IHOP ARRIVES! Get your culinary passport ready By bazaar staff
With the opening of IHOP at The Grand Avenue-The Avenues, there is now a full-scale, all-day breakfast place serving up a bevy of international favorites. Originally known as the International House of Pancakes, it seems fitting then, to be sitting at the first of its kind in Kuwait, where even the name rings of a bold self-fulfilling prophecy. A US institution that has been churning out variations of buttermilk flapjacks since 1958, IHOP has grown into a pancake powerhouse, by bringing a local, family diner type appeal to the broader US, one neighborhood at a time (that’s roughly 1500 neighborhoods at present, mind you). Having long since added additional menu items for both lunch and dinner options, they now represent all-day dining at its finest, with myriad options, across several specialties. At this new location, they offer 311 seats of dining divided seemingly evenly, between the indoor part of the restaurant itself, and the outdoor-like seating found behind it, in a relaxing courtyard area. For my money, the courtyard area is more relaxing, with its calming quiet atmosphere, and slowed down pace; it simply does not feel like you are in the mall. The thing that I personally found most pleasing about the food is how much they were able to keep 74
the same flavor and consistency as their restaurants in the States. With so many menu items serving variations of meats it would be easy to get this part wrong. However, via their use of beef bacon, turkey ham, and veal sausage-the latter of which was an exceptional standout- they definitely got it right. So, best sellers like the Big Steak Omelet, or the Beef Bacon Temptation Omelet, taste almost exactly as they do back home and not like a replacement type item. When asked how they were able to achieve this, they noted “we used the flavor profile as the barometer by which to measure the success of the food” as opposed to cost or other metrics typically associated with brands abroad, “so when there was a chance to, we would source local, but not if it were to sacrifice the flavor or experience.” In context, for those of you familiar with the brand, it is this writer’s humble opinion that this will be evident at first bite. It also pops up again via fresh squeezed juices, and other add-ons geared for the local market. The international component to the brand pops up time and again though menu items as diverse as Fajita omelet and crepes for breakfast, or quesadillas and Mediterranean Chicken at dinner that can satisfy different culinary cravings at the same table. The kids’ menu also makes IHOP a pleasant family destination;
It’s nice to know then that while your child is having a “Funny Face Pancake” (a chocolate chip pancake dusted with powdered sugar and a whipped topping smile), the parents can still have a steak. The only way to fully cover the breadth of the menu is to break it down by time of day, which admittedly, seems a bit superfluous given that they make all of these items available all the time. But alas…with more than 7 distinctly different variations on pancakes alone (some of which include classics like buttermilk or blueberry, to the more adventurous CINN-A-STACK or Chocolate options) as well as