So what is it with Japanese and ¡°konamono sweets¡± (sweets made out of flour)? ?Be it crepes,?doughnuts, waffles or honey toast, they seem to move up and down the trend chart on a fairly regular basis.

Over the past few years, upmarket and imported pancakes have been a booming food trend in Japan. Some of the more famous outlets, such as the chic Australian chain??or the more down-to-earth Hawaiian?, are still attracting long lines of pancake lovers. Perhaps the best illustration of pancake mania came this past May in the form of a mobile app called??(Everybody¡¯s Pancake Club), which allowed users to locate the closest flapjack cafe.

While the usual syrup-and-butter variety is still a mainstay, variations far off that theme are emerging. Anyone up for pancakes covered in? (cold Chinese noodles) or??(baby fish and radish)? Anyone at all?

Keep in mind, there is a precedent here for this flour power: okonomiyaki, the savory pancake-like dish made popular in Kansai, has its origins in??

While it¡¯s hard to say whether the days of the pancake renaissance are numbered, we couldn¡¯t help but notice the rising popularity of another Western breakfast favorite: French toast.

The new trend is all about shokuji?French toast ¡ª ?it¡¯s a meal, not a dessert.??While French toast isn¡¯t new to Japan, ¡±Haru and Haru¡± called itself ?Tokyo¡¯s first french toast cafe when it?opened in May last year. Not long after that came , a breakfast restaurant from New York, ?famous for ¡°fat and fluffy¡± French toast.¡± A 30-minute wait to get in isn¡¯t uncommon.

Lobros relaunched its cafes this past March as?, with locations in Jiyugaoka, Kichijoiji and Nakano. Yocco¡¯s serves both a sweet and savory versions, with emphasis on the latter. If you¡¯re adventuresome, you might want to try with a tall glass of cauliflower juice.

In Tokyo¡¯s Yurakucho, the Cafe ?serves daily non-sweet ¡±pain perdu¡± (French toast in French).?If you¡¯re looking for savory French toast for less than ?1,000, try? in Harajuku. For lunch it serves?.

Will shokuji French toast rise the heights of the pancakes and crepes? It¡¯s hard to say. We¡¯ll keep our eye out for an app called Minna no furenchi-tosuto-bu . . ?. ?hope no one decides to combine them with hiyashi ch¨±ka?