IHOP’s newest renaming stunt has come and gone, and in what has quickly become a very tired marketing blitz, the brand revealed that its P still stands for “pancakes,” exactly as we’d known this entire time. Yet, inexplicably, that still means something about… burgers, in some sick continuation of last year’s eye-rolling IHOb situation. “We’re sticking to pancakes. Hint: They’re burgers,” reads its website. (Will someone please tell IHOP’s marketing team that some thoughts are better left as shower thoughts?)
While one of those new burgers does appear to contain an actual pancake, we’re disappointed that they didn’t go with the much more obvious option: pancakes as buns. That would have at least been kind of clever, although somewhat hard to eat. Avocados, ramen noodles, doughnuts, fried mac and cheese: all have been bent into freakish burger bun replacements, and while some of the novelty has been lost at this point, it’s worth commending that creativity.
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Which is why SoraNews24’s announcement of a Japanese brewery’s soft-shell crab burger bun had us simultaneously horrified and hungry. Like an even more absurd version of the KFC Double Down, the Kani Burger at Tokyo Aleworks Taproom is crab on crab on crab: a crab patty sandwiched between two “buns” of fried soft-shell crab, with the typical lettuce and tomato fixings if you want more than just meat. It sounds absolutely bananas and yet, I am oddly intrigued and would eat the heck out of this.
Like oysters and eggs, soft-shell crab is absolutely one of those things that should make you think, “Man, the first person who thought to do this was really on one.” The idea is, after all, eating an entire crab—shell and all. It isn’t quite the same as just gnawing down on your standard crab leg (which would probably be more painful than fun) since crabs sold as soft-shell have recently molted, but the soft-shell crab burger does admittedly look a little sharp.
If you’re going to go with a ridiculous burger, you might as well go all out. Tokyo Aleworks, we’re impressed.
