IHOP Holiday Extravaganza 2009

Today, I went on a mission with one of my best friends, Vonnegut. Our mission? To eat every one of the Holiday Hotcakes and review them, here, with snark and pretension and awesome.

And we did it. Oh, we did it.

The results, ladies and germs.

We went to the IHOP, which I always want to spell like the iPod, iHop, but keep forgetting that it's spelled like the egregious teenage girls would spell it "OMG IHOP," if they were that excited about an international house of pancakes. Regardless, we went, and ordered all four of the Holiday Hotcakes with chocolate milks for the both of us.

This was the official popping of my IHOP cherry for me, and I was surprised to find that it was a lot like a diner than more of a chain-style restaurant. I don't know what I was expecting, but the smell, that quintessential greasy spoon was a pleasant surprise. We ordered our hotcakes and let the fun begin.
The confusion started when we ate our pancakes. Really, it was all the waiter's fault when he set them down and told us what they were. And when we started to eat, we started with what we thought were the eggnog pancakes. And as we ate, we were really upset, because we wouldn't have thought they were eggnog. There was a nice spice, a nutmeg flavor, a real fluffiness and bounce to the pancakes. A good crust on the outside, but nothing that we've had thought was eggnog if we hadn't been told.

And then we realized.

Those were the pumpkin pancakes. And once we had figured out that a) we were obviously retarded, and b) they weren't eggnog, they were really good. So for eggnog pancakes, they sucked, but for pumpkin pancakes, they were delicious. Easily a high bar to set. Good flavor and with syrup, really tasty.The next pancakes we moved onto were the eggnog pancakes- the real eggnog ones. We'd both been most excited to try these, but we were a little disappointed. The eggnog flavor in the pancake was supposed to translate well, with the spices and the creaminess contrasting the buttery and the crisp pancake, and that eggnog cream shit was supposed to be to die for, but we got more of a gelatinous mess, like what it might look like if you cut open Jabba the Hutt. It was interesting.
A little boozy flavored. Okay, a lot boozy. Heavy on the spices, too. But not awful. It didn't go well with syrup. It got too heavy and spongy and gooey and just...viscous. Better left untouched.

After that, we had the best pancake of the entire night, the one that we didn't think would be completely amazing and was, completely amazing. That was the pecan pie pancake, which gets props for tasting least like an actual pecan pie, but most like what a pecan pie would taste like if nobody baked for you and you had Christmas alone and instead of shooting yourself or leaving the group home, you ate pecan pie filling out of the can with a plastic spoon from KFC. Or went to an IHOP and had these pancakes. A much better alternative.
They were really, really good. Really buttery. The pecans on top provided a nice difference in texture, and the pancake was also crispy, as Vonnegut told me the people on the Food Network would vastly appreciate, and the topping was syrupy enough to eliminate the need for extra syrup. Very festive and very tasty.
The last pancakes we had were the gingerbread pancakes, with red and green Christmas tree sprinkles on top. The flavor was interesting, but something must happen when you add gingerbread flavoring to pancake batter, because the result gets mushy and soft and too spicy in some spots and not flavorful enough in others, and results in a very inconsistent pancake. Vonnegut and I did not like this.
The sprinkles, although festive, were another concern. They got in the damned way. They were crunchy and gave that heroin hit of sugar that nobody really likes but simultaneously adores because they're freaking sprinkles and if you decline them, you are Satan. So we were at a stalemate. They were just a lukewarm mess of a pancake and we liked them the least of the bunch.And that was that! We left with a ton of leftovers, out $32, but extremely pleased and having completed our glorious mission. IHOP is amazing. 'Nuff said.

So, from Vonnegut and me to you, readers, happy holidays. We ate and conquered so you don't have to. Enjoy!

Late July Organic Snacks

This is an extremely late post, I believe I was sent these snacks in October, and still have yet to review them. It was rude of me, and hence, my public apology/review. If I forget a product, it's out of my own absent-mindedness, not because I don't want to review it!

So, without further ado, some delicious little cookies.

Late July Organic Snacks is an organic company making snacks that are fun for the whole family and donating to the Jane Goodall foundation, too.

They provided two flavors of cookies for me to try, milk chocolate between endangered animal vanilla cookies and white chocolate between endangered animal chocolate cookies. The endangered animal part is adorable and helpful- on each cookie, there is an endangered animal, like a black footed ferret, red fox or a panda bear.

So, and again, I'm sorry, I tried these a while ago, and don't have my original photos, but I tried them, I ate these for a nice snack in between classes. The milk chocolate flavor was a really authentic, nice taste, with a rich, chocolatey mouthfeel with a slightly salty aftertaste that worked really well, but overpowered the vanilla cookie. The cookie itself struck me as being a little bland, and I'd have liked to see more of a shortbread or intense vanilla taste to it.

As for the white chocolate and chocolate cookie, it was a little deceptive because the white chocolate didn't really remind me of white chocolate so much as just a vanilla-flavored treat, but the chocolate cookie was really hearty, sort of a chocolate plus flavor, and it was nice to have a little more chew to it. It was nice. I liked grabbing a handful of these for a snack on the go or in front of the TV. They were filling and quite tasty, and didn't leave an aftertaste, plus, they're all natural and don't have the artificial colors or preservatives that some snacks do.

Blog Break

Between the holidays, travel, moving, and whole bag of stress-messed laundry that won't be aired out here, this blogger needs a break. I hope to not post a single thing until next year. Let's see if I can actually do it.

Have a great end to 2009, and party like it's 1999!

On the Border, Rocky Hill, CT

I'm home, repenting like the awful food blogger that I am for being tired and less of a robot and not posting yesterday. My mother took me to On the Border for lunch, though, and I was so intrigued by a post that Phoood did on their Loaded Carne Asada tacos that I decided to go for their counterparts, the Loaded Buffalo Chicken tacos.

When we got there, we were presented with these fantastic, amazing, salty, hot from wherever they came from, massive half moon tortilla chips in a basket. And yes, that's my mother's vastly superior camera phone. Having never been to an OTB, this was fucking awesome. With these were two cups of salsa WITH NO CHUNKS OF AWFUL VEGETABLES, as you know, a Foodette pet peeve. There were two cups, presumably, to share, but I did sort of expect different flavors of salsa. The salsa happened to be amazing. It was sweet, spicy, perfectly textured, and really popped in my mouth.

Everything just tasted really fresh, even for an appetizer, and it just beat the lazy Italian bread and butter or the store-bought chips and canned pico one might find at another place. I thought we'd have needed more dips, like guacamole or queso, and they might be fun to try, but honestly, with this and a few drinks, I could have left completely satisfied. Oh, and this basket is always refilled. They encourage it. Sometimes a dish doesn't need to be complicated to be utterly amazing.


I got my tacos without any sides, because I figured that with my chip whoring, they would be enough, and I was right. The tacos are quite large, the base being made of flatbread, then grilled, with grilled chicken in buffalo sauce, crispy onion strings, bleu cheese, and a creamy red chili sauce on top.


The flatbread was nice and thick, but not thick enough to be bland, and a good width to soak up the sauces. It also had a good, crispy char on the outside. The chicken was tender, and I loved the sauce that it was in. The red chili sauce was delicious, but I might not have guessed that it was chili sauce at all. I dipped my leftover chips in it and ended up mixing the salsa in it and pouring that on the taco. Orgasmic. Oh god. I love red sauce of any form, I tell you.

The onion straws were good, but in the second taco, really overpowered the flavor and texture and became too much for me, clumping together and completely taking away the bleu cheese and really minimizing the chicken. The heat saved the day, and they were crispy enough to give a mixture of textures, though.

Morinaga White Peach Hi-Chew

Somewhat recently, Hi-Chew released a series of "World Fruits" flavors, which included this White Peach flavor. The area around Mt. Fuji in Japan is known for white peaches (among other things), explaining the image of Mt. Fuji on the package.

White peaches, according to a little online research, are popular in Asia and less acidic than yellow peaches, which tend to be more popular in the United States. Both types are available where I live, but I haven't had as much exposure to the white variety.

I also noted that on the English Morinaga website, there is a link to a "Massage from the President." Oops.


I was a little surprised at the scent of these, because the candies definitely smelled peachy, but they also reminded me of butter. The flavor was sweet and a little acidic (and a little buttery), and much like a white peach. It was quite juicy, and the tartness intensified with every chew.

These were good, but not one of my favorite Hi-Chew flavors. The flavor was fairly authentic, and certainly different from the taste of a yellow peach. My husband thought much more of them than I did, but for me, there was something just a little off that prevented me from scoring these higher. Maybe it's just peach candy in general.

B

Morinaga Hi-Chew website

Chili's, Hadley, MA

Death Cake and I went and enjoyed ourselves over some awesome appetizers and phenomenal conversation, as is the norm, at Chili's. We split the Southwestern Egg Rolls and the Chocolate Lava Cake for dessert.
The SER were tasty. DC and I were somewhat split on the dough on the egg rolls, as it wasn't authentic. It was a lot flakier, like a phyllo dough, than a chewy egg roll dough, and much less greasy. I was sort of on the fence, but Death Cake was a fan. The filling is all right, it's a spicy mixture of beans, corn, a salsa mix. It was very hot, and I wish there had been more congruency in between the ingredients, because it tasted like they had just been mushed together and were one large mass of spiced and patented Chili's appetizer success story. The spices were good, not too spicy, and I did like the cilantro added to the egg roll. The concept is there, it just needs work.

As for the avocado ranch dip, it was really tasty and added a creamy and spicy kick to the bland and salty egg rolls.


As for the lava cake, it's really not bad. I like the ice cream, and I'm fickle about my ice cream. I generally don't like ice cream with most desserts, as I like ice cream either on its own or not at all.

However, the combination of different sauces, textures, and temperatures worked with this dessert better than the last lava cake I had at Chili's because of the ice cream, I think. The caramel sauce was a highlight to the dessert that I really ended up enjoying. There was also a magic chocolate shell that hardened on top of the ice cream that added a nice element to the chocolate cake. The cake itself was unimpressive, like the other. It soaked up a lot of the melted ice cream, though, and that made it really awesome, like a trifle, to eat. I still can't get over how it's more like a baby bundt cake with the lava filling in the middle.

Bourbon Dinner At terra

I get myself in trouble every time I whine on Twitter. This time I whined about terra's 5-course bourbon dinner held on December 15 not having vegetarian options, when I know from reading terra's blog that their chef, Eric Paraskevas (Slate, Lolita), boasts of including veg options on the menu and keeping tempeh stocked in the kitchen.

An almost instant reply back on Twitter from terra (small "t") said they'd look into the matter, and the very next day a veg option for the bourbon dinner became a reality. How could I not reserve a seat after my little Twitter bitchin'? Plus, I've heard good things about the somewhat newly opened warm, cozy, subterranean restaurant and bar nestled below Tavern on Camac on the quaint Camac St. ally.
Different bourbons from the Jim Beam family were an ingredient in each of the five courses that evening, and each course was paired with a bourbon drink by a duo of personable representatives from alcohol distributors Southern Wine and Spirits who also circled the room answering any questions about the bourbon being served. The reps also raffled off a bottle of Knob Creek. (Our table didn't win.)Steak Tartar (tofu in my case) with Baker's Bourbon Caviar was the amouse bouche. With not much flavor to the bourbon Caviar nor the tofu, diced onion was the main flavor.Baker's Bourbon served neat started the evening off. Sweet, smooth, and as a dinner partner noted, toasty, this 7-year aged bourbon is a nice sipper.A warm and light onion roll arrived to the table, which was so good, I ate all of it, and I normally don't eat bread brought to the table unless it's worthy.Arugula salad with Humbolt Fog cheese, Jim Beam soaked cranberries, roasted parsnips, house bacon (omitted in my case), and ginger bourbon vinaigrette was an outstanding salad and my favorite course of the evening. One could taste the bourbon in the cranberries, but the tart sweetness of the berries tempered the bourbon. All the other components of the salad came together to create a perfect salad.
Jim Beam Black, cranberry Juice and Dekuyper Peach Schnapps was a fruity drink that did pair well with the second course, but everyone at our table poured a little Baker's Bourbon from our first round of drinks into the cocktail to knock the fruitiness down a little.Smoked Pork Belly (seitan in my case), chestnut blini, pickled beets and maple Knob Creek Bourbon foam was the second course. Happy to see that the foam was dense and more like a sweet maple bourbon whipped cream, it paired well with the mini chestnut blini. Sad to see that the seitan was just straight-up seitan without any special sauce or marinade, the seitan paired well with the perfectly pickled and peppered beets. A bite of all four together, though, muddied the components.A Manhattan made with Knob Creek, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, bitters, and fresh lemon with a cherry garnish was paired with the second course. At our table we had a lover and a hater of this drink. You either like vermouth and bitters, or you don't. Or you're impartial, like me.
Unlike the lamb on the right, the seitan on the left could not stand up to the heavy bourbon flavor of the grits.

Pan seared lamb chops (seitan in my case) with Booker's Bourbon grits and Szechwan peppercorn jus was the third course. Again, I was sad to see straight up seitan without any special sauce or marinade. The jus on the vegetarian dish seemed to be a light vegetable broth, and with the unsauced seitan, the two could not stand up to the creamy polenta-like grits heavily flavored with bourbon. The meat eater at our table did not have any problem with the flavor of the bourbon grits as they had the heavy flavors of lamb and sauce to counter balance.Booker's Bourbon served neat was paired with the third course. With a much higher alcohol content (121-127 proof) than the Baker's Bourbon (107 proof) that started off the evening, this uncut, unfiltered, straight-from-the-barrel bourbon burned and warmed. And left the inside of my lips numb. Glad I held onto the Baker's Bourbon to taste the two side by side. I'd prefer to sip on the sweeter and mellower Baker's Bourbon than the Booker's Bourbon. Ordering a cup of ice like the gentleman sitting next to us and slipping a cube or two into the Booker's might be a good idea.
Black Forrest Gateaux and Jim Beam Red Stag creme anglaise with coffee granita was the final course. Unfortunately the coffee granita was mostly a puddle of coffee when it reached our table. The firm disks of chocolate cake topped with bourbon-soaked cherries and cream sitting in a pool of vanilla sauce was respectable if not a little sloppily assembled, but did not wow, as so many desserts never do.
Jim Beam Red Stag, hot chocolate, and whipped cream with a cherry garnish was paired with the dessert course. Being that it's the holiday season and I have a chocolate tooth and a sweet tooth, this mixed drink was my favorite of the evening. (I did enjoy drinking the two straight bourbons side by side for comparison's sake the best.) Jim Beam Red Stag is a black cherry-infused bourbon, which I've sample straight, and do not care for it's cough syrup reminiscence. In a dessert drink, the Red Stag worked. Would probably work well in Coke, too.

I think the meat eaters had a different and better experience at terra's bourbon dinner. A dish that is conceived of as a meat dish, does not always stand up to the mild flavors of meat substitutes like tofu and seitan. It's not enough to simply substitute tofu for beef, or seitan for pork and lamb. Had any of these naturally bland meat substitutes been sauced and punched with stronger flavors, the dishes would have probably been as compelling as the dishes in their original and intended meaty form. With more time to think out the vegetarian dishes, I think the chef would have nailed it.It's true that hospitality plays a huge part in a dining experience, and it most certainly did at terra. From terra's speedy response to a whiny Twitter blurb, the chef's flexibility and willingness to accommodating a vegetarian, and the friendliness of the restaurant owner (also owner of Tavern on Camac upstairs), I most certainly will be back to dine at terra.

The real judge of terra will be when I sample from the dishes as they were intended from the normal menu. I spied hoe cake (so excited to see this Southern specialty) and rigatoni with tempeh bolognese that have my name all over it. Also, I'm madly in love with terra's intimate, warm, and manly (but not too manly) space boasting a 200-bottle wine cellar.

terra
243 S. Camac St., Philadelphia, PA, 19107
215-545-1102
Sun-Thurs, 5-10pm
Fri-Sat, 5-11pm