In-N-Out Burger: Eh, I'm not convinced
September 09, 2008
Here on the east coast, we don't have In-N-Out burger. So we discuss it on food blogs and Chowhound poetically, fantasizing, lusting,... remembering. I'm guilty of the same. I had my first (and until recently, only) In-N-Out experience about 4 years ago in Las Vegas. You know what Las Vegas is. I don't have to link to Wikipedia.
<remembering fondly>Twas a hung-over afternoon in Vegas, and I knew there was only one thing to do: call a taxi and have the driver bring me to In-N-Out burger. About an hour and 50 dollars later, I devoured a double in my hotel room, thinking it was pretty gosh darned good.</remembering fondly>
Fast forward a few years and I remember it as one of the best burgers in my life. Complaining that we don't have one around here.
Fast forward a few weeks ago, and I found myself driving past an In-N-Out just north of San Francisco. The one that I've passed many times always saying "I gotta stop there and get that great burger again! Woo-hoo!" Usually, though, this is on the way up to Sonoma or Napa, and, well, you know there's better food to be eaten there.
But the draw is still powerful, so powerful that it's the first thing I think of when planning a trip to San Francisco. So powerful it is, and so convincing I finally was, that I talked my wife into stopping at In-N-Out on the way up to Sonoma on our last trip. Well, as the queen pointed out, that particular visit was "more in than out". Two o'clock in the afternoon is apparently lunch time in them parts. And considering it was about 5 pm for me, coming off of that plane, well for eff's sake I was hungry. We were number 32 when we were rung up, and they were calling 91. Oh boy. It's a good thing the number system goes to 100, rather than 1000.
After about 1/2 hour later, which is pretty much 30 minutes that we could have spent eating at the El Dorado Kitchen, we got those burgers. They looked really good, but I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. The bun almost seemed stale. With that kind of turnover? The sauce seemed like the typical mixture of ketchup and mayo, and, did I detect any burger meat on that burger? A couple of ounces maybe?
Pretty, though, dontcha think?
Disclaimer: Since I've been considering complaining about the glut of over-processed unreal looking photos on food blogs and in traditional media, I should point out that these were not processed at all (OK, I brightened them a *tad*). The white in the background is the paper they came wrapped in, and they were taken hastily with macro mode after shoving the camera into the sandwich which about 3 seconds later didn't exist.
Anyway, we'll skip it next time and head right to the El Dorado Kitchen, for some excellent tomatoes and other goodies.