IHOb®

IHOb®, YOUHOb®, WEALLHOb®... 
for free P®ancakes![1]

https://restaurants.ihop.com/ca/san-francisco/1762/


Place: IHOb®

Location: 200 b®each Street 
(on the corner of P®owell Street)

Hours:  open at 5:00am Sunday through Thursday; open 24 hours Friday & Saturday

Meal: Rooty Tooty Fresh 'n Fruity® ~ four of our (well, their) thick buttermilk pancakes are topped with your choice of fun fruit topping (my choice was the whimsical raspberry topping) and finished with our (again, their) fluffy whipped topping; a side of hashbrowns; and a glassa Tropical Island Twist


I know what many of you are thinking (well, by "many", I mean the one or two persons that actually read this silly little 'blog-thing): "But, Brian, why would you subject yourself to such pedestrian fare?!" 

Well, firstly, I drove over there this morning (and found a free, legal spot just a block away) and did not need to walk all the way. Secondly, "free P®ancakes" (even the type you might find walking along the street) always taste better than the ones that I make at home (which is almost never, anyway). And, lastly, have you seen some of the other cr*p that I have 'blogged about here?!

It is like that line of Woody Allen's at the beginning of "Annie Hall":
“There's an old joke - um... two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, 'Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.' The other one says, 'Yeah, I know; and such small portions.' Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.” 
(Just replace "life" with "free P®ancakes" in that quote... minus the "full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness", of course.)

It had been (almost exactly ~ give or take a few days) two years since I last had one of these b®irthday freeb®ies at IHOP® (see last 'blog-entry from Sunday, June 19th, 2016) and that was when the closest local location was at their restaurant on Lombard Street (which has now been closed since earlier this year, I believe). My newest closet location was already 
HOP®ping (or, possibly, "HOb®bing") even at 7:10am this morning. This is mainly due to their close proximity (Have you ever heard anyone state a "faraway proximity"?) to Fisherman's Wharf. This restaurant is just one block south of Jefferson Street (bka "Main Street Fisherman's Wharf"). However, this newer building has no style to it what-so-ever; I much preferred their older restaurant on Lombard Street, at least it had their iconic A-frame look to it.

What's all the hub®-b®ub® ab®out, b®ub®?

I am sure that many of you are well-aware of the recent (most likely temporary and completely publicity-seeking) name-change that has occurred at this (Inter)national restaurant chain. However, just exactly how "International" is a choice of only seven (ham)b®urgers from which to choose? ( I highly doubt that even J. Wellington himself would bother gladly paying you Tuesday for one of these [ham]b®urgers today.) The only Internationality I could surmise in any of these were "Swiss" cheese on one (ham)b®urger and "jalapeños" on another (ham)b®urger. Plus, they offer just as many different types of crêpes on their menu. Maybe next year they will change their name once again to IHOC® to drum up some business from that snooty French crowd...

No adult should ever have to shamedly utter the words: "I will have the Rooty Tooty Fresh 'n Fruity®, please." with a straight face... so, I ordered this with a crooked smile on my face.

As far as P®ancakes go/went, these were fair-to-decent (and, again, free), but that should be expected from the (old) name of the franchise. I almost asked if I could have half peach topping and half raspberry topping to make these sorta like Peach Melba[2] P®ancakes.

The Tropical Island Twist was made with Le Sirop de Monin® mango syrup and Mist Twist soda (you know, PepsiCo's lemon-lime rip-off version of 
Coca-Cola's lemon-lime rip-off version of 7-up®). 
As expected, it was overly sweet, but so was the rest of the meal mostly, anyway.

https://www.monin.com/us/mango-syrup.html

I did not really bother to ask what they may (or may not) have had to offer in the way of any hot sauce condimentary supplementation. Of course they do offer four different types of syrups on all the tables: Old Fashioned, Blueberry, Butter Pecan, and Strawberry. (Maybe now with their new name, they will also start offering four different types of ketchup?) I did use a little of the Old Fashioned (which, as best as I can tell, is just your typical faux maple syrup stuff, but I am sure that it is made with 100% artificial maple syrup flavouring from Vermont... not the State in New England, the city in Lower Slobbovia) and some Butter Pecan on different parts of the stack-o', Mr. Lee. "Why would you put extra syrup on the already sweet pancakes?" Do not mock me for my tastes, Miss Jean Louise Finch! I also used some of my own Hot Licks® Serrano Hot Sauce (Thanks, Brian!) on the hashbrowns. (I actually used a whole lotta it on the potatoes, but it still did not make much of a dent [or break] in the bottle.)

Do not worry, just because this meal was a freebie, I still tipped on what the full meal would have cost before the freebie-discount (listed at $10.89 on the bill). Even so, I still paid over $10 (which would include the hashbrowns, drink, and tip) in all for breakfast this morning.

This ended up being almost too much food for me to finish. I probably did not really need to order the side of hashbrowns, but, you know what they say, "Man does not live on P®ancakes (or b®urgers, apparently) alone."


Glen b®acon Scale Rating:
Rooty Tooty Fresh 'n Fruity® ~ 6.2 
(and that is giving the meal an extra 0.2 Gb®S points for the freeness of the meal)

___________________

1. Initially, I was thinking about reP®lacing all the of "P®"s in this 'b®log-entry with "b®"s, b®ut I figured that would get P®retty annoying P®retty quickly.

2. In 1892, operatic soprano Nellie Melba was performing in Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin at Covent Garden. The Duke of Orléans gave a dinner party to celebrate her triumph. For the occasion, Auguste Escoffier (French chef at the Savoy Hotel, London) created a new dessert, and to display it, he used an ice sculpture of a swan, which is featured in the opera. The swan carried peaches which rested on a bed of vanilla Ice Cream and which were topped with spun sugar. 

In 1900, Escoffier created a new version of the dessert. For the occasion of the opening of the Carlton Hotel, where he was head chef, Escoffier omitted the ice swan and topped the peaches with raspberry purée.