Hash browns are my favorite part of breakfast because, as I’ve said before, potato + hot oil = delicious. As much as I love hash browns, I don’t make them at home because I’ve been told I’m dangerous with graters.

Whenever I have hash browns at a fine breakfast establishment, I squirt enough ketchup on it to get a full serving of vegetables and that’s all I need. I thought ketchup was the only thing one could put on top of hash browns, but IHOP’s Hash Brown Stacks have shown me that one can throw almost anything on top of them.

IHOP’s Hash Brown Stacks come in four varieties:

Spinach & Mushroom Hash Brown Stack – Hash browns topped with sautéed spinach and mushrooms, Provolone cheese, sliced tomato, an over-medium egg, hollandaise sauce and green onions.

Bacon & Cheddar Hash Brown Stack – Hash browns topped with diced bacon, Cheddar cheese, sliced tomato, an over-medium egg, rich hollandaise sauce, green onions, and then more diced bacon.

Ham & Swiss Hash Brown Stack – Hash browns topped with grilled ham, Swiss cheese, sliced tomato, an over-medium egg, hollandaise sauce and green onions.

SIMPLE & FIT Spinach & Mushroom Hash Brown Stack – Hash browns topped with sautéed spinach and mushrooms, Provolone cheese, sliced tomato, scrambled egg substitute and green onions. To keep things simple and fit, this Hash Brown Stack is served with fresh fruit.

IHOP’s Hash Brown Stacks are available at participating restaurants until February 19 and have a suggested retail price of $5.99. They are served with your choice of fresh fruit or two buttermilk pancakes.

Now go watch the IHOP Hash Brown Stack commercial, say WTF in your head, and then wonder about the quality of advertising nowadays.

Here are a few product reviews posted this week from other blogs we follow.

Now that IHOP has frozen breakfast items, perhaps it’s time for Denny’s to flash freeze their Grand Slams. (via Freezer Burns and Foodette Reviews)

This is quite possibly the saddest looking sandwich I’ve ever seen. (via Tasty Lies)

Hmm…I wonder what’s more mood relaxing — drinking a Marley’s Mellow Mood Relaxation Beverage or pouring out the contents of a Marley’s Mellow Mood Relaxation Beverage, turning the can into a bong, and then smoking some weed from it. (via What I Drink At Work)

Starbucks’ Red Velvet Whoopie Pie sounds good. But is it good enough to make me tolerate waiting in a Starbucks line. (via Brand Eating)

To be perfectly honest, I started a frozen food review blog just so I could blurt out a legitimate reason for buying Kid Cuisine meals just in case someone ever asked me if I’m a pedofile when they see the lone Kid Cuisine meal in my shopping bag as I get into my ice cream truck. (via Freezer Aisle Files)

One of my dreams in life is to invite one person from every ethnicity I can find to a party at IHOP. Because if I’m able to make my dream come true, it will be the only time an IHOP restaurant would truly be considered international. But if I’m not able to make that happen because of IHOP being upset at the previous sentence, then I guess I’m going to have to settle for inviting one person from every ethnicity, preparing a bunch of the new IHOP at HOME frozen breakfast meals, and serving them to my melting pot of guests outside of an IHOP restaurant.

According to the press release I received, IHOP is the first national restaurant brand to bring breakfast items to the freezer shelves. So suck it, Denny!

The new IHOP at HOME line are now available at more than 3,000 Walmart locations throughout the United States. So suck it, Canada!

IHOP at HOME frozen dishes won’t be available at IHOP restaurants. So suck it, IHOP restaurants!

They can be prepared either in the microwave or conventional ovens. So suck it, barbeque grills and stove tops!

The IHOP at HOME lineup consists of:

Omelet Crispers: scrambled eggs, potatoes and a choice of cheddar cheese, cheddar cheese and sausage, or cheddar cheese and bacon in a crispy coating. They come in boxes of four and have anywhere from 210-240 calories, 12-14 grams of fat, 4-4.5 grams of saturated fat, 560-930 milligrams of sodium, and 8-11 grams of protein.

French Toast Stuffed Pastries: French toast pastries filled with either strawberry, sweet cream cheese, apple and cinnamon, or strawberry cream cheese filling. They are packaged in boxes of six and have anywhere from 170-210 calories, 6-9 grams of fat, 1-3.5 grams of saturated fat, 240-270 milligrams of sodium, and 3-4 grams of protein.

Griddle n’ Sausage Wrap: a breakfast sausage covered in buttermilk pancake batter with a hint of maple syrup. Comes in boxes of eight and have 160 calories, 11 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 220 milligrams of sodium, and 4 grams of protein.

As someone who has never had chicken and waffles from one of the many establishments noted for their chicken and waffles dish, you may think I’m not the best person to review IHOP’s Chicken & Waffles.

However, I’ve watched enough shows on the Food Network and Travel Channel to know what makes a good plate of chicken and waffles. And, as someone who once combined a Cinnabon cinnamon roll with a flame-broiled Burger King Whopper patty to create a monstrosity called the CinnaWhopper, I feel I’m qualified to judge foods that combine sweet and savory.

Traditionally, chicken and waffles include fried chicken breasts and waffles topped with butter and syrup. IHOP’s bastardized version takes away the fried chicken breasts, replaces it with four boneless chicken tenders; includes four wedges of Belgian waffles with a container of butter; and adds a little something something called honey mustard dipping sauce.

Now, the honey mustard sauce is a strange addition, and it’s the more bastardizing part of the dish. I don’t think any of the chicken and waffles places featured on television shows hosted by a chubby guy with bleached spiked hair or a chubby guy with a Brooklyn accent include any dipping sauces with the dish. Traditionally, the dish is enjoyed by combining a bite of the fried chicken with a bite of syrup and waffles, hence the sweet and savory. The honey mustard sauce would throw a curve into that.

I can only come up with two reasons why IHOP included the dipping sauce: 1) It gives people an out to those who try the dish and don’t care for the sweet and savory combination. 2) Their chicken tenders suck, and not even the addition of waffles and syrup could make them remotely tastier.

Well, it’s probably a combination of the two. The breaded and lightly seasoned chicken tenders look and taste like something I could get from Banquet in the frozen food aisle. The chicken tender’s exterior was crispy, but interior ended up being a little dry.

Before I could taste the sweet and savory combination of chicken and waffles, I had to choose from IHOP’s array of syrups. I chose to be old fashioned and use their Old Fashioned syrup, which is probably made in a non-old fashioned way. I’m not sure exactly how it’s made, but it probably involves large machines that people who do make syrup the old fashioned way wish they had.

Based on what I’ve seen on television about the chicken and waffles dish, IHOP’s Chicken & Waffles probably doesn’t come close to being as delicious as what one can get at a dining establishment, like Gladys Knight and Ron Winans’ Chicken & Waffles. However, as the bastardization of the amalgamation of chicken tender, waffle, and syrup, I thought IHOP’s Chicken & Waffles could’ve been much better.

The size of the chicken tenders and waffles wedges are equal enough that you can have a bite of chicken with a bite of waffles and not have to worry about either of them running out before the other does. The flavor of the chicken with the waffles and syrup does create an adequate sweet and savory flavor, but I wish the chicken’s seasoning was a little stronger. Or, perhaps, it lacks the greasiness that regular fried chicken has, because you know what they say about grease, “Grease makes us obese, but the right release of grease makes taste increase.” I also had high hopes for the waffles, after all, IHOP knows breakfast. However, they had a not-so-crispy exterior, a fluffy interior, and they were a little bland. Thank goodness for their Old Fashioned syrup.

Since I have a curious soul, and I occasionally enjoy messing with my taste buds, I decided to combine the chicken, waffles, syrup, and honey mustard sauce into a culinary clusterfuck. The result? It definitely doesn’t make it better. It also definitely doesn’t make me gag, but the flavor is a bit odd.

IHOP’s Chicken & Waffles can probably match the caloric value of a real plate of chicken and waffles from somewhere like Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles with its 1,110 calories. However, it could never equal Roscoe’s tastiness. I know. It’s a bastardized version of the dish, but I really wish it wasn’t, because it makes real chicken and waffles look bad.

(Nutrition Facts – Not available on website, but we do know it contains 1,110 calories.)

Item: IHOP Chicken & Waffles
Price: $8.99
Size: N/A
Purchased at: IHOP
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Adequate sweet and savory flavor. Allows people around the country to try chicken and waffles, even though it’s a bastardized version of it. Crispy exterior on the chicken tenders. The right release of grease makes taste increase. Old Fashioned syrup. Includes a lot of butter.
Cons: A bastardized version of chicken and waffles. Makes real chicken and waffles look bad. Chicken tenders too lightly seasoned and a little dry. 1,110 calories. Waffles were a little bland. The addition of honey mustard sauce was a unusual. The CinnaWhopper. Not having eaten a real plate of chicken and waffles.

Update: Click here to read our IHOP Chicken & Waffles review

I’m pretty sure IHOP’s version of the classic American dish, chicken and waffles, doesn’t compare to what’s offered at Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles, Gladys Knight and Ron Winans’ Chicken & Waffles, Lo-Lo’s Chicken and Waffles, Lucky J’s Chicken and Waffles, Big Momma’s Chicken and Waffles, and the other chicken and waffle places listed in the chicken and waffle Wikipedia article.

However, IHOP’s version is probably better than my attempts to create a decent chicken and waffles dish, using either Chicken McNuggets or KFC chicken with a variety of frozen waffles.

According to a press release, IHOP’s take on the sweet and savory dish combines “four golden all white meat chicken tenders with four light and crisp Belgian waffle quarters.” Yup, chicken tenders, because bones are a bitch.

IHOP’s Chicken and Waffles are available for a limited time at participating restaurants nationwide.

Thanks to TIB reader Kevin for telling us about them.

Do you ever look down at your lunch or dinner of pasta and bread and think to yourself, “Holy crap! How can I get the same excessive amounts of carbs I’m eating right now, but during breakfast?”

Thanks to IHOP, you no longer need to wonder. Their new Loaded Country Hash Browns, along with the included two buttermilk pancakes and two eggs, may provide you with enough carbs to last you a whole day or, perhaps, an entire week.

The Loaded Country Hash Browns come in three varieties:

Ham, Swiss & Mushroom Browns – loaded with sautéed mushrooms, diced ham and melted Swiss and Parmesan cheese. Topped with green onions.

Jack, Cheddar & Bacon Browns – stuffed with chopped hickory-smoked bacon and melted Cheddar and Monterey Jack cheeses. Topped with sour cream and green onions.

Country Sausage Browns – contains pork sausage links, Cheddar cheese and grilled onions. Topped with creamy country gravy.

The Loaded Country Hash Browns are available for a limited time for $5.99. So if you need to get your carb on, head to your nearest IHOP and feast.