HK5 Japan: Chapter 4 “Pancake Envy”

Late mornings are always fun. Sleeping in would be even better. Sadly for most of this trip I’ve bee waking up between 5:30-6:30AM since we landed. The kids however have been sleeping past meet several time this trip. On 5th day in Tokyo we set off for the imperial palace only to come to the realization, I really didn’t read up on the Palace and how the palace grounds are only opened to the public twice a year. Once the day after New Years Day when the royal family makes a speech and appearance and second on the Emperor’s Birthday. Daily the public only has access to the East Gardens which to be honest is very lack luster.

There was one section of the Garden that was of interest. The Ninomaru Garden was a lovely setting to take photos. The Old Castle walls were also a impressive site inside the garden. After the garden tour we hopped on the train and headed Asakusa Station to take kids to another surprise treat. Thanks to Tokyo Zebra we found this great little restaurant called Benitsuru. The chef there makes these amazing thick and fluffy pancakes that are literally mini soufflé’s. They way the shop works is they only take orders in batches of two. One order is made of 3 large pancakes and he only has the ability to make 6 pancakes at a time. Which meant we could only place 4 orders as a family. The girls split a chocolate pancake and the twins split a honey and butter pancake. Clem got a grilled banana nut pancake and I went for the cholesterol mound of a fried egg, bacon and hollandaise pancake. As you ca see from the video, all four were amazing. 

Paley help me edit the video for the pancakes. I will admit, I was still hungry and ordered two waffle as added bonus. Oddly the waffle is not on the menu but I saw one of the assistants making a set for commercial crew to shoot. Somewhere there is going to be an ad or promo for the restaurant and this LGBT family will be in the background. If you happen across it, please let me know. Later that day I went back to Harijuku to do shopping with Paley and the later that night we finally went to a sushi boat restaurant for dinner. We were so stuff at the ed of the night and our little stack, was more like a tower.