International House of Pancakes - 4 stars
4567 Lougheed Hwy., Brentwood Mall, Burnaby, BC, Phone: (604) 299-1111.
No, you’re not seeing things. On this particular day, for this particular meal, IHOP did a bang-up job.
We hadn’t intended to go to IHOP (don’t you kind of just end up there?). We actually tried two other restaurants first. But since it was a beautiful Saturday evening, and it was prime dining time, we couldn’t even get a spot in the parking lot. So, we figured, what the heck, we wanted some pretty simple food anyway, so we decided to give IHOP a try.
When we got there, we found out they had a dinner special - with any adult meal, your kid 10 or under gets a kid’s meal free. This is a definite bonus. They have a good selection of kids’ meals - ranging from steamed fish with potatoes and veggies (do real children actually eat this?) to the usual chicken strips and fries, hamburgers, and of course lots of breakfast meals with pancakes. My younger daughter only eats chicken strips when we go out so that was what she had. The fries were light, yummy, and plentiful. The chicken had a tasty coating (not too spicy) and she ate it all up.
My older daughter had an adult meal - ham, cheese and scrambled egg sandwich on sourdough bread with fries. She loved it, and it was so big she brought half home for breakfast the next day.
My husband and I both ordered the same meal (almost unheard of!) - burgers with bacon, cheese and a fried egg, with onion rings. The burgers were surprisingly well done. The meat patty was tasty, bacon makes everything better, the fried egg was over medium and properly cooked. The whole thing was on a cheese bun and was served with either fries or onion rings. Usually you have to pay extra to get onion rings with your burger, so of course we opted for the free onion rings. They were huge, crispy, and had a generous piece of onion in them.
The service was very friendly and courteous. The servers were prompt and attentive and we were waited on by several different staff members. The kids can hardly wait to go back!
Our meal, with tax, tip and a beer was under $45.00 for the whole family.