As an east coaster, In n Out held a mythical place in my mind. Its better than any chain burger other than Shake Shack. A few weeks ago I got the chance to do a taste test. I had Shake Shack at JFK before a west bound flight. When I arrived, before I headed to my hotel I went to In n Out. Got my usual order, a double double animal style with extra grilled onions. Both were good, but honestly I thought SS was better.
Cafe Rio on the other hand blows away Chipotle and Qdoba. If they ever expand eastward, I will be in line to buy a franchise.
I can’t because I’ve never been to Chipolte, but my B-I-L raves about the place since he eats there many, many times a week. This is the same person whose Thanksgiving celebrations is catered by Safeway stores.
Oh, those grilled onions on a double cheese at In 'n Out! Sigh. We collected theirt-shirts when we live in Cali. We don’t have many quality fast food eateries here in the Rocky mountain west. Then again, I really am a food snob.
I usually get the patty melt from Freddy’s—two steakburger patties on rye bread with grilled onions and swiss cheese. Freddy’s also has probably my favorite fast food onion rings.
My cousin, generally a plain eater who is afraid to try eggplant, who is from the burbs of Pittsburgh but has been living in small town Ohio since she got married in the 1980s, loves Chipotle. It surprised me that she posted about Chipotle, and I’m curious about what she orders and how she orders it.
I don’t agree with her conclusions.
Interesting to note that she’s the same age as my son, born in '93, so her perceptions are more of the target audience of these establishments.
Frozen food=fast food
Alcohol=fast casual
… and drive thrus after midnight?
A vastly different world than the one I live in.
Never tried that; thanks. I always get the grilled onions on the burgers since the patties tend to be pretty dry.
I tried to go once during the pandemic. It’s right on the highway as you by-pass a suburb, but the whole area had lost power and everything was closed. So it’s been better than 5 years since I’ve been.
Now I’m craving both a trip to Culver’s and Freddy’s.
Yeah, me too. Kinda. I was grateful the article was pretty short; I’ll say that for it . I do think there are other parameters that could be considered or used to draw a line but life’s too short to worry about it.
I may not be able to define the difference between fast food and fast casual precisely and conclusively… but I know it when I see it
Promise. Just one last set of photos for Korean fried chicken sandwich. These are from the Korean franchise BB.Q. (stands for Best of Best Quality).
Here are a few photos of the BB.Q. fried chicken sandwich.
Compared to Bonchon chicken sliders, the BB.Q chicken sandwich is a full size sandwich, even larger than the Popeye chicken sandwich or Chic-fil-A sandwich by a good margin. There is a crispy breaded outer layer, but thin compared Bonchon ones. I thnk the Bonchon sliders are more about the thick breaded layer (from double frying), whereas the BB.Q one focuses more on the pretty thick juicy chicken meat.
The Austin In n Out approximation, P. Terry’s, is good. In n Out is not much like it was in the '60s, when each basket of fries was toweled off on a clean, white towel, and the patties were larger and a bit more juicy.
There’s an InO about 5 miles from me but I haven’t been. Been there close to 2 years now, I guess. I’ve bypassed some other new arrivals in town, too, or sampled once and said No Thanks. Haven’t been to Shake Shack and 2 tries at Smash Burger was enough. I mostly fix burgers and burger cravings at home and fix-em very simply dressed whereas I used to always order all-the-way and more.
Whataburger isn’t what it was in the 80s/90s, even. They dropped the ‘we don’t start until you tell us to’ approach and moved to touting all the different ways you can particularize your order.
Some franchisees combined KFC and A & W, at least they had in Montana. No KFC here that I know of anymore. I haven’t seen A &W since I haven’t driven more than 15 miles from home since the pandemic shuttered every thing. Chick fil-A moved in and I think it meets the needs of the fried chicken fans. BITD in Oakland we had Kwik Way at the lake (aka ‘grease burger’) and there was also the 1/4 lb Burger chain. For them who didn’t do the fast food thing, Barney’s on Piedmont Ave served great burger fare. No quality burger chains in the fast growing state of Montana. It used to be the mt (empty) state.
This is the Chicken Low Priest, a fried chicken sandwich from a somewhat upscale chain called Burgers Priest in Ontario.
This was the time I tried their fried chicken sandwich. Burgers Priest only had hamburgers and a cheese stuffed portobello mushroom sandwich the fist at 10 years they were in business. They added hot dogs maybe 5 years ago, and I think the chicken was added at some point over the past 3 years.
This sandwich looked better than it tasted. I went with the flow, with the toppings that they put on this sandwich automatically. No idea why they put mustard on this sandwich. Not a fan lol.
The chicken was juicy, but the sandwich wasn’t tasty. This was the worst tasting fried chicken sandwich I’ve ever had, I think, despite the bun being a nice bun, and the chicken being juicy and cooked perfectly. The breading and condiments wrecked it for me.
This is the worst review I’ve given any restaurant food online in the past 10 years. (The burgers have always been good at the same place)
I think that this small Canadian chain decided to put their secret sauce that goes on their American -style burgers on their chicken.
What I didn’t know until yesterday, was that their secret sauce seems to be a squirt of mayo and a squirt of mustard.
I think when I’ve ordered their burgers I’ve ordered them with pickles, without secret sauce.
There’s also the possibility that the cook accidentally put mustard on my sandwich and it isn’t part of the standard order. Not spending another $9 Cdn to find out lol.
It’s awful.
It tasted so bad I worried my taste buds were off due to Covid, and I tested myself last night. Which showed a negative result. Coffee was still tasting like coffee, I could still smell fabric softener, and my dinner tasted normal, so it was just a bad-tasting chicken sandwich.
. I do think there are other parameters that could be considered or used to draw a line but life’s too short to worry about it.
