How to Make the Golden Diner Pancakes

Food|These Golden Diner Pancakes Are Just as Good as You’ve Heard

Hey, all! Genevieve here, filling in for Melissa and channeling our shared love for genius chefs’ recipes that we can actually make at home. The latest is the best possible breakfast for dinner: Golden Diner pancakes.

The chef Sam Yoo created these beauties for his restaurant in Chinatown in Manhattan, where 600-plus diners line up for hours every weekend to eat them. They have the two-sided crackle of waffles with the tenderness of cake inside tall, picture-perfect rounds. At Golden Diner, the cooks slide their batter-filled battalion of skillets under a professional broiler to set the pancakes.

At home, however, you might have no more than one small nonstick pan, so I adapted the technique: Flip a pancake on the stove to brown both sides first, then slide it into the oven on a rack-lined sheet pan to bake through; repeat with the rest of the batter. This makes it easy to serve them all at the same time.

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Golden Diner Pancakes

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As special as the pancakes themselves are, it’s the toppings that make this dish exceptional: salty-sweet maple-honey syrup with a touch of soy sauce, maple-honey butter and a tangy berry compote. (I bet that trio would be great on my lemon ricotta pancakes or any other pancakes or waffles.)

This meal feels like a summer sunset any time of day, all golden sunshine, relaxed and beachy. So do these quick dinners that make the most of the season’s produce:

Satay-style grilled chicken thighs: Nothing smells as good as Thai chicken satay charring on a grill. This version from Sherry Rujikarn skips the messy steps of cutting chicken into cubes and skewering it, and instead uses whole boneless, skinless thighs that soak up the curry-coconut milk marinade just as well. The usual accompaniment of fresh cucumber slices is transformed into a crisp, refreshing salad, punchy with sliced shallot and chile. Both the cucumber salad and marinated meat can be made ahead of time, too.

Grated tomato pasta: Big tomatoes are especially juicy right now, and their natural sweetness hits new heights in this smart, simple dish from Ham El-Waylly. The grated fruit heats for just a few minutes in garlic-scented olive oil before being tossed with pasta and lots of Parmesan. By giving the tomatoes just a touch of heat, you preserve their freshness while making them saucy enough to coat noodles. As a bonus, you’ll have enough sauce at the bottom of your pasta bowl to sop up with sourdough.

Crispy rice with shrimp, bacon and corn: The combination of sweet corn and sea-salty shrimp is unbeatable in summer, so I put them together in this quick one-pan meal. The starches in the corn and leftover rice sear into a crackly bottom, so you get a savory crunch in each bite. When I created this dish, my kids were little and loved the comforting mix of salty and sweet. Now, we all enjoy this with sliced fresh chile stir-fried in with the scallions and scattered on top at the end.

Grilled tofu salad with honey-chile dressing: Tofu takes on smoky richness and a meaty chew when grilled, and it becomes a hearty salad here with the addition of charred green beans, planks of zucchini and summer squash. Kay Chun soaks them all with a chile-spiked honey dressing and freshens up the meal with cherry tomatoes and herbs. Because you can fit everything on the grill at once, this dish comes together quickly. Leftovers make for the tastiest lunch.

Easy buttermilk peach cobbler: When there isn’t time to make a pie, you’ll want to throw together this cobbler. Melissa Clark offers smart tips for how to adjust the amounts of sugar and lemon juice to match the tang and juiciness of whatever fruit you can find. Browning butter for the batter adds nutty notes to the tender, cakelike cobbler that’s rippled with caramelized peaches. It certainly doesn’t need vanilla ice cream, but a scoop melting into a warm wedge is peak summer.