I ( didn’t ) heart Waffles

Okay, I realize so far that most of my entries have been pretty cheerleader-eque in positiveity. I like to look for the good in things and also I feel I tried places that were highly recommended.

I went to Shaker’s own “I Heart Waffles”

I was expecting something akin to Jay-Jay’s Diner from Parks and Rec or Waffallonia a fantastic little place in Pittsburgh. I was wrong.

When you walk into I Heart Waffles, its very clear what the design plan was:  White, red and black. Hearts. Find some girls who decorated for middle school dances and let them go to town. There was glittered adhered to the counter tops and a pillar had paper hearts taped to it. There was an assortment of heart shaped balloons and a heart shaped shag rug.  I don’t need fancy. I sometimes enjoy a silly theme. This was over the top and ultimately not good.

When you walk in the menu of options is on many poster sized signs hangin from the ceiling. A friendly man came up to explain the restaurant’s options to us.

He started by saying they have the regular waffles and “It is just like Menchies, you pick what flavors you want”.

To this I say, no it is nothing like Menchies. I did not get to physically pick out gummi worms or sprinkles and then take it to be weighted. THAT is like Menchies. This was just like ordering food anywhere else where you get an option.

 Anthony and I were overwhelmed by the sheer number of options and took a seat. They have paper versions of the menu to look over. There was numerous flavors and ingredient to be put on the waffle. In addition there were  15 dessert waffles and 21 waffle sandwiches.

First of all I counted at least 5 different fonts. Check out the surprisingly good website

Secondly, they trademarked a lot of things that just made me roll my eyes, such as the Pizzaffle (pizza waffle) the Donuffle (donut waffles) and the TacOMG (a taco waffle) and Infusient, which is the ingredient that is put inside your waffle.

Third, in addition to the near infinite types of waffles they have, the menu goes, inexplicitly, on and on:

You could also order wings. or an omelette. or lobster mac and cheese. A spinich salad (no other salads though). Loaded broccoli.  Tilapia and grits. smoked salmon. waffle fries. ice cream. oatmeal.  (oddly they serve no french toast or pancakes).

I decided on the Peach Cobbler Dessert waffle and  Anthony orders the Bananas Foster.

In all the descriptions and explanations that were given it never said that the dessert waffles were not the regular round waffles that pictured everywhere (which i now assume you only get if you order a design your own varietal). They were oblong and slightly bigger than a hot dog bun.

Peach Cobbler was a cinnamon spiced waffle with peaches (not fresh) whipped cream and cinnamon butter.

It was fine. I ate it. It tasted fine. But it was small and I was annoyed that it wasn’t the big Belgian waffle that I really do heart.  It was 4.99 and I was still hungry after.

Anthony’s was also a cinnamon waffle but had caramelized bananas, salted caramel glaze and pecans.

I really hope someone from this establishment reads this, because they need to know that Salted caramel should not taste like an oyster. It was practically briney.  Anthony was not pleased with his nautical banana hot dog bun. His was 5.99 and generally you have to spend a lot more than that on processed meat to get that much sodium.

Baffled. Bawaffled. Still hungry, and curious if Menchie’s is aware of this establishment claiming to have imitated their business model (without actually doing so) we left.

Maybe we just ordered the wrong waffles? For all I know 99.8% of the items on the menu are fantastic.