s clients and work friends though, which made it slightly trickier.

Even I will admit that it would be one step too far to try and force a load of ship brokers to join me in my ridiculous dinner, so instead, I made a very hungover, tired and essentially broken Nick play the game a day early instead.

I’ve been scouting out good pancake spots for a while, but in the end I decided that Strictly Pancakes was going to be the best location for us – it’s about five minutes away from our flat and it serves both sweet and savoury American style pancakes, and it looks pretty cute from the outside. It seemed like a sensible dinner option, and as I love having Happy Places near the flat, I wanted to try it out and see whether it would be a good comfort food spot to have on file.

Monday nights are supposed to be healthy nights in my world. I am not sure whether a chocolate milk shake, a stack of three American pancakes, chicken pie style filling, maple syrup, garlic and herb butter and chips on the side really fits with that ideal, but my goodness it was tasty!  

Now that’s done, I have just one day to work out what I am going to give up for Lent. Tricky. I never normally give up anything; I just enjoy the pancake pig out. However, since I’ve been eating nonstop from the moment I arrived in Singapore, I think it’s time to start cutting back on something. But what?