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August 11, 2005

The Ins & Outs of the In-N-Out Menu

It's a good thing that the nearest In-N-Out Burger is about a 45 minute drive from where I live, because otherwise, I'd be a big fat cow. I don't particularly care for fast food and I don't really find myself tempted to go to Taco Hell, Heart-Attack In The Box, Barfer King, or McDoh's Golden Arches. But, In-N-Out I, and many other relatively health conscious Californians, have remained steadfastly loyal to, despite the hidden bible quotes all over their packaging.

When someone from out of state comes to visit, we always make a voyage over the hill to an In-N-Out. Sure, we might take in San Francisco or Yosemite, but we almost always manage to hit up the big I-N-O in the process. Seeing the ultra simple menu with 3 meals, fries and drinks often results in our guests giving us some initially skeptical looks followed by very surprised moans of pleasure a few bites later.

In-N-Out represents all that is good in fast food - it's fast, it's cheap, they're friendly, they use high quality ingredients, and their stuff tastes 100x better than the other chains. When you ask for lots of ketchup, you get it (Very important to Laurie, as fries are just a vehicle for ketchup).

And did I mention that they have a secret menu? Only a really cool restaurant confident in its business model would dare to have a secret menu. Over the years, I've learned more about various items and tried them, all with delicious results. Today I thought I'd share some of them, as well as some others I have yet to try but shall work on:

Burgers
Flying Dutchman - Two patties with two slices of cheese only.
Grilled Cheese - Two slices of cheese, plus condiments, on a bun.
Veggie/Wish Burger - Condiments, on a bun.
Double Meat - 2 patties, plus condiments, on a bun.
3x3 (MxC) - M patties stacked with C slices of cheese, plus condiments, on a bun.

Condiments & Cooking Requests
Animal Style - Grilled onions, sauce, pickles, mustard fried into meat.
Protein Style - Replace the bun with a lettuce wrap.
Meat Doneness - "Medium", request "well done" or "medium-rare".
Regular Onions - warmed raw full slice of onion.
Grilled Onions - chopped, grilled onions.
Whole Grilled Onions - a whole slice of onion grilled until soft.
Raw Onions - cold raw full slice of onion.
Chopped Raw Onions - cold raw chopped onion.
Chopped Chilis - adds some mild peppers.
Extra toast - toasts the bun longer.

Fries
Cheese Fries - Fries with melted cheese on them.
Animal Fries - Fries with cheese, sauce and grilled onions.

Fry Requests
"Double-Fried" or "Well Done" - Crispier version.
"Light" - Less Cooked version.
"No Salt" - Don't salt the fries.

Drinks
Neopolitan Shake - Vanilla, Strawberry, and Chocolate Mixed Shake.
Strawklette Shake - Strawberry & Chocolate Mixed Shake.
Choco-Vanilla Swirl Shake - Chocolate & Vanilla Mixed Shake.
Rootbeer Float - Half Vanilla shake and half rootbeer soda.
Lemon-Up - Mix of lemonade and 7-Up.
Tea-ade or Arnold Palmer - Mix of Iced Tea and lemonade.
Root Beer Special - Mix of Rootbeer and Dr. Pepper.
Any Mix of Sodas - Coke & Dr. Pepper is a nice one.

Drink Requests
Extra syrup - Add Extra Chocolate or strawberry to a shake.
Large & Extra-large Shake Sizes - Uses the soda cup sizes - 1.

Check out the In-N-Out Burger website for more info. Also, Wikipedia has some rather interesting info on the chain as well.

Lastly, in college, my housemate and I attempted to perfect a home bbq'd version of an In-N-Out burger. We found that Thousand Island dressing made an excellent substitution for the special In-N-Out sauce.

Posted by sorsha at August 11, 2005 2:17 PM