OLYMPIANS LOVE 'INTERNATIONAL' HOUSE OF PANCAKES
by Garrick Utley, Food Critic

Amidst the flurry the media circus surrounding the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City has created, one thing sure hasn't changed — foreigners know where to find great cuisine! And its this very reason that has thousands of hungry Germans, Norwegians, Slovaks, and yes - even Jamaicans flocking to the International House of Pancakes.

Renown for its horrible service, sticky tables, and questionable assortment of pancake toppings, IHOP has been whipping up colon-busting pancake concoctions since 1958 when some goomba decided to franchise a grease-fire-waiting-to-happen breakfast joint under an A-frame Scandinavian-style hut.

	European fashion and hearty pancakes pale in comparison to the respect that the luge garners at the Salt Lake City IHOP.

Bill, the manager of the Salt Lake City IHOP went all-out to create a special international ambiance inside his restaurant. "We wanted to attract throngs of international tourists so we hung up a poster of Kofi Annan and we let a couple of goats loose in the restaurant to recreate an authentic third world restaurant flavor. We didn't have to add the flies...they've always been here."

The French tourists are loving our terrible, rude servers and our other European patrons during the Olympic Games also enjoy at IHOP what normally accompanies fine cuisine: high prices." The Easy Midget staff suspects you'd have a better chance of associating the adjective "high" with an IHOP cook than you would to describe the word "quality" at IHOP. "Right..." says manager Bill, "we're more mid-quality... OK I won't lie... poor to fair at best."

Everyone knows that eight banana chocolate chip pancakes slathered in chocolate syrup and powdered sugar is the best way to carbo-load before a luge event. "We get lugers all the time. Georg Hackl comes in here hours before his luge races wearing his skin-tight Gore-tex suit. Don't let that bulge fool you... that's where he keeps his wallet. Don't tell him I said that, he'll kill me!" chuckles Bill.

Asked if he felt any obligation to favor certain nations in his establishment or if he wanted to remain neutral the way the Swiss did while the Nazi war machine rolled through Europe, Bill quipped, "Well, I certainly don't want to insult the Swiss... they're my best customers. They are enamored of our dirty restrooms!"

In a fit of rage and jealousy, similarly-awful breakfast-anytime joint Denny's decided to entice the international community at the Olympic Games as well but ran into a few conflicts with their "black people not welcome" corporate policy.