1 post tagged “ihop”

I am not an unreasonable person.

I will occasionally eat foods that are really disgusting. I don't have a particular standard for the restaurants I go to. I'm willing to admit that some of the grossest hole in the wall type places can sometimes have the best food in the world. I enjoy McDonalds on occasion. I really do. Here's what I can't deal with: I can't deal with the IHOP on Wilshire and Hauser. I can't.

For YEARS, I enjoyed IHOP. In college there was no bigger treat than piling my friends into my Oldsmobile and taking us all to IHOP at noon on a Sunday... and I would clean my plate every time. Nothing was better than that carafe  (a fucking carafe!) of coffee.

I've had a couple lack-luster IHOP experiences since I've been in LA, but nothing particularly offensive. I was actually at an IHOP last week, and despite a couple slightly off things, it was pretty delicious. And then this morning happened. This morning happened... like, TO me. I was victimized. I went in there looking for some snacks and came out feeling like... emotionally wrecked over what happened to me in there.

Let's just lay it down: The first sip of my OJ had a seed in it. If the juice tasted like any orange or orange flavored thing I had ever eaten in my life, than I would have thought "Oh well, at least it's fresh!" but because it was a weird yellowish color and had an aftertaste that burned, I figured that that wasn't the case and was pretty perplexed as to how an actual orange seed would even make it into a beverage that so clearly doesn't have oranges in it.

So you're probably thinking at this point that I'm a pussy. I can't handle an orange seed? No. The seed was gross and random, but overall that's something I can move past, especially in the mornings when I have coffee. But the coffee. The coffee. I don't even really not how to describe what was going on with the coffee. I couldn't even guess if it was that they didn't brew it long enough or if the beans were bad or if there was perhaps something wrong with the coffee machine... all I know is that it tasted like brown water that had just the tiniest bit of insect repellent stirred in. It wasn't a bitter taste, it was a chemical taste. Have you ever licked a battery? Like a AA-battery? I have! And let me tell ya: That's what my coffee tasted like. Except hot.

I excused myself to the bathroom despite how hard I had been trying to hold it. I'm not stupid. I know that IHOP bathrooms aren't exactly pristine... but I'm kinda a down to earth chick. I can pee in a gnarly bathroom or outside or in your roommate's messenger bag. It really doesn't matter to me... and the cleanliness didn't even appear to be a huge issue to the naked eye once I got in there. But the smell was unforgivable. Like someone shoved a canned ham in a radiator the night before. It was humid and it smelled like HAM. I felt like I wasn't in a bathroom, but in fact, a warm pork sandwich. A warm pork sandwich that I was supposed to find a way to urinate in... without actually touching anything that wasn't on my body.

I came back from the bathroom and told my friend that I was eating with that I was pretty much revolted at this point. I was called a complainer. I tried to suck it up. I really did... but my sensibilities were far too offended at this point.  It was too fucking much for that time of morning to deal with. Especially with a Grey Goose hangover. At that point, what I was even less interested in than being in the IHOP was being in a fight at the IHOP, so I just shut my mouth and waited for my eggs to come out.

When they arrived five coffee-free minutes later (and for you non-caffeine addicts, that's like seven hours in coffee-drinker time), our server put down my friend's food first and then mine in front of me. Right as the plate was about to make contact with the table, I noticed how she was gripping the plate: four fingers under the plate, and her thumb on the side... RIGHT IN MY HASH BROWNS. Her fucking thumb was in my hash browns. I'm not assuming she's a dirty person in her actual life but as someone who has worked in many many dining establishments in her day, I can tell you that even four-star restaurant employees have filthy hands. Like, fucking filthy. The odds that this woman's hands weren't covered in actual-- or what would be the equivalent to-- cat semen are slim to none.

There's no moral to the story. There's no happy ending here. I scraped the tainted hash browns off my plate and onto a stack of pancakes that nether of us ordered but that somehow wound up at our table. We ate our breakfast in silence. He was pissed because I couldn't "hack it" or something and I was pissed because my mortification was being treated as though it was MY problem. Clearly, it's an attitudinal issue on my part. Clearly I am high-maintenance. It must be my rigorous showering schedule and pristine living environment that supported this theory.

And I will have you know that I went this entire story without mentioning that there was a three year old girl running up and down the aisle next to us with snot running down her face in gigantic globs because I don't like to be mean to children.

I am the opposite of inhumane.