I Am Eating Everything on IHOP’s ‘Indiana Jones’ Menu

You clicked a link for a 3,000 word article about IHOP’s Indiana Jones menu?

You chose … wisely.

In conjunction with the new Xbox game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, IHOP is now offering six limited-time items based on the pop culture’s most famous archaeology professor. IHOP’s Indy-fied creations include three different stuffed French toasts, and several dishes that showcase Indiana Jones’ canonical favorite food: Cookie butter.

(What? You don’t remember the classic scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy reaches into his satchel, pulls out a big jar of spreadable Speculoos, and roars “It belongs in a museum!”? Clearly you haven’t watched the Raiders director’s cut.)

READ MORE: 12 Movies You Never Knew Were Produced by George Lucas

Oof. There is so much bread in that picture. Today, I am going to eat all of it. Why, you (and my exasperated wife) might ask? Well, just like Indiana Jones, I take my job seriously. And for almost a decade now, my job as a movie journalist has included eating any menu based on movies (or, in this case, video games based on movies) available at big chain restaurants. In recent years, I’ve eaten Addams Family purple Whoppers and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice “Beetlejuicy Burgers.” I’ve inhaled a calzony shaped like The Batman logo and devoured IF dazzleberry pancakes.

Before you ask, let me state for the record: I have no clue what a dazzleberry is. Or what a calzony is, for that matter. Again, much like Indiana Jones, I am an explorer of the unknown; a man who risks his own life to recover objects heretofore unseen by mankind. The only difference between he and I (and I mean the only difference) is that I then eat those objects.

For help on this most perilous crusade, I’ve solicited the assistance of Griffin Newman, co-host of the Blank Check podcast and a fellow thrill seeker in the world of cinematic culinary curiosities. Griffin is also a very talented actor and comedian who appears regularly in movies and television series, so please whatever you do, don’t let him know he has much better things to do with his his time than eat cookie butter French toast with me. (It’s really helps when I don’t have to do this alone, and he’s the only person who says yes when I invite him.)

We just ordered the first of many courses of archaeologically themed breakfast items. Today, you can call us … Indiana Jones and the Eaters of the Promotional Tie-In Menu. (Please bear in mind, Indiana Jones is not eating with us. I reached out to Harrison Ford’s team to extend an invitation to him to eat French toast sticks at the downtown Brooklyn IHOP with Griffin and I. For some weird reason, I never heard back.)

Does IHOP’s menu in any way capture the spirit of Indiana Jones? That’s what we’re here to find out. But just like the classic film serials that inspired George Lucas and Philip Kaufman when they first conceived Indiana Jones, this article will be released in regular installments. So keep refreshing to see we narrowly escape doom, or get smushed beneath an enormous rolling pile of stuffed French toasted.

MORE UPDATES TO COME…