International House of Pancakes

Hi,

My youngest sister came to visit this weekend. This morning it was decided to go out for breakfast with the location to be her choice. I was thinking Highland Park's Country Kitchen, Walker Brothers, The Point at 41 and Milwaukee and The Cherry Pit in Deerfield. I rolled out of bed fast with chagrine when she choose "International House of Pancakes, who doesn't like IHOP?" I thought it was a joke and realized this was a serious request.

Anyway, we find ourselves in a brand spanking new IHOP on Willow Road in Glenview. In a moment of temporary insanity or hope springs eternal, I ordered the biscuits and gravy, which come with 4 sausage links and hashbrowns, with a side of two sunny side up eggs. Since cream gravy has sausage in it, I thought the links were redundant and substituted ham instead.

What arrived were two smallish eggs on the left whose yolks were about the size of a quarter. Somehow that may be fine at home, but I prefer the jumbo eggs whose yolks are substantially larger. In the middle were two split biscuits with a drizzle of pepper flecked milk gravy, hashbrowns on the right (I forgot to ask for onion!) with ham draped around. I asked the waitress to bring extra gravy because there was more visible edges of biscuit than I cared to look at. On closer inspection, I noticed absolutely no sausage in the milk gravy, which meant any sausage would have been present in the links that I substituted away. I ate my meal to maintain family peace, though it was nothing remotely close to the spirit of biscuits and gravy.

My sister had pumpkin pancakes, which smelled of pumpkin spice. She liked them, which was what was important. My Mom had some combo plate with a side of stuffed french toast, which seemed to have cream cheese.

I hope the next time they want to go out for breakfast, I can persuade them to stay home and I'll cook. It would have been faster, cheaper and better.

IHOP
2131 Willow Road
Glenview, IL 60025-7638
(847) 657-9570

I haven't been to an IHOP in quite some time. Like Denny's, it makes an OK late-night post-movie stop, but just barely. Thinking about it, I'd rather Denny's.

My Jewish upbringing pretty much prevents me from even thinking about biscuits with sausage gravy (although sausage and bacon themselves are OK, the cream gravy is just too trafe (shudder)), so I've usually stuck to pancakes, waffles, etc.

There was a memorable case of lapsed judgement, though. Sophmore year of college (don't ask how long ago), after a late-night paper-writing session that ran to about 3AM, I was invited to join several others in a food run to the IHOP on Howard near... Western?

Do NOT, not EVER order Italian Sausage and Eggs in an IHOP.
It's a REALLY BAD idea that I would have known better, but at about 4AM that circuit just didn't fire. The sausage was dry, gritty and the only spice present was fennel, resulting in a really vile greasy encased meat-like tube.

Not such a vile experience that I won't go back to an IHOP, but I should be able to remember that simple rule.

Cathy2 wrote:Hi,

I rolled out of bed fast with chagrine when she choose "International House of Pancakes, who doesn't like IHOP?"

Line forms to the right. The only breakfast-serving chain I can think of that is worse than IHOP is Denny's, where serving undercooked frozen food-like products has been elevated to almost an art-form. About once every 15 years my brain cramps and we'll be out on the road, typically on a long motorcycle trip, and I let my brain trick me into thinking that stopping at a Denny's is a good idea. The nicest thing I can say about Denny's is that, unlike IHOP, you don't have to fear having every item on the table (and the table, too) adhere to your body with SuperGlue-like stickyness rooted in fauxmaple-blueberry syrup secretions. Fortunately Mrs. Kman absolutely refused to set foot in an IHOP so should my brain ever cramp that way she'll just smack me back into reality.

Too bad you weren't able to introduce your family to Walker Brothers. While I refuse to wait in the lines at the Wilmette location during prime time it's a great breakfast when I can drag my lazy butt out of bed early on a weekend morning.

Cathy -- Sorry about the B&G disaster; I had a decent plate of same at the Atrium in my office building lobby (525 W. Monroe) this morning as a breakfast work break; these are dependably mediocre, and also at least have actual sausage in the gravy. I need to keep fishing, though, as so far I've only found HALF decent B&G here. To wit, Exhibit 1: the B&G at Edgebrook Diner, with an exquisite gravy over really pretty lousy biscuits (folks, biscuits go bad VERY FAST -- maybe 20 minutes, tops. Bake some more; it only takes another 20 minutes! Plus, why are they yellow on the inside; lots of biscuits around here have this kind of jaundiced look to them). Exhibit 2: the B&G at Kuma's Corner -- delightful biscuits, really ideal biscuits, fresh and light, but ruined by gravy inexplicably containing Italian-style pizza sausage. Blech!

Anyway, back to IHOP. Did you find everything to be way oversalted? I remember my last meal at an IHOP (the one in Skokie, just south of Old Orchard), about 13 years ago. It was absolutely unbearable, primarily because of the heaping shovels-full of salt tossed into every dish (O.K., maybe the pancakes only got a half cup each). As I drove away from that IHOP, I swore (through swollen, salt-bloated lips) never to return. So far, I have not.

Hi,

Oversalted was not a crime witnessed today at IHOP.

It's great my family is tolerant of my perverse behavior. I did have my teaspoon out trying every flavor of syrup kept on the table: strawberry, blueberry, boysenberry and maple-pecan. Not one of these syrups had any solid matter in them. I was especially curious if I could even begin to taste pecans from the clear-brown maple-pecan syrup. Unlike all the other flavors on the table, I did a second taste and could find absolutely no obvious essence of pecans in the maple-pecan syrup. Since it looked like plain maples syrup, which they brought warm to the table, maybe there was no pecans and simply maple syrup in there.

The very last time I was at an IHOP before today, my nieces were 3 and 4 years old. I brought them there around the 3 year-olds birthday to get clown faced chocolate chip pancakes. We then went to Kohl's children's museum to watch an Elvis impersonator. At the time, it made for a rather entertaining outing.

Yeah, Denny's does seem just a bit better when you compare it to IHOP.

&&&

Jim - Maybe you get take-out sausage gravy from Edgebrook. You could have your Jack Nicholson moment when the waitress says, "We don't do sausage gravy take-out." So you order the biscuits and gravy without the biscuits in a take-out container please. When the waitress reminds you, "We don't do sausage gravy take-out."

If you can get past the lionness at the gate with the sausage gravy, then order biscuits at Kuma's. Where the waitress says, "We don't sell biscuits, they are only for the biscuits and gravy."

I hope you can wed the excellent sausage gravy with the excellent biscuits somehow!

Regards,