Let me start out by saying I have nothing against Denny's. I've eaten there many times in my life. Back in the day, Denny's was pretty much the best place to find halfway decent breakfasts when you were traveling. And lets be honest....at two in the morning when I was young and broke and I knew my hangover was only hours away? An 'open all night' Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast fit the bill.
And let me also point out that I don't care what people say, Bacon will never be out of favor. Bacon is not a fad, bacon is not the latest foodie craze, bacon has and always will be one of the four major food groups (along with butter, salt and cheese). I've rarely found anything with bacon that I haven't liked and yes, I do own bacon lip gloss!
All that being said...run, fast and far, away from Denny's Baconalia promotion. Ick. Yuk. So not worth the buildup and a perfect waste of bacon. I actually went there the first week the promotion was out and it took me this long to get over the experience enough so that I could actually blog about it. Yuk. Ick.
I started off with the Bacon Meatloaf. This is supposed to be meatloaf with "diced bacon baked right in" and "topped with hickory ketchup and more diced bacon for an additional layer of rich smokiness". Now, I've had meatloaf before at Denny's and while it wasn't close to Mom's or even school cafeteria meatloaf, it at least looked like meatloaf. This stuff looked like it had been shoved tightly in a large juice can, cooked, pushed out and then sliced into the perfect rounds you see above (in all fairness, this is exactly how the meatloaf looks in the ads too). But this meatloaf had shiny tops and sides. Seriously, when has shiny meat ever been a good thing? But I tried it anyway. It didn't taste like bacon. Heck it didn't even taste like meatloaf. Bland as could be. Then there was the "sauce" on top that to me, seemed like congealed fat. It at least had some flavor to go with the tasteless meatloaf hockey puck. Then Denny's threw a few small pieces of bacon on top. And me, who can eat anything bacon...did not finish the dish. Yeah, it was that bad.
So I moved on to dessert. Now if you read about Denny's Maple Bacon Sundae, the description on Denny's website or look at photos of this dish, you will notice there are supposed to be layers. Lots of maple syrup on bottom, middle and top with a layer of bacon also in the middle and on top. Not what I got. There was barely a tablespoon of maple syrup throughout the entire sundae and only the bacon pieces you see scattered on top.
This didn't taste bad. Maple syrup and vanilla ice cream go well together and adding bacon gives it a nice crunch and smokey flavor. It's just that I really think it needed more maple syrup (and more bacon of course) to really make this ice cream dessert work. Again, it wasn't bad, but I wouldn't order it again (and I'm thinking I could make a much better version at home).
I might also add that I tried this at a Denny's local to me. The service was horrid. My mom had pancakes and bacon and it looked like they had cooked the bacon into nothingness. But, the coffee was actually pretty damn good. This is the second Denny's locally that has failed to wow me. Maybe I need to try a Denny's near a freeway??
But still. You so failed me Denny's, I've had bacon chocolate, bacon cupcakes, bacon donuts, bacon flavored ice cream...but this was the first time I tried something with bacon that I couldn't eat! That's just not right.