Oh … I am so swamped with work these days that I had no time for the blog. I would be so drained by the time I got back to work, I would sometimes fall asleep in front of the TV with the notebook on my lap after dinner. So yeah … the blog is furthest from my mind now.
So for the past couple of weeks we had been going back to our favourite restaurants. We did not need to find new places to blog about. It was good to be normal for a change!
We went to IHOP over a month ago. That was how much backlogged we are in writing about our dine out experiences.
IHOP would not have been my first choice but Arksensen and Nanzaro insisted that for once we go for a non-Asian breakfast. So we went to a place closest to our home. It is the one on No 3 Road and Park Road.
This IHOP has an open kitchen right in the middle of the restaurant. So it smell of frying bacons and brewing coffee the moment we walked in. It is like a perfect morning smell.
One thing that struck me was how all the IHOPs that we went to so far are the same. They even uses the same bronze color flasks for coffee and the four syrup dispensers. It is not just with the Vancouver area IHOPs but it is the same in all the IHOPs we went to before in Washington state, Georgia, Nevada, California and Pennsylvania.
By the way, do you know why they call IHOP the International House of Pancakes? It is because they serve German, French and Swedish styles pancakes. They are also known for their French toasts and Belgian waffles. Now you know.
It was coffee for the adults and …hot chocolates for the kids.
Kids … I just keep thinking that my boys are still my kids. They are in their mid teens now. Nanzaro, especially, keeps hinting that he would like to have coffee but we always say no. He is in a hurry to grow up. At what age should we allow them to start having coffee?
As expected, the younger kiddo wanted to order something more grown-up and a bit more sophisticated. So he ordered the “Create Your Own Omelet”.
To our surprise he choose spinach. He was annoyed about the coffee thing and I think he is trying to make a point to us. He had that with pork sausages with cheese and hash browns. Nanzaro claimed the spinach was delicious even though we know he hates green leafy veggies.
This is $9 for the base cheese omelette and $1.50 for each of the two extra items.
The hash browns came as a side. I personally would have preferred this is clumped up together not loosey like this.
Arkensen’s choice was the Sizzling Smokehouse Combo ($10). It has two smoked sausage links with two eggs made the way you want. Hashbrowns and buttermilk pancakes rounded off the combo.
Suanne and I opted to share the French Crepe Sampler ($9). It included two eggs, hash browns, 2 strips of crisp bacon, 2 slices of ham and 2 pork sausage links. Lots of protein … too much protein. LOL!
It came with a crepe. We had the blueberry compote and sweet cream cheese. It is drizzled with cream cheese icing and whipped topping. It did not look at all like the pictures in the menu. It was delicious and sweet though.
The bill came to $44 before tips. I find it expensive for the type of food we had. For that kind of money, we could have better variety and value from dim sums, or congee. That is just my personal preference.
It’s great that folks can check out your experience eating at restaurants across the region. Your descriptions are eloquent and your photographs are wonderful.
Regarding IHOP, you may be interested to know that the restaurant chain’s egg supplier has been exposed for animal cruelty and food safety issues. Here’s a short video taken undercover at IHOP’s egg supplier: http://www.humanesociety.org/ihop.
Unlike many other national restaurants, including I’m sure the ones you’ve visited, IHOP still only uses eggs from hens confined in small wire cages where they can barely move.
Thanks again for your great reports back from your restaurant visits. It makes choosing where to eat so much easier!
Thanks for sharing your IHOP experience – great photos, and we’re glad to read that you had a good dining experience. We wanted to clear up some of the misconceptions in Josh’s post. IHOP is against animal cruelty and has supplier standards that go beyond what is required by law to ensure the dignified, humane treatment. If we find a supplier is not meeting our standards, we address those issues with the supplier.
The Humane Society of the United States, a multi-million dollar organization, that many feel has a vegan/vegetarian agenda for the country (like PETA), has launched a campaign against IHOP because of our refusal to meet their demands to use cage-free eggs. Animal welfare experts’ opinions differ, and science has still not determined that cage-free housing is any better for laying hens then caged hens – in fact there are a number of reports that document the advantages and disadvantages of different systems for housing laying hens. Additional studies on how best to house hens are being done, and we remain open to the scientific-based outcomes of these reports. You can read more about it here.
Ensuring a great guest dining experience is important to us at IHOP, and we hope that you and your family will dine with us again soon.
I like a good Western style breakfast but I would not put IHOP very high on my list — I only go there if it is the ONLY place I can find, or the only place open late.
There are many breakfast cafes that are not franchise chains with the same coffee pots in every location. I don’t know of any in your area, but I know of lots in mine! They would likely have sausages made locally, fresh vegetables, maybe fresh squeezed orange juice, crispy potatoes, and generally better food. Before you give up on western breakfast, you should try to find one.
If you search on Yelp.com for breakfast, look for the highest rated and least expensive places. Don’t go for brunch, because that’s sometimes chef’s leftovers.
Props to your son for choosing spinach! For future reference, any western dish with the word “Florentine” in it contains spinach. Don’t ask me why! We recently had the coffee question too, and allowed it.
I went looking on Yelp, and found out there are a lot of IHOPs in suburban Vancouver. You really should not expect an IHOP to be a good American style breakfast. It is mediocre at its very best!
The place that looked the best for a home style eggs, pancakes and hashbrowns breakfast was in Surrey. That’s not exactly close, but it isn’t too far either. It looked good enough to go there next time I’m on a road trip. If I do, I’ll tell you how it was. Next time you cross the border and visit the US, I can make sure you find a great breakfast!
Round-Up Cafe
5 star rating
based on 1 review
Categories: Diners, Breakfast & Brunch
10449 King George Hwy
Surrey, BC V3T 2W7
(604) 581-0337
You know where we enjoyed American style breakfast in Seattle? It was the 12-egg omelete at Beth’s! We also like Shari’s too. Ben
I think IHOP is good as far as chain restaurants go–better than Denny’s… although that’s not saying much I guess.
Anyway, I think when I was in high school, we would drink thinks like lattes. Probably most young folks won’t like black coffee anyway; so maybe the milk in something like a latte will be healthy for them! (This is what I used to tell myself. lol) I guess the problem is people say caffeine stunts your growth right? But so many kids drink colas anyway…
Yeah Robyn. We tell the boys that coffee kills their brain cells. They USED to believe in everything we tell them but not anymore. At their age, they are beginning to think they know more than their mum and dad.
I know what you mean. I’ve barely touched my poor, neglected blog for months. None of my Vancouver posts have made it up yet. =/
It looks like IHOP portions in Canada are smaller than those in the States. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing…