In And Out

One thing that I like to do while traveling is visit fad fast food places that aren't available in the Sota. It's weird because I almost never eat fast food at home, but am always finding places out of town that I'm dying to try.

This fall, on our Grand Canyon/Vegas vacation, I found out that we would be driving through a city in Arizona that had an In-N-Out Burger. I was so excited. In-N-Out Burger is pretty heavily hyped and I had even heard that it was the "best fast food place." I asked my SoCal friend if In-N-Out was worth the hype and she said "Absolutely, you will love it."

Is it crazy that I did not love it? First of all, the line situation drove me nuts. When we walked into the restaurant, there was no formal line, just a bunch of people standing around staring at the menu on the wall like assholes. I asked a couple of people if they were in line and they said yes, so I got behind them. Then an old couple came in and was like "I can't see the menu from back here", so they stepped in front of me and then when the cashier asked who was next, they just walked up to her LIKE THEY OWNED THE PLACE. I was livid. I do not take breeches of line queues lightly and it always makes me mad when cashiers know that people are cutting and do nothing about it.

Okay, but this really doesn't have anything to do with the food. The menu is very simple: hamburger, cheeseburger, double-double, french fries, soda. Both Mike and I got the cheeseburger and a basket of fries. The fries were awesome, but fried potatoes are often awesome. I was really excited about the burger until I realized that the "special sauce" contained chopped pickles.

Can we talk about pickles for a minute. I hate pickles. Hate, hate, HATE them. I can't explain in writing how strongly I feel in my hate for pickles. If I wanted pickles on my burger, I would've asked for pickles. The fine people at In-N-Out, however, have given me no choice. I am having pickles on my burger. I tried to scrape as much of the special sauce off as I could, but it was mixed into the lettuce and the pickle flavor had seeped into the bun. Gross. My burger was ruined.

The other thing that struck me about In-N-Out was how much it was not better than any other fast food restaurant. The fries were decent, but probably not better than McDonald's and the burger was...just a burger. The only different thing about it was the special sauce, which was filled with pickles. Pickles do not a special sauce make.

If you are finding yourself on the west coast, don't bother with this chain. Unless of course you're one of those "pickle eaters."