Obanyaki-style Pistachio Pancakes by Mr Bean - Nutty Pistachio Pancake and Pistachio Kaya Pancake Review

I am quite fond of the trending pistachio flavour, and Mr Bean recently featured 2 seasonal obanyaki-style pancakes with pistachio fillings - the Nutty Pistachio Pancake and the Pistachio Kaya Pancake. I naturally gravitated to the more nut-forward Nutty version, but the Kaya version further expounds on a pistachio-pandan theme I have been exploring, so I got both.
Nutty Pistachio Pancake and Pistachio Kaya Pancake by Mr Bean
Nutty Pistachio Pancake

I tried this first. Due to its brownish colour, I wondered if it was a combination of peanut butter and pistachio paste, but after enquiring with the staff, she said that there was no peanut in it, only pistachios. And based on whatever I could taste, I didn't notice any peanut flavour (which has very distinct corn notes). Likewise, the texture and crunch of the nuts seemed to resemble pistachio rather than peanuts - unlike the hard peanut crunch, pistachios tend to have a softer texture even when they are properly roasted. 
Nutty Pistachio Pancake by Mr Bean - filling appearance
This Nutty Pistachio Pancake had a noticeably savoury punch, similar to peanut butter. It was very reminiscent of a crunchy peanut butter in many ways, but more of a pistachio ganache version. 

It was rich, fragrant, toasty and nutty in a very satisfying way. The pistachio flavour itself was more on the sweet vanilla nutty side, as opposed to being savoury, woody or bean-like. 

It resembled a good Italian pistachio ganache filling that you might find in a chocolate truffle, melty, smooth and rich. Or perhaps like nutella or a Kinder Bueno filling, but slightly less sweet and as a pure pistachio version rather than hazelnuts. It was also much less sweet than those, and perhaps like an Italian chocolate truffle ganache level of sweetness. It was honestly a tad too sweet for me, but already a very decent level given how much sugar traditionally goes into such pastes and fillings. 

Visually, it seemed to be a combination of 2 types of filling - a paler beige filling and a slightly browner peanut butter-like filling with nuts. The sweet vanilla creamy notes seemed to come from the former, whereas the nutty, savoury and crunchy parts seemed to come from the latter. 

Pistachio Kaya Pancake

This builds on a theme I had noticed way back in 2011 or so, where pandan and pistachio seem to have overlapping flavour profiles with their sweet vanilla nutty notes. Earlier, I also featured Kaya Pistachio Cookies and Pandan & Pistachio Mooncake as examples. This would be the third snack that I am featuring with this combination.
Pistachio Kaya Pancake by Mr Bean - filling appearance
For this pancake, I noticed that there were also 2 types of fillings. Obviously there is the kaya, and then there is the pistachio cream, which looked like yet a different filling from the earlier two. This one was clearly green in the typical pistachio shade of pastel and slightly yellowish. 

As expected, the green pistachio paste's vanillaesque flavour complemented the kaya's pandan coconut flavour well. The kaya is their standard green pandan kaya, and it naturally as notes of coconut and egg, but also the grassy notes of pandan and a slightly more floral hint to its flavour. 

The pistachio cream was more nutty and creamy, with notes of beans. It also contributed some good salt to the overall mix.

Overall, the combination was much more well-balanced than pure kaya. The salt balanced the kaya's cloying sweetness, and the sweet vanilla flavour was filled out with a more rounded nuttiness, creaminess and lush complexity. But because this pistachio filling seemed a tad sweet (slightly less than the ganache or nutella level) and the kaya is already very sweet, it was overall still too sweet for me. Nonetheless, it was a significant improvement over a plain kaya filling.

Still, if I had to pick a balanced kaya pancake, I would go for their Kaya Cheese Pancake instead. As the cheese doesn't add as much sugar, has more salt and some tang, and adds even more cream to the mix, it felt like a much better counter to the kaya overall than this pistachio pairing.

Verdict

I think the Nutty Pistachio Pancake is the better of the two. But the price is a bit steep for something of that size. And unlike freshly made obanyaki, this one had been sitting out for a while, so it wasn't crispy at all but somewhat soggy. So I don't think it's worth the price. (See photo below for the price.)
Nutty Pistachio Pancake and Pistachio Kaya Pancake by Mr Bean - promotional display
Finally, this is a shot of how they looked before I bit into them. You can see from the different shades of the batter that there is no consistency to how they are made, and they aren't crispy at all.
Mr Bean's Obanyaki-style Pancakes
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