I Am Eating Everything on IHOPs Indiana Jones Menu
You clicked a link fora 3,000 word article about IHOPsIndiana Jonesmenu?You chose ... wisely.In conjunction withthe new Xbox gameIndiana Jones and the Great Circle, IHOP is now offering six limited-time items based on thepop cultures most famousarchaeology professor. IHOPs Indy-fiedcreations include three different stuffed French toasts, and severaldishes thatshowcase Indiana Jones canonicalfavorite food: Cookie butter.(What? You dont remember the classic scene fromRaiders of the Lost Arkwhen Indy reaches into his satchel, pulls out a big jar of spreadable Speculoos, androars It belongs in a museum!? Clearly you haventwatched the Raidersdirectors cut.)IHOPIHOPloading...READ MORE: 12 Movies You Never Knew Were Produced by George LucasOof. There isso much bread in that picture. Today, I am going to eat all of it. Why, you (and myexasperated wife) might ask? Well, justlike Indiana Jones, I take my job seriously. And for almost a decade now, my job as a movie journalist has included eating any menu based on movies (or, in this case, video games based on movies) available at big chain restaurants. In recent years, Ive eatenAddams Familypurple Whoppers andBeetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuicy Burgers. Iveinhaleda calzony shaped like The Batman logo and devouredIFdazzleberry pancakes.Before you ask, let me state for the record: Ihave no clue what a dazzleberry is. Or what a calzony is, for that matter. Again, much like Indiana Jones, I am an explorerof the unknown; a man who risks his ownlife to recover objects heretoforeunseen by mankind. The only difference between he and I (and I mean the onlydifference) is thatI then eat those objects.For help on this most perilous crusade, Ive solicited the assistance of Griffin Newman, co-host of the Blank Check podcast and a fellow thrill seeker in the world of cinematic culinary curiosities. Griffin is also a very talented actor and comedian who appears regularly inmovies and television series,so pleasewhatever you do,dont let him knowhe has much better things to do with his his time than eat cookie butter French toast with me. (Its really helps when I dont have to do this alone, and hes the only person who says yes when I invite him.)We just orderedthe first ofmany courses of archaeologically themed breakfast items. Today, you can call us ...Indiana Jones and the Eaters of the Promotional Tie-In Menu. (Please bear in mind, Indiana Jones is noteating with us. I reached out to Harrison Fords team to extend an invitation to him to eat French toast sticks at the downtown Brooklyn IHOP with Griffin and I. For some weird reason, I never heard back.)Does IHOPs menu in any way capture the spirit ofIndiana Jones? Thats what were here to find out. But just like the classic film serials that inspired George Lucas and Philip Kaufman when they firstconceived Indiana Jones, this article will be released in regular installments. So keep refreshing to see we narrowly escape doom, or get smushed beneath an enormous rolling pile ofstuffed French toasted.UPDATE #1Were going to ease into the Stuffed French Toast and start instead with the Junior Adventurers Cookie Butter French Toast Sticks. Think ofthis as the cold open where Indy finds the fertility idol before he spends the rest of the movie chasing the Ark of the Covenant. Only with more cookie butter.IHOP describes this item thusly...These French toast sticks are ideal for dipping in creamy cookie butter, making them a delightful discovery for any adventurer. Found alongside fresh strawberries and bananas. (850 calories)Heres what the item looks like on IHOPs website:IHOPIHOPloading...And heres what we were served:Photo By AuthorPhoto By Authorloading...Weve eaten these dippers before, in a slightly different form.IHOPsWonkamenu included the same French toast sticks with chocolate sauce (becauseWonka) instead of cookie butter (because Indiana Jones, as we have already established, simply cannot get enough cookie butter).Thecooks at our IHOP have done a heroic job of recreating the plating from the menu, and I gotta say, French toast dipped in cookie butter: Pretty good. (The bananas dipped in cookie butter: Even better.) ButGriffin and I are literally sitting hereracking our brains to think ofanyway in which this might connect to theIndiana Jones franchise and coming up totally empty.Maybethere was an episode ofThe Young Indiana Jones Chronicleswhere kid Indy invented cookie butter by accidentallysitting on a big pile of Biscoff cookies?All right at this point I am literally just stalling for timeto avoideating three plates of stuffed French toast. Lets do this.UPDATE #2Stuffed French toast... why did it have to be stuffed French toast?No seriously, why is there so much stuffed French toast on an Indiana Jones menu? What does that particular food of all the possible foods you could use have to do with Indiana Jones? I cant think of a single notable French character or scene set in France across five Indiana Jones movies. (I guess its possible there might be one in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle I havent played it yet but if it does, I couldnt find any evidence of one online.)Admittedly, the only obvious connections between Indiana Jones and food are the chilled monkey brains and assorted other epicurean nightmares from Temple of Doom. While I would have admired any restaurants with crystal skulls big enough to put chilled monkey brains on their menu, you can understand why IHOP might have gone in a different direction.Somehow that direction led us to a trio of stuffed French toasts. The first were trying today isThe Great Circle of Cinnamon. Here is how IHOP describes it.This treasure trove is layered with rich cinnamon spread and drizzled with a sweet cream cheese icing that will make you feel like youve uncovered an ancient culinary secret. (1240 calories)Here is the picture on the IHOP menu:IHOPIHOPloading...And here is what we were served.Photo By AuthorPhoto By Authorloading...Well ... they tried. And, much like Indiana Joneswhen he tried to keep the Ark of the Covenant away from the Nazis, they didnt quite get there. If this is supposed to be the Great Circle of Cinnamon why didnt they just do a circle ofcinnamon spread on top? Wouldnt that have been easier and more sensible?More ominously, when we cut the two ginormous pieces of French toast, all of the various goos soaking into the top of the bread came pouring down onto the plate like the waterfall fromIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.Does that count as theming?Photo By AuthorPhoto By Authorloading...Flavor-wise, this is fine, provided youre in the market for the sweetest, cinnamon-iest French toast youve ever eaten in your life. Itwas going to say it doesnt reallynail the vibe of pulse-pounding excitement ofIndiana Jones but then I noticed my heart was poundingin much the same way it might while watching the great mine car sequence fromTemple of Doom.But I think that just has more to do with my cholesterol level than anything else.Two more stuffed French toasts to go. Will there be diminishing returns each time, much like theIndiana Jonessequels themselves? Stay tuned...UPDATE #3:After almost ten years of eating theme menus, Im starting to understand what Indiana Jones meant when he said Its not the years, honey. Its the mileage.Our next course is the Berryd Treasure Stuffed French Toast, which is ...Gemstones of juicy glazed blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries and a drizzle of rich cream cheese icing, you cant help but want to take a bit out of this berryd treasure! (1210 calories)Here is the extremelywell-composed photo of the dish from the IHOP menu:IHOPIHOPloading...And here is the extremely not-well-composed photo of what we were served:Photo By AuthorPhoto By Authorloading...No, thats not just the same photo of the Great Circle of Cinnamon again. The two dishes looked almost identical, except for the color of the ooze on top. On this one, there was a small spread of a sticky purplish liquid.They did taste different though; instead of cinnamon, this one had berries or at least what IHOP is calling berryd sauce. But, asGriffin quite astutely put it, I feel stupid for even saying this: It's more artificially sweet than I was expecting. There were no gemstones of berries that we could see or taste. Just a lot of sugar and a few tiny specks of what might have once been fruit back in the days of Archimedes and his Dial of Destiny.Also, Im not suremy overhead shots are quite capturing just how thickeach plate of stuffed French toast is. Heres a side view:Photo By AuthorPhoto By Authorloading...Who needs this much bread, even if youre eating just one of these? Ive bought entire loaves of bread at the supermarket that contained less bread than this one plate of food. This berryd treasure is going to be buried in my colon for an eternity.Two down, one to go. Im starting to feel likeIjust looked inside the Ark of the Covenant...UPDATE #4Remember in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy almost gets poisoned but Sallah grabs the deadly fruit out of midair and says Bad dates, and then they both look down and see the little monkey lying on the floor?Right now, I know how the monkey feels.At last, weve arrived at our final stuffed French toast course: The Secret Cookie Butter Stuffed French Toast. IHOP says it is...Creamy cookie butter and vanilla sauces topped with a dusting of cookie crumbles, reminiscent of long-lost treasures found in faraway lands.Its like that famous line fromKingdom of the Crystal Skull: Cookie butter ... cookie butter was their treasure.The menu picture looks like this:IHOPIHOPloading...What we were served looks like this:Photo By AuthorPhoto By Authorloading...Well, theres not much secret about the cookie butter. This French toast is practically drowning in cookie butter.Butit does look the closest to what itssupposedto look like. And maybe it evokesIndiana Jones famous design. As Griffin notes Indiana Jones default color is brown. It is certainly a brown menu. Hes not wrong! This is some extremely khaki food.In some ways this was the best item, and in some ways it was the worst. The cookie butter and crunchy cookie pieces work wellas aFrench toast topping. On asingle piece ofnormalFrench toast, this would be a really satisfying breakfast. But IHOP served it asstuffed French toast, with two pieces of toast that were each thicker than Henry Jones Sr.s Grail diary.Plus, the cookie butter is only on the top layer, with only a thin spread of cream cheese icing in between the two pieces of bread. As a result, that lower piece isBut also we had about3500calories each in one sitting. So maybe our opinions should not be trusted at this point? Thankfully weveonly got course to go.FINAL UPDATE:Our waitress (who has been so patient and so non-judgmental) put our desserts down on the table and I turned to Griffin and screamed Dont look! Keep your eyes shut!Alas, averting our gazedid not save us from what was coming. First up, theLong Lost Cookie Butter Milkshake. It is ...This cold & creamy milkshake is the perfect blend of cookie butter, cookie pieces, and rich vanilla ice cream that feels like youve uncovered a forgotten treasure! (860 calories)Heres theglamour shot:IHOPIHOPloading...Heres what we got...Photo By AuthorPhoto By Authorloading...Much likeDial of Destiny, this looks pretty good. A little artificial, a little uncanny, but close enough to what youre hoping to see. Taste-wise and I cannot believe I am saying this after eating about a jar and a half of the stuff already I kind of wanted more cookie butter flavor? This is a serviceable vanilla milkshake with a couple of cookie crumbles dusted on top. But for a cookie butter shake ... much likeIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it sorely under-delivers on expectations.Finally, we have the Explorers Caramel Apple Butter Hot Chocolate. Which is...Rich hot cocoa infused with the flavors of caramel and apple butter creating a cozy drink that will make you feel like youre by the campfire after a day of thrilling adventures. (250 calories)Im not sure you need to beshown what a cup of hot chocolate issupposedto look like, but in the interest of transparency...IHOPIHOPloading...And what we were served...Photo By AuthorPhoto By Authorloading...Griffin was nice enough to film me as I drank this one...I haveconsumeda lot of weird foods and beverages in my day. I thought nothing would ever top theAddams Familypurple hot chocolatefor sheer unnatural horror. But this caramel apple butter hot chocolate did. It looks perfectly acceptable, but it tastes ... poorly.(I know I already made aLast Crusadeknight joke. With the amount of sugar Ive eaten in the last two hours, youre lucky Im still writing in complete sentences at this point!)Hot chocolate with caramel apple flavor would have been excessive enough; butaccording to the menu description, this is hot chocolate with separate carameland apple butter flavors. In practice, it doesnt really taste like any of those things. You get the tiniest hit of chocolate as it passes your lips. After that, allIm getting is ansickly medicinal flavor. I do not feel like Im by the campfire after a day of thrilling adventures. I feel like Im chugginghot Dimetapp. It is so bizarre.Thats probably a good word for the menu as a whole, too. Theres just somuch French toast! As one reader on Blueskypointed out, this is all in service of hypingIndiana Jones and the Great Circle wouldntpancakes make a lot more sense for the great circle? While its true,as another reader observed, that IndysRaidersnemesis Belloq is French, I dont think thats what IHOP was going for with all this French toast. Unless whoever is in charge of promotional tie-ins over there is just a huge fan of Paul Freeman.This was just weird. Weirder than the scene inCrystal Skull where Shia LaBeouf swung from vines in the jungle like Tarzan. Sadly, Im sort of used to that by now.On this beat, I eat a lot of foods that defy simple explanation or digestion. I regularly treat my body like a temple. (Of Doom.) Why do I do it? For the fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.Get our free mobile app20 Sequels You Forgot ExistedThese hit films all got sequels although most were flops, and all are now forgotten.
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