Whole Wheat, Sweet!

Old habits die hard. Or as we say around my house, picky eaters are those residents currently under the age of 3.  You know by now, the Little Dude takes pickiness to a new level. His eating habits have gotten better in some ways, like just yesterday he ate a grape tomato at our local farmers’ market, but in many other ways there is no progress either forward or backward.  He still won’t touch a piece of pizza, which is both frustrating and ironic since my blood type is practically Marinara.

The one genre of food that he will eat pretty much any time (beside candy) is breakfast. I’ve told you several times about his affinity for IHOP, or as I sometimes refer to it, TORWMKWESFTM (The Only Restaurant Where My Kid Will Eat Something From The Menu). Not quite as catchy of an acronym, so we’ll refer to it as IHOP here.

The kind bubble-lettered people at IHOP asked me if I wanted to check out some new items on their menu, which presented an interesting conundrum. I know that the Little Dude likes IHOP’s Baby Cakes (aka silver dollar pancakes), but as a creature of habit would he try something new there? I took their offer as a challenge, and also as the opportunity for a free meal.

Since I’m a high roller, I invited the pregnant Mrs. Dude to join us at IHOP for our big night out. With our IHOP outings usually reserved for Dudes’ Days, this was a rare treat for her. Or at least that’s how I pitched it so that she’d attend.

We went for Breakfast for Dinner on a recent weeknight and immediately noticed the giant glossy pictures of the new Red Velvet, Sweet Strawberry & Whole Wheat Pancakes all over the restaurant.  As Mrs. Dude has a chocolate allergy, we nixed Red Velvet and ordered the other two new flavors. And just to be safe we ordered the Little Dude some of his beloved Baby Cakes. Oh, and some of the amazing looking Cinn-a-Stack pancakes, too, to balance out the looming healthiness of the Whole Wheat.

When everything arrived, our table looked like Dr. Atkins’ worst nightmare. Luckily I’m a professional carbaholic, so I could handle it. I decided to see if the Little Dude would eat the Whole Wheat pancakes. I cut a few bites and poured the brown maple syrup he likes on top. When he bit in, he knew something was a little different, but he went with it anyway. For about 4 bites. Then he decided he’d been adventurous enough for one night and I agreed so he went back to the Baby Cakes.  He tried them and didn’t spit out the first bite. That’s a win in my book.

 

 The advertised Whole Wheat pancakes (above) looked pretty close to the picture of the real product (below). 

Mrs. Dude and I shared the Whole Wheat, Sweet Strawberry and Cinn-A-Stack pancakes for a more objective take. The Whole Wheat was a bit grainier than IHOP’s standard pancakes, but that’s what whole wheat normally is. They weren’t bad and if you are going to eat healthier, there are definitely a lot worse options. They place banana slices on top of these pancakes which add a little moistness and also make them slightly resemble a crop circle.

When we’d ordered, I asked the waitress what the difference was between the new Sweet Strawberry pancakes and the regular Strawberry pancakes was. She told me “nothing”. That wasn’t quite accurate, however, as the new ones have a cream cheese glaze drizzled across the top. Beyond that, they seemed very similar to this IHOP regular. These new ones were good, but as someone who was getting a root canal two days later, I wish they’d been served with a side of fluoride. IHOP’s marketing team was not kidding when they named them “Sweet” Strawberry.

The real Sweet Strawberry pancakes (below) look like a volcanic eruption of the official picture (above).

So would I order these new items again? Surprisingly, of the two new styles I’d actually order the Whole Wheat again. I expected them to sit in my stomach like a ton of bricks, as whole wheat/grainy food often does, but that wasn’t the case here. Were they as light and fluffy as the regular IHOP pancakes? No, but that’s why I’d order a side of Cinn-a-Stack again to go along with them. They made an interesting, and ironic, complement to each other. And for my picky Little Dude, I see more Baby Cakes in his future.

"I take my pancakes very seriously"

Yes, we went to town.

The super-kind IHOP people wants one of you to come check out their new products, too. Actually they want all of you to come try them, but they are generously offering a $50 IHOP gift certificate to one lucky reader. To qualify for this prize you must:

1)      Leave a comment below stating your interest in participating in the contest along with your favorite IHOP item.

2)      LIKE me on Facebook for another chance to win & mention that you want to win the IHOP GC

3)      Follow me on Twitter for another chance to win & Tweet “@DudeoftheHouse rocks @IHOP!”

4)      Follow me on Pinterest and share my pics from or this story there.

You can earn up to four entries per person. 

Winner will be randomly selected on Friday August 17, 2012 at 3:00pm PST.  Winner will be notified via a blog post on Dude of the House and will have 24 hours to respond or another winner will be chosen. 

The opinions expressed in this post are entirely mine. And partially my wife's. 
IHOP gave me gift cards to try their new items in exchange for writing this post. 

We Hop To IHOP

He had a cold. I had an idea. After several days with a runny nose I decided to venture out with the Little Dude for a dinner of warm comfort food. I know it usually makes me feel better when I’m sick, but would it do the same for him?

Knowing what a picky eater he is, my options were limited. I’d heard that the local IHOP has a “kids eat free” deal if an adult eats. I hedged my bets that he’d eat, popped some precautionary Tums and headed to a place which apparently takes Dr. Seuss a bit too literally for my taste.

The sun was setting as we drove. I’d never been to this location before and wasn’t sure exactly where it was. Fortunately the neon-blue sign was so bright that it looked like a post-apocalyptic Smurf village, so I easily found my way as I pulled off the freeway. We grabbed a booth near the front and I tried to guess which method of distraction I would need to utilize first. Was it the crayons on the table? The books I brought? Telling him the menu was a picture book and he should try to figure out the story? (Spoiler Alert: when you get all the way to the end, someone joins Weight Watchers.)  

Since I hadn’t been to an IHOP in a very long time I figured I should look at the menu. Thanks to the new regulations that forces restaurants to list the caloric content of everything they serve, I figured I’d skip the tempting looking “Chicken and Waffles”.  And only partially because I don’t want to get a prescription for Lipitor this week.

I ordered the Little Dude some silver dollar pancakes and myself a salad, figuring it’d be hard for them to mess that up or figure out a way to deep-fry it. (It turns out I was wrong, but I’ll get to that.) I’m not generally a big entrée- salad orderer.  But after seeing that their chicken sandwiches contained almost as many calories as Shaquille O’Neal eats in a month, I could feel my arteries harden slightly just from perusing the menu  & went with the leafy stuff.

After just a few minutes, his plate of 5 mini-pancakes was delivered and the server told me my salad would be right up. The Little Dude’s eyes widened like Tim Tebow’s at a strip club as he looked excitedly at what lay in front of him. Though he has never so much as tasted a chicken nugget, French fry or bite of pizza he LOVES breakfast food. So much so that Mrs. Dude has become a pancake and waffle-making master. If there is ever an Iron Chef: Flapjack Edition, I’m going to sign her up.  

As he watched me slice his pancakes with eager eyes,  the Little Dude spotted something he’d never seen before across the table. In addition to the usual “brown” (maple) syrup, there was also “red” (strawberry), “blue” (blueberry) and “black” (boysenberry) varieties.  He quickly became fixated on the red one and begged me to use it, so I poured a little bit on a small piece for him as a sample. As the red lava hit his tongue, it was immediately rejected like a Kardashian by Harvard.  I doused the rest of his pancakes with his beloved brown syrup and watched him go to town. 

A few minutes later, I asked the server again where my salad was.  The restaurant was three-quarters empty and we were sitting parallel to the kitchen, which I could tell wasn’t busy as I watched the bored chefs juggling eggs.  I started to wonder if they had to dispatch someone to the nearest grocery store because they don’t usually stock vegetables at IHOP due to their infrequent use.  As the Little Dude polished off the last of his fluffy circles of Dr. Atkins’ mortal enemy, I finally received my bowl of greens, chicken and cheese.  A mere 25 minutes after ordering. It tasted exactly as you’d expect a Chicken Caesar Salad to taste at IHOP.  But as I wolfed it down, I saw the glazed look of a satiated toddler sitting across from me and knew that he had indeed been comforted. Mission accomplished.

Where do you go, or what do you eat, when you want comfort food?