Untitled Document

Place: IHOP
Item: the lunch menu
Prices: $5-$7

Is there something about the trademark blue paint of the IHOP roof that makes the restaurant invisible to the naked eye from noon to 1 p.m.? Across the country, there are 1,000 International House of Pancakes locations, yet when we're driving out to get lunch, it's like we don't even see the IHOPs.

Call it breakfast blindness. Sure, the company was founded back in 1958 on the virtues of some batter, a skillet and a bottle of syrup, but nowadays, one-third of the menu is devoted to lunch. Now if it were a good lunch, we'd have 1,000 new places to go. So we went to IHOP, but did we see the light?

Tom: Somehow IHOP's menu didn't enter the millennium with the rest of us. It's a throwback to the short-order-cook/griddle era and doesn't even require a microwave. Judging from the amount of blue-hairs in the booths, IHOP certainly looks like a pacemaker-safe zone. What other national eatery has a “soup of the day” or a senior menu with old-fashioned comfort food like pot roast? This all stood out to me because, Chris, as you know, the Lunch Guys are use to the flash and panache of the world's most marketing-savvy eateries. IHOP offers none of that.

But all that's OK because the

two pieces of Wonder Bread.

In fact, I'd say IHOP does a better lunch than a breakfast. Lunch is just harder to pull off. A first-grader can make pancakes and sprinkle some banana slices on top, but can little Jimmy pull off not just a Steak Stacker, but a Southwestern Chicken Fajita Salad, Philly Cheese Steak or the other tantalizing choices on the lunch menu?

Tom: IHOP will always sell more waffles than burgers. The parking lot will always have more pickups and Oldsmobiles than BMWs, and IHOP will never have Britney Spears doing a commercial singing its praises. The key to enjoying your lunch is to just get over the atmosphere and get down to eating. Plus, you can always get “breakfast anytime.”

Chris: For IHOP to make a name as a lunch place, it's logical to assume that it's got to have a lunch place name. How about House of Pancakes and Sandwiches -- HOPS? Or better yet, House of Great Lunch -- HOGL? (OK, I'll stop now.)

Rating: 4 sporks (out of 5)

Food Facts : No nutritional information available. If it's nutrition you want, it's probably not here.

E-mail The Lunch Guys:
tomandchris@thelunchguys.com

lunch food is damn good. The International Club, for example, is perfection between three slices of bread. This double-decker loaded with smoked turkey, bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise is as good as a homemade sandwich. Other items take me back to simpler times before diets and Atkins wraps. The patty melt -- in all its butter-soaked rye, melted cheese, massive burger and grilled onions glory -- has a shamelessly high amount of fat. You gotta love it.

Chris: I'm with you, Tom. My eyes popped open at IHOP's lunch offerings. But c'mon, IHOP, you're never going to shake your “breakfast-only” reputation if, even in the harsh light of midday, every table has four flavored syrups and a pot of coffee on it. I wasn't about to pour strawberry goo on my Steak Stacker. It was surprisingly good as is, so good that the time between my first bite and last bite is a drunkenly blissful fog. I seem to remember five or six chunks of savory steak, a mess of sauteed onions, warm cheese and a crusty roll. I had been expecting a six-day-old pancake painted brown to look like “steak” and stuck between