The Underappreciated Eating Establishment Series: IHOP

Obviously kosher.

It was the kind of breakfast you take a picture of. Especially if you’re a nerd about food like I am. But as my boy D Hardcore says, “Generally, all people are geeks about something.”

When D and I sauntered in to IHOP last Thursday morning I was a flapjack away from syruping my pants. Is that IHOP logo dishware I see? A coffee pot flipped open, waiting for the fill, at each individual table? A mini bar boasting four fruity varieties of melted maple sugar???!!! I had a suspicion the International House of Pancakes was trying to romance me. This suspicion was further confirmed once D and I settled down with our menus and let the IHOP soundtrack permeate our pancake-obsessed brains. “Three Times A Lady,” “Unbreak My Heart**, ”Lovely Day.” FUCKING PERFECT. This is the music your grandfather would seduce your grandmother to, present day.

Or maybe I just relate the whole IHOP experience to the elderly because before Thursday morning, the only IHOP meals I remember vividly were taken with my grandparents in Florida. And it was always a “breakfast for dinner” trip. I was never thrilled with the idea of consuming breakfast in the evening, but I also willingly combined lox spread and tuna fish on a cinnamon raisin bagel (the Jewish appetizing sampler) at eight in the morning, so what the hell did I know. Besides, my Poppy LOVED his steak and eggs (can’t take that away from the man) and when you eat at 4:00pm on a Sunday, it can probably even be classified as brunch (if you’re a lazy New Yorker). Or linner, yeah yeah, I know.

One very important development that came out of these night trips to the International House of Old People was the Jones children’s love of coffee. Poppy drank his coffee light and very sweet and whenever he emptied a half-and-half into his mug he would fill the tiny empty container with sugary brew for his grandkids to sip. Our enjoyment of this ritual began more with the novelty of drinking from a thimble-sized cup than from the coffee itself, but eventually The College Man and I were sucked into a lifetime of incessant caffeine consumption, and at a ridiculously early age (5 and 9, maybe). I’m surprised the two of us aren’t five feet tall. And one thing I never realized about the mini-coffee routine is that in order to pass on a pint-sized café to each of his grandkids at the beginning of a meal, Poppy had to suck down enough coffee to free up THREE cream containers - and he only put one in each cup of joe. No wonder the man went to the bathroom so often. I’m surprised he wasn’t chattering like a wind-up toy by the end of the meal.

The three Jones kids were still ordering off the kiddie menu when IHOP was in the Florida restaurant rotation and we pretty much ordered the same thing every time. The College Man fed his love of sausage and other unidentifiable, encased pork products, whereas Rachel and I mostly stuck to the Funny Face, a massive chocolate chip pancake finished with a whipped cream and maraschino cherry smile (dessert for dinner).

Side note: Maraschino cherries taste like balls of Nyquil covered in Sweet n’ Low. Those things are nasty. All her life, Rachel has been eating maraschino cherries for two.

My tastes have expanded a bit since I was nine, and in an attempt to stray from the Funny Face (which I haven’t been able to order for 11 years anyway) I approached my latest IHOP excursion with a few goals in mind. I wanted to eat basically every breakfast food I have ever had a hankering for in one sitting, and by ordering only one selection off IHOP’s insanely inclusive combo menu. I wanted to nail down the perfect combination of breakfast’s sweet and salty offerings. Fuck the West Side brunch. I wanted eggs AND pancakes. Chocolate chip pancakes. I wanted to sit down in an IHOP and drink my own full mug of delicious coffee.

I thought it was going to take me about forty-five minutes to choose the right breakfast combo off IHOP's eight page menu, but it turns out The Breakfast Sampler, first option on the menu, is the breakfast I’ve been searching for my entire adult life. Two eggs (over easy, of course), bacon, sausage, ham, hash browns, and two buttermilk pancakes. I submitted my order to the waitress and bumped my flapjacks up to chocolate chip. Best $1.59 I ever spent. D Hardcore went with the classic “Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity, ” which pleased me to no end, basically because I wanted to mention the RTF&F in my blog. Again, everyone’s a geek about something. D’s breakfast was missing the hash browns and traveled a little lighter on the salty meats, but the gist of the meal was the same. Eggs, then pancakes. His stack was topped with blueberries and a massive dollop of whipped cream.

A few reasons why everyone should indulge in the IHOP breakfast:

1. Toppings (blueberries, chocolate chips, etc) are both BAKED INTO and loaded ON TOP OF IHOP’s amazingly fluffy pancakes. This makes all the difference in the world. There’s no strategic saving of chocolate chips for the last bite here. My pancakes were tinged brown from their chocolate stuffing. Pancakes as envisioned by Willy Wonka.

2. The Whipped cream topping. For breakfast!

3. Hash browns that are actually cooked until they’re WELL DONE. I am so sick of raw breakfast potatoes. Note to the cooks of New York: EVERYONE likes potatoes well done in the morning.

4. Crispy bacon. See hash browns.

5. Unlimited coffee in self-serve percolators. No waiting for refills. Unlimited creamers for easily amused grandchildren.


Okay, so D and I consumed the better part of a breakfast fit for four and hopped on the train downtown. Hardcore, the lucky bastard, didn’t have to work until 4pm but I plopped down at my desk at 11:00am ready to give birth to the entire IHOP menu. “We need hammocks where we can lay and rub our bellies.” D said to me before we parted ways.

I was faring pretty well until about 3:00pm when I decided, although I was barely hungry, to eat a salad and add some greens to whatever was already swimming around in my body. And this seemingly harmless lunch was what put me over the edge. In fact, I wanted to post about my IHOP breakfast last week but I couldn’t even think about pancakes until I woke up this morning. I decided at around 4pm on Thursday that I would wait another year until I ate at IHOP again.

But when I do, you’re all invited. I’ll make you each a little coffee of your own.


**Toni Braxton, I SO owned your album.