NEW YORK — A few weeks ago, Golden Diner, a restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown, began taking reservations for weekend brunch, years after the wait for a table could stretch to two, sometimes three, hours. But the crowds have not diminished. Everyone is willing to stand in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge for chef Sam Yoo’s pancakes.

In 2019, Yoo opened Golden Diner, where his takes on classic diner dishes weave in playful Asian inflections like a highway zipper merge done right. Diners regularly filled the seats at the counter and small tables along it, and then, in October 2023, someone posted the pancakes on TikTok, then others did as well. The masses arrived, lines outside grew, sales jumped.

What Yoo thought might be a blip turned into a pivotal moment. “I never created the pancakes to go viral or for the Instagram crowd,” he said. “As a chef, I needed them to be beautiful because you eat with your eyes first, but I wanted to know, ‘Is it balanced? Is it familiar but refreshing in taste and concept?’” After researching and testing countless batches of pancakes, he landed on what has become a new classic.

Along with the internet rise of the Golden Diner pancakes came copycat recipes. Yoo declined to share his version until now.

It’s a game-changing one that combines all the nostalgia of diner pancakes with innovative techniques for a dish that makes your eyes widen at first taste. Yoo cooks a yeast-risen buttermilk batter in individual skillets to give them height like Japanese souffle pancakes and a perfect roundness like those in the flapjack emoji. As soon as he stacks them on a plate, he drenches them with buttery maple-honey syrup, then tops them with salted maple-honey butter, both inspired by Korean honey-butter chips and reminiscent of Werther’s hard candies. A berry compote completes the meal with its fresh tang.

To fully experience Golden Diner pancakes is to make — then eat — all four components together. No single step is difficult, but the execution takes some coordination and delivers the high that restaurant cooks get during brunch service. Yoo said he is still recognized as “Mr. Pancake,” but now spends most of his time in midtown Manhattan, where he’s the chef and owner of the new Golden Hof — Korean Bar & Grill. His Golden Diner chef de cuisine, Danny Ugolick, oversees the kitchen downtown, which now revolves around pancake production.

On Saturdays and Sundays, Ugolick expects about 350 diners for brunch, which means about 280 pancake orders. Each order includes two pancakes, so to turn out about 1,120 pancakes over two days, the cooks prep 60 quarts of berry compote once a week; 60 pounds of maple-honey butter every other day; 35 quarts of maple-honey syrup daily; and 100 quarts of batter twice a day. They can cook only eight pancakes at a time while also making other brunch dishes.

“It’s mainly about time management, risk management,” Ugolick said, but it’s far simpler at home: Because you’re not cooking hundreds of orders, you can start the batter and, while it rests, make the butter, syrup and berry compote. And since you’re probably cooking with just one skillet, but want to serve everything at once, you finish the pancakes in the oven.

Yoo doesn’t include any butter in his batter and cooks it in an ungreased nonstick skillet so it develops a dry crust that softens when soaked with the syrup. At the restaurant, the batter is browned on the bottom, then slid under a salamander, a professional broiler, to cook through before the round is flipped. At home, you can brown both sides of a single pancake, then slide it onto a rack-lined pan in the oven so the center cooks through and the outsides stay crackly as you work.

The syrup, which has a savory depth from soy sauce, requires only whisking, as does the butter. The compote is nearly as easy. To retain the berries’ freshness as they thicken, Yoo cooks them hot and fast with sugar and cornstarch. Everyday pancakes, these are not.

Ugolick isn’t on TikTok and still hasn’t seen the videos that transformed his work life. “I’ll be very honest — I’ve never ever been a pancake person,” he said, but added that this recipe “has opened people’s eyes to what a pancake can be.” When Yoo was creating the restaurant’s menu, he wanted waffles, but pancakes made more sense logistically for the small kitchen. He never thought they’d be the hit they are. “It’s all a little crazy,” he said.

They’re so good that they are, in fact, worth hourslong waits in New York — and definitely worth making at home everywhere.

Golden Diner Pancakes

This game-changing pancake recipe from Sam Yoo, the chef and an owner of Golden Diner in Manhattan’s Chinatown, combines all the nostalgia of diner pancakes with innovative techniques for a dish that makes your eyes widen at first taste. Yoo cooks a yeast-risen buttermilk batter in individual skillets to give them height like Japanese soufflé pancakes and a perfect roundness like those in the flapjack emoji. As soon as he stacks them on a plate, he drenches them with buttery maple-honey syrup, then tops them with salted honey-maple butter, both inspired by Korean honey-butter chips and reminiscent of Werther’s hard candies. A berry compote completes the meal with its fresh tang.

Recipe from Sam Yoo

Adapted by Genevieve Ko

Yield: 4 to 6 large pancakes with toppings (3 to 6 servings)

Total time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

INGREDIENTS

For the Pancake Batter:

2 1/4 teaspoons/7 grams active dry yeast (one 1/4-ounce packet)
2 cups/260 grams all-purpose flour, divided
1 1/4 cups/300 grams buttermilk
2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
2 large eggs
1/4 cup/60 grams canola oil or other neutral-tasting oil

For the Maple-Honey Butter:

1/2 cup/113 grams unsalted butter, softened
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
3/4 teaspoon fine salt

For the Maple-Honey Syrup:

1/2 cup/113 grams unsalted butter
1/3 cup/100 grams honey
1 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon fine salt

For the Berry Compote:

14 ounces/400 grams mixed berries, such as blueberries, raspberries and stemmed strawberries, cut to the same size as the small berries
1/3 cup/67 grams sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch

DIRECTIONS

1. Start the pancake batter: In a small bowl, whisk the yeast with 1 cup flour. In a small saucepan, heat the buttermilk with 1/4 cup/60 grams water over medium-low heat, stirring often, until lukewarm (about 100 degrees), about 5 minutes. Pour the buttermilk into the flour and whisk until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 1 hour to create a preferment. This will give the pancakes a deeper flavor and some additional rise.

2. Meanwhile, make the maple-honey butter: In a medium bowl, whisk the butter, honey, syrup and salt until smooth. Keep at room temperature if using within a few hours. Otherwise, refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Soften the butter and whisk it again before serving.

3. Make the maple-honey syrup: Combine the butter, honey, syrup, soy sauce and salt in a small saucepan. Heat over medium-low, whisking often, until the butter melts completely. While whisking, add 1 1/2 tablespoons water. Keep whisking until emulsified, then reduce the heat to the lowest setting to keep warm.

4. Make the berry compote: In a large bowl, gently mix the berries, sugar and cornstarch until the berries are evenly coated. Heat a large, deep skillet over high until very hot. A drop of water sprinkled on the pan should immediately sizzle away. Add the berry mixture and cook, stirring once in a while, until the blueberries look like they’re about to pop, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat.

5. Finish the pancakes: Heat the oven to 350 degrees with a rack in the center. Set a metal rack in a sheet pan and place on the center oven rack.

6. After the preferment has proofed for an hour, whisk the remaining 1 cup flour with the sugar, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and oil until smooth. Scrape the preferment into the egg mixture, then add the dry ingredients. Gently stir with the whisk until no traces of dry ingredients remain. It’s OK if the batter is lumpy.

7. Heat one or two 7- to 8-inch nonstick skillets (5- to 6- inches across the bottom) or extremely well-seasoned cast-iron pans over medium until very hot. Nonstick works best because you won’t be greasing the pans at all. Fill each pan with batter to about 1/3-inch depth. Smooth the top to ensure the batter reaches the edges of the pan and forms a nice round. Cook until the bottom is crisp and evenly golden brown, 2 to 4 minutes, turning down the heat if the bottom browns too quickly. Flip and cook until the other side crisps and browns evenly, 1 to 3 minutes, tucking in the edges to give the pancake a nice dome.

8. Transfer the pancake from the skillet to the rack-lined pan in the oven for the centers to cook through, 2 to 5 minutes. To check, poke a paring knife in the middle and peek to see if any wet batter remains. Repeat with the remaining batter, reheating the pan between pancakes. You can serve the pancakes as they’re done or keep the earlier batches in the oven until all of the pancakes are ready.

9. To serve, center one or two hot pancakes on serving plates and evenly drench with the maple-honey syrup right away. Spoon the berry compote on top, then scoop maple-honey butter over the berries (see Tip). Serve immediately.

Tips: At Golden Diner, the butter is formed into the football shape known as quenelles. You can do the same if you want: Use one spoon to scoop a round of soft maple-honey butter along its long side, then run another spoon of the same size against the first spoon to shape the butter into a football.

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Fast food burgers hit the spot on road trips and when you’re pressed for time. But given most sandwich buns are made with wheat, there often aren’t a lot of options for those with gluten allergies.

These burger spirals are an acceptable gluten-free solution: They’re made with rice paper wrappers.

Usually the thin, transparent rounds made from rice, water and salt are the foundation for Vietnamese summer rolls — fresh spring rolls filled with shredded vegetables, fresh herbs, noodles and proteins like shrimp and pork and served cold.

Here, in an attempt to replicate the flavor of McDonald’s signature burger, the wrappers are stuffed Big Mac-style with ground beef, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, rolled burrito-style into a tight cylinder, curled into a spiral and baked to a golden crisp under a sprinkle of sesame seed.

A tangy, mayo-based special sauce crafted with yellow mustard and sweet pickle relish is served on the side for dipping, along with shoestring fries.

Recipes for the culinary creation dubbed the “Big Mac Spiral” have been making the rounds on social media for a while, and I’m guessing it’s because the spirals actually are a fairly good facsimile of the real deal. The rice paper bakes up crispy, the ingredients are fairly economical and for those on gluten-free diets, there’s no worries about cross-contamination with flour.

Rice paper rounds aren’t as delicate as they might appear, but you do have to be careful when rehydrating them. Also, they need only a few seconds in the egg wash; linger too long and they’ll get too soft and be tricky to work with.

It helps to get all the ingredients organized at a work station before you prepare to roll. Lightly oiling the cutting board so nothing sticks will also make rolling easier, along with allowing yourself a few tries to get the hang of it. Practice makes perfect!

Don’t fret over small tears, as they can be repaired by overlapping the rounds. If the rip is too big to work with, simply replace the torn sheet with a fresh round — a package comes with more than the 12 sheets you need to make this recipe.

I served the rolls with a copycat McDonald’s special sauce but you could use thousand island dressing. Or, simply dip the spirals in Heinz ketchup. Fries go best as a side.

Cheeseburger Rice Paper Spirals

INGREDIENTS

1 pound ground beef
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Pinch or two of garlic powder
12 rice paper sheets
2 eggs, beaten with a little water
Handful shredded lettuce
1/2 cup shredded American or cheddar cheese, or more to taste
1/4 cup finely diced dill pickles or pickle relish, or more to taste
1/4 cup finely diced onion, or more to taste
Sesame seeds, for garnish

For dipping sauce:

1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
1 tablespoon grated yellow onion
2 teaspoons yellow mustard
1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Squirt or two of ketchup

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Brown and crumble ground beef in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Drain any grease. Season to taste with salt, pepper and a little garlic powder.

Whisk eggs with a little water in a wide and shallow bowl (it should be large enough to hold a rice paper round comfortably). One at a time, carefully dip 3 rice papers into the beaten egg for a few seconds until they soften (be gentle!), then lay them in a row with the edges overlapping on a lightly oiled cutting board.

Spoon 1/4 of the ground beef evenly across the top of the sheets, followed by shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, diced pickles and onions.

Roll up like a cigar into a tight cylinder, then gently curve it around itself into a spiral.

Place spirals on a parchment paper-covered baking sheet. Brush with a little bit of the egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Repeat with remaining wrappers and fillings.

Bake spirals in preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until crispy and golden brown.

While spirals are baking, make sauce by stirring all the ingredients together in a small bowl. Taste and add more seasoning if needed. Set aside.

When spirals are done baking, remove from the oven and serve immediately with dipping sauce.

Serves 4.

— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette

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Today is Thursday, Aug. 7, the 219th day of 2025. There are 146 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 7, 1974, French highwire artist Philippe Petit performed an unapproved tightrope walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York, over 1,300 feet above the ground; the event was chronicled in the Academy Award-winning documentary “Man on Wire.”

Also on this date:

In 1789, the U.S. Department of War was established by Congress.

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In 1942, U.S. and other allied forces landed at Guadalcanal, marking the start of the first major allied offensive in the Pacific during World War II.

In 1960, Cote d’Ivoire gained independence from France.

In 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson broad powers in dealing with reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces.

In 1971, the Apollo 15 moon mission ended successfully as its command module splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter declared the Love Canal environmental disaster in Niagara Falls, N.Y. a federal health emergency; it would later top the initial list of Superfund cleanup sites.

In 1989, a plane carrying U.S. Rep. Mickey Leland, D-Texas, and 15 others disappeared over Ethiopia. (The wreckage of the plane was found six days later; there were no survivors.)

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush ordered U.S. troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to guard the oil-rich desert kingdom against a possible invasion by Iraq.

In 1998, terrorist bombs at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.

In 2007, San Francisco’s Barry Bonds hit home run No. 756 to break Hank Aaron’s storied record with one out in the fifth inning of a game against the Washington Nationals, who won, 8-6.

In 2012, to avoid a possible death penalty, Jared Lee Loughner agreed to spend the rest of his life in prison, accepting that he went on a deadly shooting rampage at an Arizona political gathering in 2011 that left six people dead and 13 injured, including U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords.

In 2015, Colorado theater shooter James Holmes was spared the death penalty in favor of life in prison after a jury in Centennial failed to agree on whether he should be executed for his attack on a packed movie premiere that left 12 people dead.

Today’s Birthdays:

Singer Lana Cantrell is 82.
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller is 81.
Actor John Glover is 81.
Actor David Rasche is 81.
Former diplomat, talk show host and activist Alan Keyes is 75.
Country singer Rodney Crowell is 75.
Actor Caroline Aaron is 73.
Comedian Alexei Sayle is 73.
Actor Wayne Knight is 70.
Rock singer Bruce Dickinson is 67.
Actor David Duchovny is 65.
Actor Delane Matthews is 64.
Actor Harold Perrineau is 62.
Jazz musician Marcus Roberts is 62.
Country singer Raul Malo is 60.
Actor David Mann is 59.
Actor Charlotte Lewis is 58.
Actor Sydney Penny is 54.
Actor Greg Serano is 53.
Actor Michael Shannon is 51.
Actor Charlize Theron is 50.
Rock musician Barry Kerch is 49.
Actor Eric Johnson is 46.
Actor Randy Wayne is 44.
Actor-writer Brit Marling is 43.
NHL center Sidney Crosby is 38.
MLB All-Star Mike Trout is 34.
Actor Liam James is 29.

Minnesota United will not win the quadruple in 2025.

After a strong six-plus months to start the year, the Loons were eliminated from Leagues Cup with a 2-0 loss to Atletico de San Luis on Wednesday at Allianz Field.

MNUFC finished with four points in Phase One of the tournament with clubs from Mexico’s Liga MX, well short of what was required to be among the top four MLS teams to advance to the quarterfinals. They will be part of the 14 MLS clubs left out of the next round.

This year, United’s smaller roster size was stretching itself to try to compete in multiple competitions and will now get a chance to regroup and recenter its focus, with the MLS Supporters Shield, MLS Cup Playoffs and U.S. Open Cup still obtainable this year.

On Wednesday, MNUFC conceded a header goal off a corner kick in the final moments of Wednesday’s first half. The score from Joao Pedro was very similar to the one the Loons gave up in stoppage time to drop points in the 3-3 draw with Club America on Saturday.

The Loons set-piece defending was a culprit in being bounced out of the North American tournament.

San Luis sat back defensively and challenged Minnesota to break them down. This strategy was a winning one for Los Angeles FC in MLS play three weeks ago, and others are turning to that strategy.

MNUFC had scoring chances, but didn’t get a shot on target until the 76th minute, when Anthony Markanich’s header was denied by goalkeeper Andres Sanchez.

With Minnesota pushing for an equalizer, San Luis sub Sebastian Perez-Bouquet scored the second goal in the 90th minute.

Minnesota had a dream start to its Leagues Cup play with a runaway 4-1 win over Queretaro last Wednesday, but squandered three leads to America that made it much more difficult for the Loons to advance with only four points through two matches.

Training 1-0 at the half and needing a big second half, Loons head coach Eric Ramsay brought in Tani Oluwaseyi to join Kelvin Yeboah at forward as well as Bongi Hlongwane and Anthony Markanich. Ramsay usually likes to make these moves at halftime but surprisingly waited until the 54th minute.

With three games in eight days, Ramsay tried to be strategic in trying to keep his team fresh, while putting a team on the field strong enough to win. He didn’t put out his strongest lineup and that group couldn’t punch up on Wednesday.

San Luis was eliminated from the next round before the match due to a 4-0 loss to Portland last week and a 2-2 draw with Salt Lake last weekend, but their doomed fate didn’t diminish their ability to get a win on the road.

Briefly

The Loons’ unbeaten streak against Liga MX sides in Leagues Cup was snapped at five since 2023. … MNUFC called up rookie forward Luke Hille for his fourth short-term loan. The University of North Carolina product made his MLS debut at St. Louis on July 26. … The Gophers football team watched the Loons on Wednesday, taking a break from preseason camp.

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