International House of Pancakes
170-19 Hillside Ave., Jamaica

Cuisine: Diner

Hours: 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day

Telephone: 523-4561

Readers of this paper have had easy access to a Scandanavian breakfast cottage in a place named after a Caribbean isle for over 17 years.

Sort of.

The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) on Hillside Avenue and 170th Street, an incongruous, flower-lined tudor cottage with a sloping, three-story baby blue roof, shares a parking lot with a strip mall in one of Jamaica’s busier shopping areas.

While many people seeing the popular restaurant for the first time may give a double-take and wonder who’s building a Disney movie set in Southeast Queens, there are a lot of people who also know it to be a great place to grab a hearty breakfast in an area with few diners, or any places open before the 9 a.m. clock punching.

The important thing to understand about breakfast at IHOP is that a hefty appetite is required.

The main breakfast menu doesn’t let you choose from individual items.  Instead, a.m. diners must choose from 11 gargantuan, McDonald’s-crushing meals, from $7 to $12, that mostly feature different combinations of two eggs, two sausages, two strips of bacon, two strips of ham and two pancakes.

Variations on the theme include French toast, waffles and European-style crepe pancakes.

IHOP is best known, of course, for its pancakes, and in this department, the House delivers.  The franchise diner, which also has a presence in Rosedale, Jackson Heights, Flushing and Little Neck, serves 11 different kinds of pancakes, ranging in cost from $4.60 for a stack of buttermilk classics to up to $7 for more exotic choices like potato and chocolate chip.

For all the different kinds of batter-based-breakfast items available here, each table is equipped with four jars of syrup, constantly refilled by the staff.

The syrup jars are not the only bottomless vessels at IHOP, though.  Coffee lovers rejoice in the fact that the restaurant has “Never Empty Coffee Pot” for only $1.39.

Another popular breakfast option at IHOP is the nine kinds of omelettes, including a “Build Your Own” three-egg omelette for $6.49, with 89-cent toppings like bacon, chile salsa, black olives, cheese and mushrooms.

For those who have “Never Empty” stomachs to match their coffee, IHOP also offers a complete lunch and dinner menu.

There are 16 sandwiches, from $5.50 to $8 including fries, onion rings, a soup or a salad. There are also six burgers, from about $6 to $8, the most popular of which is the Sourdough Bacon Burger Melt.

There are 15 dinner entrees, ranging from $9 to $14, that cover the typical continental diner spectrum of choices.  The most popular items here are the Country Fried Steak ($8.99) and the T Bone Steak ($11.99).

For the most voracious of appetites, five kinds of dessert are also available.  The most popular, the $5 Apple Crisp, features a hot apple turnover pastry with two scoops of ice cream on top.

—Shams Tarek