If you’re a IHOP fan, then you know what lots of other people know: plenty of items here at IHOP are downright terrific. This is absolutely true of most of the pancakes, and many of the non-pancake options are surprisingly good as well.
It’s easy to keep coming back to IHOP once you’ve tried their Original Buttermilk Pancakes. But if you’re adventurous enough to try everything else, then you might stumble upon rather unappetizing options. To spare yourself the trauma, you may want to avoid the following menu items at IHOP:
Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Strips
You can get this if you order the Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Strips and Fries, or the Chicken & Waffles. They both have the same chicken strips in common, and those chicken strips simply aren’t all that good.
On the face of it, you might think that the Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Strips and Fries is a safe choice. After all, it seems difficult to screw up chicken strips. Yet while the fries are okay enough, they’re not exactly so good that you’ll forget about the substandard chicken strips.
These chicken strips are just dull, yet they also have this overbearing level of crispiness that’s not really appetizing. The dipping sauces don’t help either.
The same goes when you order the Chicken & Waffles, which at first may seem like a fine Southern comfort food to enjoy at IHOP. Again, the waffles aren’t bad, but they’re not so terrific to compensate for the lackluster chicken strips. You just might end up relishing the waffles instead, while you castigate yourself for not going to a chicken joint when you had that hankering for some chicken.
Bacon Temptation Omelette
Admittedly, whoever thought of this name sure deserves some praise. That’s a fantastically alluring name that just tempts everyone to at least try it. After all, who doesn’t like bacon?
But then you try this omelette, and you probably might tell yourself that that will be the last try. And you might even question that basic premise about how bacon goes with everything. This omelette thoroughly dispels that notion.
Not that there’s anything wrong about the bacon. In fact, the bacon is very good. It’s been cured and smoked with hickory, and it tastes great. You even get additional crumbly bits of bacon spread over the top of the omelette, accompanied by the tomatoes and shredded cheese. So far, so good.
But then it also contains IHOP’s white cheese sauce. Actually, it’s slathered on top of the omelette, and it’s the ingredient that basically ruins the whole thing. It just tastes weird, and you might have to force yourself to get another bite. If IHOP just stuck to the melted cheese for this omelette, then it probably wouldn’t be on this list at all.
There are plenty of other omelettes at IHOP you should try, like the Colorado Omelette. The Bacon Temptation Omelette may sound better, but it sure tastes worse.
T-Bone Steak and Eggs
Most aficionados will tell you that this is a mistake, even if they haven’t tried the T-bone steak from IHOP yet. That’s because the rule with steaks is simple—get them from an actual steakhouse, where the folks who prepare the steaks actually care about the steak quality and preparation. At other places, it’s generally a bad choice.
That belief holds true at IHOP. And you’ll know it when you order the T-bone steak and eggs. In fact, you’ll know it at first glance. The pictures of the T-bone steak may look fine on the menu, but there must have been some Photoshop magic going on. In real life, the steak you get definitely doesn’t look quite as tasty. In fact, you might even wonder whether it was microwaved.
Take a bite, and the resulting taste is just as bad as it looks. You know how some people praise steaks because they’re so tender? This is the very opposite of that. It is simply bad.
Chocolate Chocolate Chip Pancakes
Yes, that’s not a typo and there are really 2 mentions of “chocolate” in the name. That’s to emphasize that you have chocolate and chocolate chips. If you’re in the mood for something really chocolate-y, then this seems like a sure thing.
But then again, it’s not. It starts with the texture, which is so chalky that swallowing won’t be easy. That’s not supposed to be an issue with any IHOP pancake, since most of them seem to melt in your mouth.
Then you take a bite, and you discover that there’s actually such a thing as “too chocolatey”. The chocolate taste isn’t the deep and rich sort that you might have been hoping for. Instead, it reaches such a high level of sweetness that actually manages to be really annoying. These pancakes are so sweet that they might even put you off chocolate for the rest of the week.
That’s about it. It’s a short list, since most of the menu items at IHOP are great (at least according to our admittedly biased opinion). But that just goes to show that not even IHOP is perfect.
