Cream-Topped Beer (and Pancakes) at Tiger Pancake
Opening in August, and located in Shuangjing, Tiger Pancake House is the first American-style pancake restaurant in Beijing. It's a bright, two-story venue with a modern and relaxing décor, and together with the outdoor area provides more than 80 comfortable seats.
The thick menu is absolutely bursting with pancakes and their variations, including pancakes with fruit, chocolate, omelets, and sausages (RMB 45-88), as well as similar options for the pancake's ruffled cousin, the waffle. We ordered New York cheesecake pancake (RMB 48), which comes with two decent "American-size" pancakes, topped with whipped cream, sweetened cheese whizz (!), bites of cheesecake, and powdered sugar. It wasn’t amazing (see: it has cheese whizz on it), but was good enough to calm our cravings until the weekend rolls around again and we can search elsewhere.
New York cheesecake pancakes (RMB 48)
As you may have read, we were disappointed by “coffee beer” at Gloria Jean's, but that obviously wasn't enough to ward us off ever trying something beer and coffee-related again, which is why we ordered a “special homebrewed beer” (RMB 28) without hesitation.
Special homebrewed beer (RMB 28)
Pro tip: never stir
After all, it couldn’t be worse than the coffee beer, right? After five minutes, the waitress brought us the beer with a collapsed head made from whipped cream, and a straw to suck it all down. We asked whether they brewed the concoction themselves.
“No, it's Carlsberg,” said the waitress.
This is where dreams go to die. I put the straw into the white dubious cream, and took a sip … it tasted like warm beer, except puzzlingly enough, the beer was cold. In fact, with the mixture of bitterness, and sourness from the cream, it was disgusting and fetid. We decided to sip the top layer of the sweet, corny liquid floating on top, so we could then enjoy the beer, but the whole drink became muddy and cloudy, and our plan failed. On top of this, I started to feel dizzy after 15 minutes. We learnt our lesson: whenever we see anything with beer and cream, run.
Fit for seniors in a nursing home
We also tried tiger special salad (RMB 45), which was pretty good and somewhat made up for the taste of warm Carlsberg still lingering in my mouth. Along with lettuce, grilled shrimps, bacon chops, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, onion, avocado, and boiled egg, it also had honey and mustard dressing on the side. They even chopped everything into 1cm-cubed bitesized pieces, even the lettuce and egg; do we look like we live in a nursing home? (No offense, seniors.)
All in all, even though the weird beer-thing failed us on so many different levels, we'll come back to try the brunch menu, like their eggs benedict (RMB 45), or late night pancakes, and salads. For now however, I need to grab something real to drink the sorrow away.
Tiger Pancake House
Daily 9.30am-11.30pm. Unit 105, Bldg 24, Shuanghayuan Nanli Sanqu, Guanghua Beiyijie, Chaoyang District (6770 5882)
朝阳区光华北一街双花园南里三区24号楼105号
Photos: Tracy Wang