{"id":1048,"date":"2011-03-28T09:18:15","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T14:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/?p=1048"},"modified":"2011-03-28T09:23:20","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T14:23:20","slug":"international-house-of-pancakes-aka-ihop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/reviews\/international-house-of-pancakes-aka-ihop\/","title":{"rendered":"International House of Pancakes aka IHOP"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com<\/h4>\n
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Biscuits and Gravy<\/p><\/div>\n

Growing up, I used to love going to IHOP<\/a> for breakfast. I remember ordering pancakes just so I could use the variety of syrups they have on the table. When one opened in our neighborhood, the memories came pouring back and I couldn\u2019t wait for it to arrive. I typically am not a fan of chain restaurants, but there are not many places around that serve breakfast quite like IHOP does.<\/p>\n

My wife, son, and I went for breakfast on Sunday a couple of weeks ago and were seated right away.\u00a0 IHOP looks like most chain restaurants, with neutral walls, squeaky booth, and a certain lack of emotion.\u00a0 That\u2019s alright though; I don\u2019t go to IHOP for the d\u00e9cor.<\/p>\n

When I was a kid I used to order pancakes, but soon switched to their cheese blintzes.\u00a0 Cheese blintzes consist of three crepes, filled with cottage cheese and cream cheese.\u00a0 They are topped with sour cream, whip cream, and usually have a fruit spread on the side.\u00a0 In no way should this dish be confused with something that is low in calories!\u00a0 Considering the massive number of calories in the dish, I only have them as an indulgence every few months (and only on weekends.)\u00a0 As you may have guessed by now, I ordered the Cheese Blintzes.<\/p>\n

My wife really likes biscuits and gravy, but IHOP doesn\u2019t sell JUST biscuits and gravy.\u00a0 You have to order it with eggs, hash browns, and bacon or sausage.\u00a0 She went ahead and ordered the Biscuits and Gravy with scrambled eggs and link sausage.\u00a0 My son had one of the kid\u2019s menu items.\u00a0 Some type of combination breakfast that I didn\u2019t pay much attention to.<\/p>\n

Sing along now, \u201cAnd the complaints come marching in!\u201d\u00a0 First off, coffee must be a major commodity at IHOP, as the coffee dispenser they leave at your table, only holds enough coffee for 2.5 cups of coffee.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you, but on a Sunday morning, I need more than one cup of coffee.\u00a0 They pour your coffee using the dispenser, and afterwards, leave it on the table.\u00a0 This gives you another 0.5 cups, total.\u00a0 I\u2019m sorry, but if you are going to use deficient dispensers, then fill them up after you pour the initial two cups.\u00a0 Or, better yet, buy bigger coffee dispensers!<\/p>\n

So, after chasing down someone to refill our coffee dispenser, we waited.\u00a0 And we waited.\u00a0 And we waited some more.\u00a0 Finally, my crepes showed up, but without the rest of our food.\u00a0 Then, my wife\u2019s food showed up, and finally, my sons.\u00a0 For starters, it was all ice cold.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean lukewarm either.\u00a0 The food was ice cold.\u00a0 It was as if someone had put it in the walk-in cooler after cooking it.\u00a0 Either that or someone left it on the counter, after cooking it, for twenty minutes.\u00a0 Something tells me the later is what happened.<\/p>\n

Also of note, my crepes were prepared incorrectly.\u00a0 I had asked for them to come with strawberry preserves.\u00a0 Instead of receiving strawberry preserves on the side, I received a bowl on the side, filled with strawberry pie filling and whipped cream on top.\u00a0 Well, at least they tried to give me something.<\/p>\n

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Cheese Blintzes<\/p><\/div>\n

We tried to track down our waitress but she had disappeared after discarding the food.\u00a0 We ended up getting the attention of a busboy and let him know our food was inedible.\u00a0 The waitress showed up and we repeated the story.\u00a0 We explained how we almost never complain (to the staff,) and that our food was inedible.\u00a0 A manager shows up at this time and explains that she will take care of the problem.<\/p>\n

I also point out that my blintzes were prepared incorrectly and the waitress tells me they no longer carry strawberry preserves.\u00a0 This annoys me a little as strawberry preserves are the same thing as strawberry jam, as far as IHOP is concerned.\u00a0 They are the exact same thing, except strawberry jam comes in little plastic containers you open at your table, and preserves used to come free-form in a little bowl.\u00a0 So, I ask her to bring me strawberry jam.\u00a0 Couldn\u2019t they figure this out themselves?\u00a0 Why do I have to point out that what they used to serve can still be obtained by a different name?<\/p>\n

The food comes back out, this time warm.\u00a0 My son enjoys his breakfast and my wife enjoys her biscuits and gravy (while discarding the eggs, hash browns, and sausage they require you to purchase.)\u00a0 My blintzes taste average, but the sour cream has a strange processed flavor to it.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost as if they switched to a cheaper sour cream at the expense of flavor and texture.<\/p>\n

It always happens, the day when I choose to review a restaurant, something bad takes place.\u00a0 IHOP normally delivers warm food, without waiting a long time, but this time it was a disaster.\u00a0 The one thing delivery will not fix though is quality.\u00a0 Their quality has dropped over the past year and I no longer look forward to going there.\u00a0 In fact, I may not go back.<\/p>\n

N Little Rock
\n4225 Warden Rd
\nN Little Rock, AR72116
\n(501) 758-4061<\/p>\n

\"IHOP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Todd Barron @ FoodieCuisine.com Growing up, I used to love going to IHOP for breakfast. I remember ordering pancakes just so I could use the variety of syrups they have on the table. When one opened in our neighborhood, the memories came pouring back and I couldn\u2019t wait for it to arrive. I typically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[327,205],"tags":[384,65,50,382,381,267,383],"class_list":["post-1048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-cuisine","category-reviews","tag-blintzes","tag-breakfast","tag-cheese","tag-house","tag-ihop","tag-international","tag-pancakes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1048"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1068,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1048\/revisions\/1068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/foodiecuisine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}