I Am Eating Everything on IHOP’s ‘IF’ Menu

If only IHOP stood for “Imaginary House of Pancakes.” Then I wouldn’t have to eat anything today.

Alas, unlike the magical creatures in John Krasinski’s new kids movie, IHOP is very real. And so is their new themed menu inspired by Krasinski’s IF, which consists of four entrées and two drinks.

Today, I’m going to eat all of it.

Now, you might be wondering: Why would a person with multiple college degrees, two kids, and no evident death wish do such a thing? I ask myself that same question a lot. It all started a few years ago when, looking for a mea culpa to offer my boss after a screwup, I volunteered to eat everything on Denny’s Fantastic Four menu. The live blog capturing my nightmarish descent into the culinary Negative Zone got so much traffic, my boss demanded I repeat it any time a big movie received similar treatment from a chain restaurant.

So let this be a lesson to you, readers: Never volunteer for anything. It only leads to misery. (Have you ever tasted Thing Sauce? Because I have. And sometimes, late at night, I can still taste it.)

Denny’s was the champion of movie tie-in food for a while; they had whole menus inspired by Independence Day: Resurgence, Solo: A Star Wars Story, and other. These days the non-imaginary International House of Pancakes cranks out the weirdest meals connected to Hollywood cinema. At this point they are full-on inventing foods never before found in nature. The last time I was here was back in December for their menu themed to Timothée Chalamet’s Wonka, which contained such bizarre concoctions as purple pancakes, chocolate pancake tacos, and a cotton candy drink served in a glass rimmed with a liquid that would have been more appropriate for a tie-in menu for There’s Something About Mary. 

If the commercial for IHOP’s IF-stravaganza is to be trusted, it doesn’t appear to contain any food items that resemble bodily fluids. Then again, it does include “dazzleberry” pancakes, a sandwich made out of french toast, and a “pizza omlette.” So I’m in for quite a day.

READ MORE: I Ate Everything on IHOP’s Wonka Menu Too

We’ll get into all of it as we journey deeper and deeper into a pit of self-loathing and despair — er, I mean the IHOP IF menu. As I settle into my booth at one of New York’s finest IHOPs and order my first course, I leave you with this question…

What IF … I ate roughly 5,000 calories worth of pancakes, french toast sandwiches, and bomb pop sodas?

Let’s find out, shall we?

COURSE #1

Well it’s breakfast time and this is reputedly a house of pancakes (not a house built out of pancakes, mind you, although that sounds like the premise for a deleted scene from IF). So let’s start with some breakfast: Lewis’ Cinna-a-Bear Stack.

The IHOP menu describes it as…

Buttermilk pancakes with cinnamon spread and topped with 3 donut holes, cream cheese icing, whipped topping, and cinnamon sugar. (710 calories)

Here’s the picture on IHOP’s website:

And here is what I was served:

(You will note that I only got two pancakes; IHOP actually offers the option to get either two or four flapjacks in a stack. I got two. When you’re eating a six-course tasing menu that’s almost entirely carbs, you need to pace yourself.)

I recognize that most of you have not had the chance to see IF yet, so a brief plot summary may be in order. The film follows a sad 12-year-old girl named Bea (Cailey Fleming) who discovers that she has the ability to talk to the imaginary creatures that children invent when they are little. While all kids eventually outgrow their “IFs” and forget about them, the IFs themselves don’t vanish; they simply become invisible to all but other IFs and a few people like Bea who can see and communicate with them.

One of those IFs is Lewis, an elderly teddy bear who wears suspenders and supposedly created the retirement home for IFs where most of these magical beings who’ve been forgotten by their kids live out the rest of their days.

Already, I sense you might have questions. For example: Why would a child imagine a decrepit bear as their imaginary friend? Why would an old imaginary teddy bear wear suspenders? And what does he have to do with a 700-calorie pile of pancakes, icing, and donuts? Shouldn’t a dish inspired by a bear, imaginary or otherwise, include honey as a key ingredient? Or maybe cocaine?

(I should say here that I flunked high school biology and base all my knowledge of bears on things I see in movies.)

My photograph of Lewis’ Cinna-a-Bear Stack might not capture just how much “cinnamon spread” was on top of these pancakes. The plate was absolutely drenched in this sticky brown goo. As soon as the plate was put in front of me, I was overwhelmed by the intense aroma of cinnamon. It was like an elderly imaginary teddy bear bashed me in the face with a cinnamon stick.

So there was definitely a lot of cinnamon sauce on these pancakes, and that was on top of the ultra-sweet cream cheese icing. Talk about overkill! It was a bit like putting a hat on a hat on a teddy bear who’s already wearing suspenders.

This whole dish is a real head-scratcher, but I will say: The one part of the plate I did like were the donut holes. I expected a couple of old Entenmann’s donuts tossed on a plate. Nope; they were fresh and warm with a crisp layer of glaze. And they actually worked pretty well with the flavor of the pancakes. Combining these two things was a nutty idea, and it’s still absurdly decadent but … it sort of works?

Okay, clearly my brain is already getting clouded by the potent mixture of sugars and fats I just consumed. I’d better order something more healthy next.

A sandwich made with French toast is healthy, right?

COURSE #2

Recently, I watched an interesting documentary on Hulu called The Contestant. It’s about a popular Japanese television show of the late 1990s called Denpa Shonen, which helped pioneer the reality TV genre. During a recurring segment called “A Life in Prizes,” the producers of the series essentially kidnapped a man and forced him to live naked and alone in a tiny apartment with absolutely no creature comforts whatsoever. If the contestant was going to survive, he would have to win food and other essentials by entering magazine sweepstakes. The contestant, an aspiring comedian named Nasubi, did this for over a year.

One of the more interesting wrinkles of this shocking story is that the door to the apartment where Nasubi was living his life of prizes was not locked. At any point, Nasubi could have escaped. He was naked, which could have made a getaway slightly awkward, but nothing was technically stopping him. But living under such extreme deprivation, coupled with the mind games played by the show’s manipulative producer, convinced Nasubi to stay. His psyche became so beaten down by the harsh conditions that he convinced himself he should stay in that room, debasing himself in perpetuity for a national audience.

It really makes you think about the crazy, even dangerous lengths some people will go to for money and attention.

Anyway, next up I ate a French toast sandwich inspired by a John Krasinski movie.

IHOP’s menu describes the “Magnificent French Toast Sandwich” as

Folded omelette-style egg, pork sausage patty, hash browns, American cheese, chipotle mayo on French toast. Served with old-fashioned syrup & choice of side. (2210-2720 calories)

Here’s the official photo from the restaurant:

And here’s what I was served.

“Magnificent” is not necessarily the first word I would use to describe this plate of food.

Point of order: Are we sure French toast is good? Not this specific plate of French toast, I mean all French toast. Toast should be toasty; that’s what makes it toast. It’s crisp, it’s got bite, it’s got snap. French toast is mushy, eggy bread. What purpose does it serve? If you want pancakes, eat a pancake! If you want toast, have toast! You don’t need to have both at the same time.

Speaking of both at the same time: the French Toast Sandwich! In typical IHOP fashion, it’s all basically decent breakfast food; the sausage has a nice level of spice, the eggs are properly cooked, the hash browns are crispy. (The French toast is mushy, eggy bread, but that’s French toast for you.)

But, in typical IHOP movie tie-in fashion, all these perfectly fine foods have been thrown together on a single plate in a way that suggests a chef in the midst of a breakdown. But hey: IF’s heroine seem like she’s in the midst of a breakdown too. If your mother died and your father was lying in a hospital room and you were all alone in New York City and you suddenly began seeing invisible monsters everywhere, you might be so emotionally fragile that you’d consider eating a sandwich with sausage, hash browns, and French toast! So … this dish actually makes sense in this context?

Halfway through the main items of this menu, I’m sensing a theme: Hybrid foods combining two different things people like — pancakes and donuts, French toast and breakfast sandwiches — in a way that no sane adult (except the people who work in the IHOP test kitchen) would ever combine. There is a bit of kid-like whimsy to these items which I think is at least in the spirit of IF. It might literally destroy my small intestine from within, but it is faithful to the film at least.

I could really use a break at this point. Maybe two different sodas — one topped with gummy candy and the other with an entire Bomb Pop on top — will wash all this food down? Okay, they definitely won’t. But at least it will give me a little time before I have to eat the blue pancakes and the pizza omelette.

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