Pancake Gauntlet

Friday evening found me visiting the International House of Pancakes in San Bernardino. For several years now, the annual $4.99 all-you-can-eat pancake had rolled through without attracting too much attention. 2011 would be different. Mostly because the smaller challenges don't really.... well.... pose a challenge for me.

This is the year to push things a little bit further. No better way than to dive into pancakes. It's not a food that especially strikes my fancy. I have difficulty with grains and starches so I knew this would push my tolerance.


The delivery concept is simple enough. Your server brings you three pancakes and follows up with three more at a time until you've had enough. This is remarkably similar to the AYCE program Denny's runs with their own pancakes.

Anyone hoping to achieve hot cake greatness is going to need to speed up the process considerably if they're hoping to put up some big numbers. You can't just spend 3-4 hours waiting for small orders of buttermilk pancakes to arrive.

So I told the server I wanted 30 pancakes.

The look on her face was priceless. I wish someone had a camera handy. She told me they could bring out six at a time, but even then the process wasn't terribly rapid. I would wait long moments after finishing my first few orders. That was precious time lost! Instead of just sitting there letting your stomach settle, you need to keep eating.


Just looking at these pictures makes me feel heavy. The experience was roughly what you would expect. Easy in the beginning, but increasingly brutal as time wears on. I used maple and strawberry syrup to vary the taste but that only goes so far. The buttermilk is overpowering and the texture is eventually unappealing. :(

For a change of pace, I reported my progress via Mobile Facebook during the eating process. When I completed 27 pancakes, that was already a personal best. But I needed to push. Had to break 30... so one more order was brought out.

33 pancakes was all that I could stand. Done and done. Ironically, all the food I consumed probably did not exceed 2.5 lbs. Bread is simply a different animal. Give me 10 lbs of ice cream any day.

According to the IHOP menu, each order of 3 pancakes packs an impressive 490 calories. Did I really put down almost 5400 calories?? It didn't feel like it.

The server was amazed. But apparently the record for that IHOP location was an astounding 70 pancakes, consumed by an anonymous male.

11,000+ calories in pancakes? Flour? That's ludicrous. But still, no candidate for the 20k Club.

As far as pancakes go, I'm done. Check back with me in a year.