IHOP no more… true story

So, Friday night Haldan suggested we go out for dinner because we were leaving early in the morning for Ames and would be gone all day. He thought I would appreciate not having to worry about dinner and clean up. Agreed. Haldan and the kids wanted IHOP. Breakfast food didn’t sound that good to me, but IHOP sounded fast and cheap. IHOP it was. When we arrived there was a bit of a wait. Over the course of our wait we saw many interesting things. As one older couple were leaving the woman (who had gloves on) reached in her mouth and pulled out some food with her glove on and ate it as saliva was hanging out of her mouth. There were many other “interesting” people, but I won’t go into great detail. To get to the point, I was a bit grossed out before we were even seated.

After looking over the menu options I decided the breakfast items seemed more appetizing than the other food choices, so I went with the french toast meal which included bacon. I specifically asked for crispy bacon. The first thing I noticed when she brought the plates out was the soggy bacon. I politely asked if they could crisp it up.

In the mean time Camille started to eat her pancakes. She pulled off the bottom one and it looked half eaten. Haldan asked if she had already taken bites and she said no. We were a little disturbed by the half eaten pancake tucked under the stack. We mentioned it to our waitress who offered to get another, but Camille politely said she was fine.

I get my bacon back and it is charred and tasted bad. Trying to eat it reminded me of that scene in Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation when they are eating the remains of the scorched turkey. I then proceeded to start eating my french toast. After two bites I knew it wasn’t right. I had half of another bite to make sure, but had to spit out the rest. Haldan tried to convince me it was just my nose, but after sampling it himself agreed that it was bad. It tasted like rotten milk or something… I let our waitress know and again she offered a replacement. She also said that her sister thought the same thing when she ate them there. I’m not sure when she ate them, but I’ve had them there before and they didn’t taste like that! I figured it was probably the batter or the milk and another wouldn’t be better. She offered pancakes or something else, but by then I was grossed out and just wanted to go home.

By now Connor was ready for a second stack of pancakes (he got the all you could eat). I buttered them and cut them up for him. After he poured the syrup he started chewing and right away pulled something out of his mouth. He said he thought it was a “rubbery piece of butter”. After examining it we think it was a napkin or some sort of wrapper that must have been cooked in the batter.

At this point Haldan told Connor to not eat any more. He wanted the ticket and to get out of there as well. But I was fired up. We asked to speak to the manager so I could let her know why “we would never be eating there again”. I told her the IHOP experience was less than stellar and itemized everything. Her excuse was that they didn’t expect to be that busy. This is a Friday night and that is no excuse for bad food!

Haldan didn’t really have many complaints about his pancakes, but 3 out of 4 meals… pretty pathetic! She finally told us the meal was on the house. All I could think was that I wouldn’t have paid for that even if she didn’t make the offer. And that I wanted to get out of there!

I’m not sure if I will ever eat in an IHOP again. After having a moldy subway it took me 3 years before I would eat there again. This has left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

Have you ever had a bad IHOP experience?