Holy shit. We don't even have Hardee's out here anymore.
"When consumers go to other fast-food places they feel like they've got to buy two of their breakfast sandwiches or burritos to fill up."
No.
This photo violates community standards.
"When consumers go to other fast-food places they feel like they've got to buy two of their breakfast sandwiches or burritos to fill up."
Those obesity rates in the South are a real mystery.
Apo's going to make me eat a bad thing at lunchtime. A bad delicious thing.
Is that white goo the gravy?
Or is it infected?
I cannot decide whether that picture looks vile or delicious or both.
Or is it infected?
So wrong.
I'd totally try that burrito minus the gravy.
Is that white goo the gravy?
Y'all never seen country gravy? Eat more chicken-fried steak and you'll learn the deliciousness of eerily white gravy with tiny brown chunks/flecks.
10: The gravy is the glue that ties the whole thing together, gswift.
It doesn't sound nearly as down-home if you call it by its proper name, bechamel sauce. Lame bechamel sauce, but nonetheless.
That is sausage gravy or as it's sometimes called "sawmill" gravy. My father cannot cook worth a good goddamn except to make sawmill gravy and his is perfect. I'd normally say something snide here about fast food but let's face it, gravy is fat and water and flower and sausage and I'm pretty sure Hardee's can manage that.
s/flower/flour. It's early.
The proper name is Lamebechemal sauce.
The Country Breakfast Burrito is generally available for $2.69
Mine cost $2.79. I declare shenanigans!
I think the Diet Mountain Dew, assuming it was 64 ounces or more, must be like a home angioplasty. Otherwise you'd be dead by now.
Apo, I envy you. Why are there no decent fast food places around here? No Hardees, no White Castle, very few Taco Bell. It's difficult to find a satisfying meal.
That's one of the things I miss the most about the South: drive-throughs, countless in number, lining both sides of every major road for as far as the eye can see.
I think that pictures looks like a totally kick ass food product, but I worry that it won't be so visually appealing in real life. Regardless, what a perfect way to follow up int he dentist appt. My gums are always a little raw after that and I imagine the whit goo gravy to be like a heavenly salve.
This concept of "filling up": when did commercials start insisting that the job of every meal is to "fill" you "up"? I eat to "fullness" maybe once every two weeks if I go for Chinese food. And people who eat to fill themselves up are chasing a moving target, because it takes more to do it each time.
Did this start with those fucking "Hungry Man" frozen dinner commercials? The packages advertise "A full pound and a half of FOOD." Flavor is meaningless, but here's a pound and a half of stuff you could shove in your maw.
That said, if I were the me I was when I was 10, raised on hash browns, gravy and biscuits, and bacon, that thing would look mighty delicious.
I dislike sausage. If they had an all bacon version, the burrito would be perfect. But I cannot understand people who look at the picture and think "Gross."
White gravy is soooo much better than brown gravy.
I miss Hardees, but that burrito thing looks pretty gross, man.
On the other hand, it's a nice balance to Ogged's anorexia. Maybe we should stage an intervention and force feed him Hardees.
23: This is simply false.
20, 21, 22: You know, I like (and frequently eat) all the components of that. (Well, sausage gravy is tourism for me -- I eat it if I'm someplace where it happens to be likely.) But wrapping a couple of pounds of them up into a burrito still looks gross.
25: I think out there, it's all Carls Jr., right?
I just had a two-egg omelette with broccolini, tomato, scallions, and Sao Jorge cheese with multigrain flatbread crackers. Mmm.
I think out there, it's all Carls Jr., right?
Carl's isn't that great. In n Out though is awesome. Mmmmmm, 4x4.
3: No, this photo violates community standards. (SFW; may not be safe for your polluted mind)
I did a freelance project last year where I had to research (among other things) major fast food chains, and I developed a deep-seated desire for Carl's Jr., although I've never even been anywhere near one of their restaurants.
There was a time in my life when I had food fantasies more often than sexual fantasies. I don't know if anyone here has read CS Lewis's Mere Christianity, but he has this kind of bitchy part in there about how, yes, sexual desire is healthy in itself, just like the desire to eat -- but you don't see a food equivalent to a strip-tease, which shows that modernity has corrupted &c. Well, now we do have the food equivalent to a strip-tease, and I for one like it.
For instance, I have indeed eaten Wendy's fabled Baconator.
Carl's isn't that great.
Fucking apostate. The Western is maybe the single most important American culinary contribution.
31: Wow, that's disgusting. Not that I was ever going to order this burrito, but now there's really no chance.
920 calories. Man, that's fantastic. Almost a thousand calories for breakfast. New marketing ploy-- Hardees: open early for Ramadan.
Maybe we should stage an intervention and force feed him Hardees.
I eat stuff like this pretty regularly; more often than most of you, I'd guess.
31 is hilarious.
Carl's Jr., otoh, is crap. It used to be good; I have no idea what happened, but, yuck.
A place in St Louis served huge brain sandwiches. With mayo, and a wisp of iceberg lettuce, on Wonder bread. Mmmm-mmm, those were good.
37: Yeah, and then you go exercise frantically, calculating your caloric intake and output in your brain while you cry into the pool water about whether or not you'll be able to fit into your low-rise jeans.
39: I think this has mostly died out in St. Louis - mad cow disease and all.
Is that white goo the gravy?
New mouseover text?
I think this is pretty straight-up of Hardees. Now poor people can get their entire caloric intake for $5.38 a day.
White gravy is soooo much better than brown gravy.
Red-eye gravy. Mmm. Ham drippings and black coffee. Get your morning's requirement of caffeine and grease!
That picture does look almost appetizing. But I probably still wouldn't eat one on a bet.
I washed it all down with a Diet Mountain Dew.
I would've expected nothing less.
39: But isn't it scary with all the zombies hanging out there?
The farm family I grew up next to routinely ate bacon, brains, and eggs for breakfast.
The In 'n' Out empire and the Kum 'n' Go empire are both expanding. They seem likely to meet in SW Colorado sometime in the next couple of years. Hopefull they will have the good sense to build next to one another.
Squirrel brain omelettes spread mad squirrel disease. True fact.
Also, the spelchek here does not recognize any spelling of "omelettes".
Carl's Jr. has been shit since Carl Karcher died. I heard him speak once about quality control. He was very envious of the Snyders (owners of In N Out) and stated (paraphrase) that he had twenty seven menu items while they had four and that they kicked his ass in every market. Call it core competencies.
Red-eye gravy.
Red-eye gravy is the bomb. Also cures constipation, like, instantly.
That's an exciting and different meaning of "the bomb," then.
Red-eye gravy is the bomb. Also cures constipation
Redundant.
I had a funny thing happen with Hardee's breakfast and my cholesterol test last year. Hardee's was the only thing open at 5am when I was heading in to teach last year, and I forgot I wasn't supposed to eat before a free cholesterol test at work that day. The nurses pulled me aside and sat me down like I was about to die. They never asked me if I ate that morning.
When my cholesterol later checked out OK (well, borderline), my doctor kept teasing me about 'the Hardee's incident'.
Kum 'n' Go empire
Those were all over Iowa last summer when I was riding my bike there. I just couldn't stop thinking it was obscene.
That's one of the things I miss the most about the South: drive-throughs, countless in number, lining both sides of every major road for as far as the eye can see.
I just don't understand the fascination. There are drive-throughs & fast food all over around here, bu you can get much, much better food nearly as cheap everywhere too.
9: I cannot decide whether that picture looks vile or delicious or both.
RM articulates the Universal Paradox of Pornography. The Supreme Court should take note.
57: I can't define it, but I know it when I taste it.
B, 40 was perfect.
And there are some good items, still, at Carl's Jr. Not many, but a few.
It was better, back when. My friends and I would kidnap the big portraits they had of Karcher. Sometimes it was difficult.
We had three.
very few Taco Bell
Shouldn't that be "very few Tacos Bell"?
can the posture of being totally baffled by the appeal of fast food please be banned from threads that are explicitly abotu fast food,, at the very least?
55: last summer when I was riding my bike there
Ragbrai?
I just couldn't stop thinking it was obscene.
It's more obscene if you call it "Ejaculate 'N' Evacuate."
"Honey, I'm headed to the Jizz 'n Poo, want anything?"
63: I meant that in a more specific way. Here particularly you can't swing a cat without hitting a fast food place, but you'll also hit three other restraunts, two of which will be near fast food costs. So while I understand the appeal of fast food places generically, I didn't understand the comment about the south --- here you have a ton of cheap food options, so you really are trading off time for quality, not so much money. Which makes me think the appeal is less apparent here, rather than more (which is what I was responding to).
Or maybe the original post was about the actual driving through?
65: Yeah, grab me a burger, but I don't want any of that special sauce on it.
43: Now poor people can get their entire caloric intake for $5.38 a day.
Huge problem for our country - all thanks to CHEAP subsidized corn - too bad horrible (nutritionally, not taste wise) food like this is all poor people can buy.
You'll should check out this new movie - King Corn - www.kingcorn.net - entertaining look at our woeful food system.
It is things like this that make me want to take all my meals in bar or pill form, like the captain of an ichthyoform spaceship on the cover of Surprising Slide-Rule Science Fiction in 1957. An idiosyncratic response, I know.
Even now, I occasionally recoil from the smell and taste of hot animal fat, it summoning up clammy memories of a summer afternoon a few years ago spent slaughtering and "processing" a large sheep using obsidian blades, arms gloved to the elbow in grey, grassy, reeking fat. This also explains why the blogosphere's fondness for bacon makes me roll my eyes.
Also, gluttony is a sin.
66: The original comment was about the lack of pornographic food. I don't know where exactly you live, but I can stand on my front porch swinging dozens of cats without coming close to hitting a real fast food restaurant. There are some sandwich shops and delis and things like that, which will serve me food cheap and fast, but they don't have 920 calorie sausage gravy burritos, or Baconators, or any of the other greasy obscenities I want to put inside my body.
gluttony is a sin
As are most enjoyable things.
greasy obscenities I want to put inside my body.
ATM.
70: Ok, yeah then I don't understand this. I can understand the appeal of fast food because it's fast, and I can understand the appeal of it being cheap, but that's about it. If I can get something made fresh for roughly the same money and roughly the same time, there is no way I'm going for the highly processed. It isn't even a contest...
71: http://www.boss-inc.com/08philosophy.html
gluttony is a sin
Only if you've got some uptight god who hates you.
And gluttony slows you down and keeps you from doing really bad stuff, so it should probably be classed with the virtues.
Fast food restaurants are open late and are at high-traffic locations, so it's an option for the late-night outdoor hungries. After enough years of this, cultural associations accrue; people who snicker at Hardees will for example go to Harold's Chicken shack when drunk.
The Japanese do this much better than we do-- late night food is not fancy, but not disgusting. Their breakfast choices are unspeakable, though.
On the other hand, really bad stuff done slowly is worse than really bad stuff done quickly.
When I first looked at that picture I thought the gravy was Ranch dressing. I suspect that one day it will be.
uptight god who hates you
Look who's running things down here. This explanation actually works pretty well.
There are some sandwich shops and delis and things like that, which will serve me food cheap and fast, but they don't have 920 calorie sausage gravy burritos, or Baconators, or any of the other greasy obscenities I want to put inside my body.
There is -- or at least used to be -- a really excellent BBQ joint in your neighborhood. That doesn't count? You're also just about walking distance to a really, really downmarket Popeye's Fried Chicken and (and!) another BBQ joint, this one cheap and nasty.
Brock, you need to take a field trip up Rt. 1.
Man, I love Popeye's. They're like if KFC were actually good.
And apostropher reveals previously unexpected limits.
Damnit, this was totally the wrong thread to read before realizing that it's lunchtime.
83: Hilltop Steakhouse & minigolf meetup!
Ranch dressing on scrambled eggs is the wrong tang. Tartar sauce might be okay, though. Or Thousand Island dressing.
"Gluttony is a sin" was a joke, but other sorts of conspicuous, concupiscent consumption come in for a certain amount of suspicion and condemnation hereabouts: e.g., the decadence of the private lap pool, the real estate arcana of the bourgeoisie, the European car.
At my school, there is a pub. At this pub, there is a deep fryer. There are also many five gallon tubs of ranch dressing. These two food-service staples are under the purview of inevitably drunk college students. You would not believe what people will put ranch dressing on.
90: yes, eating one of these burritos in a BMW lap pool while contemplating your most recent home equity loan would be tacky. Noted.
You would not believe what people will put ranch dressing on.
More easily applied than yogurt, certainly
"I don't eat fast food" is just a variant of "I don't even own a TV."
Scrambled eggs with leftover pasta and either pickapeppa sauce, worcestershire sauce, or salsa picante.
80: So did I. And I agree with 85; ranch dressing, generally, is nasty.
who needs a tv when you can get everything worth watching on DVD's these days?
But seriously, it's not like there is anything inherently wrong with either of those. Saying `i don't eat fast food', isn't at all the same thing as saying `you shouldn't eat fast food'. Same thing with TV, or whatever.
One of these days I'm going to go all Solomon Kane, World's Baddest Puritan, on this crowd.
(For those not familiar with the works of Robert E. Howard, the Solomon Kane stories are really fun: "It has fallen upon me, now and again in my sojourns through the world, to ease various evil men of their lives....")
Ragbrai?
yep.
Fast food: I tried to avoid chains for a while, but then in some out of the way corners I realized why fast food took off: in many places reliably acceptable food was a step up from what was there.
I'm still pretty into good hole in the walls, though. Oddly enough, so's everybody. Gourmet magazine just reviewed a bunch of taquerias in Durham this month.
Country Breakfast Burrito and a Bloody Mary: Breakfast of Champions
100: With a menthol cigarette for dessert.
the European car
You'll pry my Saab from my cold, dead hands.
Does it come with a defibrillator?
Oxycontin chaser.
Save room for lunch, TJ.
Oxycontin chaser.
Save room for lunch, TJ.
You'd be amazed how well that stuff dissolves in a fifth of JD.
Saying `i don't eat fast food', isn't at all the same thing as saying `you shouldn't eat fast food'. Same thing with TV, or whatever.
Isn't *necessarily*. In practice, though, it usually is.
I love fast food but tend to avoid it because most of it makes me feel pretty sick after I'm done eating. Subway and Potbelly are the only franchises I patronize with any regularity. But sometimes the temptation is too strong and I'll mortgage the next few hours' worth of gastrointestinal comfort for some delicious Taco Bell.
DC's not a great place for franchise fast food, though. For one thing, a surprising number of companies don't bother doing business here: you only get 600,000 potential customers for doing a state's worth of paperwork. Those that do exist tend to be pretty badly run. Remove consistency, add filth, and you've eliminated all the reasons that people might go to chains instead of more interesting places like Ben's or the various jumbo slice purveyors.
107: well yeah, I thought I allowed for that. But I don't think `usually' is necessarily true. There's both sample bias and a maturity thing to factor in there. If you meet a 17 year old who doesn't eat fast food or whatch tv or wear leather or whatever, they are likely to be strident about it. I suspect you can meet 30 year olds who don't watch TV by choice and just never find that out; it's not something that they are interested in talking about. On the other hand, some people are just evangelical about whatever, but those are the ones you actually hear from, so it's plausible that this distorts things by associationg `no TV' with `douchebag' in your personal experience.
99: I can totally see this being a locational thing (which is what I was originally on about). FF is a big step down from a lot of cheap local stuff here, so that's different.
makes me feel pretty sick after I'm done eating
You have to build your tolerance to it. My main reaction to Supersize Me was "You fucking amateur."
I mean, I'm certain I'd throw up and feel awful if I tried to run a marathon tomorrow, after not running more than twenty steps at once since the turn of the century. I'd probably carb load with a couple of Country Breakfast Burritos first, though, so that would help.
But lw, Harold's is really good. Yum.
The (ok, one) reason that picture looks gross is its hyperdetailed fakeness. A picture of a real instance of the burrito would probably be more appetizing.
You know something else I don't understand? Why asian-style fast-food, i.e. noodle shops, haven't taken off here. Familiarity and all that, but it isn't like we haven't totally absorbed `chinese' style stuff into the food-court. Superficially, noodle bowls are a much more obvious choice for fast food. Burgers are terrible at this level, because everything requires difficult handling over long distances, and let's face it --- most of the bread sucks. A huge amount of industry effort has been spent on minimizing these costs, but there is a lot of unavoidable infrastructure. Much of what goes into a noodle bowl is pretty bulletproof though, so storage and transport become really cheap.
It's not like it would have to be healthy.
Noodles are wet and two-handed -- hard to eat in a car. Any successful American fast food must be edible at 70 mph.
111: food photography in the fast food industry is an interesting fiction, sure. Usually the real thing doesn't look that great though.
For decent food porn you need those full size full color cookbooks. Not that you'll actually be able to reproduce anything that looks that good, but damn ...
113: huh; that's probably got something to do with it. Half the fast food out there isn't really edible at 70mph though, unless you are perfectly willing to have it all over your lap.
111: 'hyperdetailed' s/b 'hyperdilated'
Being vegetarian for 8 years mostly broke me of fast food. I'll get In n Out or Taco Bell maybe once every couple of months. (And only veg stuff at Taco Bell, because of the meat hose. Shiver.) It's partly about not wanting to feel ill and partly about the opportunity cost.
One of these days, though, I will probably end up at Jack in the Box (the closest of the many fast-food outlets in the garden paradise that is El Suburb), because it'll be late and I'll be starving and driving the extra few minutes to finally try Nations will seem like too much work and also a bothersome level of unfamiliarity, and I expect that I will deeply regret it.
A picture of a real instance of the burrito would probably be more appetizing.
You can't possibly believe this.
*sigh* No Hardees up in Seattle...hardly a Carl's Jr. to be found either.
Guess I'll have to stock up on junk food when I come home for winter break. That and BBQ.
My meat hose brings all the girls to the yard
And they're like, it's better than yours.
I'm baffled by the last comment on that page, where someone says they can't eat at Taco Bell because "it's too spicy" for her.
112: They're not portable enough. Even with modern product-of-1000-hours-of-engineering containers, you can't just dump noodles in a bag; you have to be careful. And getting it out and eating it is more of a production, per 113.
Maybe if we had more noodle _bars_, holes-in-the-wall like in Asia, people would get used to dropping in for them that way.
Jack in the Box was owned by Purina until 1985, and then they had that e.coli thing in 1993. Fear the fast food chain whose the production value goes down after they're sold by a pet food company.
In general I do not eat fast food. There are exceptions, though. Wendy's chicken sandwiches occasionally win my dollar, and Chik-Fil-A and Arby's are both just absurdly delicious. Hardee's always makes me feel fat and bloated and gross, and even the places I like I tend to avoid because I am a creature of habit and those are habits I do not want.
121: The components are far more portable and less perishable than a lot of the components of current fast food. I'm not thinking about supermarket ramen containers, but the real thing. Like you said, the noodle bars or whatever. Then the issue is large-scale logistics, which should be a win over burger places, cost-wise.
The actual eating in a car part slipped my mind.
119: See, one of the things I miss about Seattle is the unavailability of fast food (though it took some getting used to, and there were days...). Instead, there's Taco Del Mar all over the place, and Kidd Valley, which, YUM.
And if you're desperate, there's always Dick's.
The actual eating in a car part slipped my mind.
That's the entire point of the enterprise. That, and being able to order and get your food without getting out of your car.
And if you're desperate, there's always Dick's.
Extraneous apostrophe. And there's no need to capitalize it.
Instead, there's Taco Del Mar all over the place
Tacos aren't fast food?
I really need to get me some Chick-Fil-A. I've been wanting to try it for a long time, but the concept of going out of my way to get fast food (which I would have to do) always makes me feel a bit silly.
menthol cigarette
Lemma: menthol cigs are a reliable class marker in the US today. Newports are highest menthol.
126: yeah, i know. I don't do this, ever, so I forgot how many people do. Noodles would be messier than some (but not all) of what's out there already.
129: Chik-Fil-A is excellent. Be aware if you're going out of your way that they're all closed on Sundays.
And if you're desperate, there's always Dick's.
I have yet to go by there (it's always too crowded and I'm too hungry to wait. Also, there's a sushi restaurant across the street); do they have curly fries?
This whole thread makes my "Healthy Choice" lunch look wholly unappetizing.
128: TDM doesn't have a drive through, and lacks the necessary grease. Also, as you probably actually know (don't you?), TDM mostly does burritos.
129/132 I'm not sure, but I think there are 3 on my way to work (5 miles)
Dicks does not have curly fries. They have greasy fries. They're really not bad. And they're pretty quick, even if there's a line.
Noodles would be messier than some (but not all) of what's out there already.
Dude, they'd be impossible. Burgers can be messy, but you can eat them with one hand and if you spread the paper over your lap, it helps a lot. Paper won't protect you from spilled hot soup.
Chick Fil A is an experience you have to try, if only to be able to say that you don't understand what all the fuss is.
Noodles In a Tube! Squeezable Beef Bowl MMm!
Don't any of you bastards steal that, now.
Chick Fil A fast food is an experience you have to try, if only to be able to say that you don't understand what all the fuss is.
138: Toobles. The .com is available.
I keep on meaning to try the Chick-Fil-A, mostly because I've hardly ever had a grilled chicken sandwich that didn't suck (grilled chicken breasts? Dry. Hard.), and it seems so unlikely that it should be as good as people say.
138 is funny, but I bet you could totally do it, especially as the kids who are now used to yogurt-in-a-tube grow up.
Chick-Fil-A is fried, not grilled. Very moist, also.
Reyner Banham's defense of hamburgers and fries in Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies was that you could eat it with one hand.
I keep on meaning to try the Chick-Fil-A
But the one people always go on about is the fried chicken, not the grilled one.
144: Yogurt+sugar+guar gum+food coloring packaged in a squeezable tube. Completely gross.
Chik-fil-pwned by 143.
Last time I was in Atlanta, I saw -- on three separate occasions -- cops directing the traffic to maximize the efficiency of a Chik-Fil-A drive-through line. I presume they got lunch for free.
What is yogurt-in-a-tube?
This may be the most self-evident question posed here so far this year.
Chick-Fil-A is fried, not grilled. Very moist, greasy also.
Actually, I bet you could do the noodle thing (or at least, soup) if you put it in to-go type coffee cups with a larger mouth opening and more air space at the top of the cup.
You could repurpose a nose flute to automatically shoot noodles into your nostril. Oh, sweet 7th grade irony!
152: Yes, I was pointing that out, dummy.
151: This is what Campbell's does with the "Soup at Hand" product line, which are car-cupholder-sized, have a sipping lid, and are mostly-pureed so that you can get it all through the sipping lid. Slurping noodles out of such a thing might be a little weird, but probably not impossible.
Wow. And here I've been complaining about the pectin in regular yogurt. Little did I know!
155: Yeah; the problem with Asian noodles is they're long, but hey, you have to make some sacrifices if you want to enter the big fast food market.
148. Yogurt+sugar+guar gum+food coloring packaged in a squeezable tube. Completely gross.
Freeze it and serve it as dessert, instead of a getin thecarwearelateforschool breakfast.
getin thecarwearelateforschool breakfast
The fact that this is a universal experience is so fucking sad.
Not for us urbanites. We have the "Walk faster, you little bastards!" routine.
Like a lot of things, the idea of fast food appeals to me more than the actually existing fast food chains. Sonic's the only fast food franchise that I really like--mostly for the tater tots and lime slushies. Arby's is ok. Wendy's is good enough for road food. Mostly, though, there are enough little Mom-and-Pop hole-in-the-wall restaurants where I live to make the idea of going to a fast food joint pretty pointless.
(I do have fond memories of eating Hardee's hot dogs. Do they still serve those? And Star Wars glasses. Until a few years ago, you could still find entire runs of those glasses at my mom and dad's house.)
even the places I like I tend to avoid because I am a creature of habit and those are habits I do not want.
Yeah, this is really it.
This is why (some) people say "I don't eat fast food," rather than "I won't eat fast food": like, dudes, go ahead and do what you want, me, I am weak, WEAK.
159. The fact that this is a universal experience is so fucking sad.
I blame the teacher's unions. Seriously though, didn't we cover this on another thread?
159/160 demonstrates the great urban/suburban split.
Sonic's the only fast food franchise that I really like--mostly for the tater tots and lime slushies.
YES!!!
Hardee's does still serve hot dogs.
Like a lot of things, the idea of fast food appeals to me more than the actually existing fast food chains.
There is non-chain fast food, much of it worthy.
little bastards
What's the boundary? Stinker is OK. You're acting like a little jerk is better than you are a little jerk.
164: Nah. I did the "walk faster, dammit" thing last year; this year, PK's in a different school.
I want to buy one of the two houses for sale right across from the school so I can make it a "get your ass over there now" routine.
helpful, thanks. I was hoping for just tolerable rather than not.
170, I think, gets it right.
Also it made me do that startled laugh thing.
just tolerable
I use "little shit" pretty often.
Sonic's the only fast food franchise that I really like--mostly for the tater tots and lime slushies.
In-N-Out FTW.
169. "get your ass over there now"
We live one block from my daughter's school. She is pushed out the door @ 7:58 am chomping a piece of toast with peanut butter, ducking in to class as the bell rings. She has even been tardy, once.
175: Whereas we get letters from the district every semester telling me that PK has been tardy too often and is in danger of being classed as a "truant" because I really try not to do that to him.
In other words, I AM THE SUPERIOR PARENT.
Also, I fucking hate rushing in the morning, ugh.
I switch languages when I get emphatic, "stinker" is worse than "shit". It's made several relatives ask pointed questions.
170. What's the boundary
After the whole Alec Baldwin thing I will call my daughter a vile pig, and she will call me the second worst dad in the world (Alec being the worst). In jest, of course.
Sorry, 178 was me. And B, I would never challenge you to a parenting duel. I know my limitations.
SCHIP defeated! Thank you Michelle Malkin, thank you from the bottom of my sick baby's defective heart.
181: Can I borrow that for a post title?
I'm with B: I don't understand Chik-Fil-A fandom. It's just fried chicken without the crispiness. The waffle fries are pretty good, but Arby's is the only chain with a fry upon which the entire franchise can rest.
The (ok, one) reason that picture looks gross
is that the gravy looks like it's about to crawl out of the burrito and become the kind of sentient blob that has to be taken out with a rail gun after it's absorbed a medium sized city.
Listen, people, the point isn't your irrational and probably immoral hating on Chik-Fil-A. The point is that Chik-Fil-A is awesome and Sifu should go get a chicken sandwich and some Polynesian Sauce to put on it. It isn't just tasty, it's multi-cultural.
Sonic's the only fast food franchise that I really like-- mostly for the tater tots and lime slushies.
OH HELL YES.
Sonic tormented me all! summer! with commercials for their cherry limeade. Am I going to drive out to Stockton for a cherry limeade? No, I fucking well will not. Thanks a BUNCH, Sonic.
Well, I'll be driving past one in the next couple of days. I'll think about it, although the Polynesian sauce thing has me suspicious; this ain't of those awful Hawaiian BBQ joints people are always trying to trick me into going to, right?
I don't know from Polynesian sauce. I cover a Chik-Fil-A sandwich with lovely, lovely mayonnaise.
186: Oh right, there's a Sonic in Stockton! Good, a reason to spend time there, which will make my father happy.
lovely, lovely mayonnaise.
Menthol smoker? Russian? some other category? Mayo only goes with fries.
Sifu, if you're a first-timer, I highly recommend you get one container of each of their four proprietary sauces, and put a different one on each quarter of your sandwich. (Unless you're going to get four sandwiches, which might actually be the preferred approach.) You'll never know which one you love best until you try them all.
What's awesome with fries is tartar sauce.
Also, having eaten lunch, that picture of the burrito is making me feel kind of ill.
I don't know from Hawaiian barbecue, myself. I just know Polynesian Sauce is delicious.
parsimon gets it exactly right. I don't avoid fast food because I think I'm better than it; I avoid it because I am weak.
Now I am hungry and even more sad I live in this culinary wasteland. I want Chick-Fil-A, dammit!
What's awesome with fries is tartar sauce.
This is God's own truth.
Hawaiian barbecue sounds like such a great thing, but my experience of the Hawaiian bbq places around here is that it's so rich I can only eat about a third of it.
Chik-Fil-A is owned by a religious fanatic as freaky as the dude who owns Domino's Pizza. He gives loads of money to anti-abortion groups.
The dude who used to own Domino's sold all his shares so he could focus all his energy on bringing the Gospel to exceedingly rich businessmen. I don't know if that means it is now ok to buy Domino's.
Tom Monaghan, Domino's founder. I forgot that he now also controls a small town and a university.
Carl Karcher and the In-n-Out people are (were) also crazy evangelical right-wingers.
Tom Monaghan is a crazy-ass Catholic. Truett Cathy is a crazy-ass Southern Baptist. Unsurprisingly, the crazy-ass Southern Baptist has the better fast food.
199: Ew. Another reason not to eat the unremarkable food, then.
200: It is not okay to buy Domino's, because Domino's pizza sucks.
Said dude doesn't own Domino's any more. And he's a freaky Catholic while Chik-Fil-A guy is a freaky Baptist. It's hard to speak to the comparison of their freakiness but it would be hard for anyone to be freakier than Tom Monaghan, who is building his own town where nobody will be allowed to condoms.
To sell condoms. Or buy them. Or blow them up like balloons.
I don't think anyone's allowed to condoms in most towns, to tell you the truth.
But you can eat all the condoms you like.
the In-n-Out people are (were) also crazy evangelical right-wingers.
Crap. Oh well, another good reason to prefer Sonic. If only there were one in this town.
How are the Fatburger people?
It is not okay to buy Domino's, because Domino's pizza sucks.
I have a friend who swears by their chicken caesar salad. Like, fanatically. It's weird.
Monaghan doesn't have much money left at all--he gave almost all of his proceeds from the sale to the Church. He's only buidling a city if he's able to get successfully fundraise (and get around a lot of pesky constitutional issues -- prohibiting porn and condoms is legally difficult).
Wikipedia: Former professional basketball player Magic Johnson was one of the owners of the parent company. Bay Area rapper E-40 also has a stake in the company as a franchise owner, and played a key role in bringing the first Fatburger restaurant to Northern California. On August 15, 2003, Fog Cutter Capital Group Inc. (owned by Andrew Wiederhorn) completed a $6 million investment and financing package for Fatburger Holdings, Inc. ("Fatburger").
Wiederhorn has some ethical issues of his own.
On the other hand, as Rah pointed out to me once when I had the same set of frets over a Chik-Fil-A sandwich, it's the only fast food joint where you know every employee from the janitor on up gets at least one day off every week and nobody is locked in the storeroom overnight.
I've never seen a fast food restaurant with a dedicated "janitor".
The somewhat-well-known Alice's Restaurant up in the Santa Cruz Mountains added the "Redneck Benedict" to their menu as a joke about a year ago. Two biscuits covered in crumbled bacon, eggs over easy, topped with sausage gravy. It quickly became the most popular of all the "eggs benedict" style dishes, and they increased the price from $6.50 to the current $10.50 while maintaining said popularity.
Well worth the trip, IMHO.
I'd forgotten about that place.
I'm not sure In-N-Out is owned by freaky Christians. One of the previous presidents was enough of one that he decided to start printing references to Bible verses on the packaging, and after he died in a plane crash, the new management kept doing it out of respect for him. That's about as far as it seems to go, though, unless you count their practice of paying their employees a living wage.
Bible verses on the packaging
Really? I have never noticed this.
214: I forget that nits are never out of season on Unfogged. I thought you were the one surrounded by nothing but delis anyway.
In the original draft, the preceding sentence ended with ", ass," but I felt that was too strong.
218: Look at the bottom of the cups sometime.
220: Noted. Amazingly, someone seems to have taken out the garbage since the last time we ate there, so it'll have to wait until the next visit.
In-N-Out also used to run radio ads around Christmastime expressing joy at the anniversary of the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I worked for Domino's, more than thirty years ago. It often can suck, and can be tolerable, if done right. I learned a lot in that job, but I never buy it now.
Monaghan, who was a Boys Town boy iirc, is one of those guys who talk about "the adventure of being poor."
Did you see mcmc's reference to a rail gun? Fabulous! Hott! No need to write on yourself with Sharpies; reference to historical weapons would be all the signal I needed.
Look, Christians can't sleep around or drink heavily or do drugs or more or less anything else normal people do for fun. So naturally they turn to food porn. Why begrudge them this one pleasure?
215: my God that sounds delicious.
225: railguns are historical?
So you are living in the future, then?
When I was a teenager the nearest Domino's was shut down after an employee jizzed on a pizza before delivery.
226: It's not the food porn we begrudge them, it's all the flailing around they do at the rest of us trying to atone for their guilt about doing all the other stuff they can't do.
I knew about the bible verses and all but I didn't realize that the In'n'Out people were also wingers. Schade. I'll still eat there, though, because it's good and they treat their employees well.
The In-N-Out packaging evangelism is not particularly in-your-face. Tom Monaghan, on the other hand, wants to erect the tallest crucifix in the world in Ann Arbor, which some people think is a bit vain.
Tom Monaghan started a law school for the express purpose of defending attempts to legislate Catholic morality. Robert Bork is on the faculty, Antonin Scalia helped set the school up and Clarence Thomas gave the first commencement address. I'm pretty sure he's the only fast food magnate who really deserves to have his religious efforts labelled freaky.
229: There goes my brilliant idea for a business plan.
231: I've got a date with some benedict!
(stumbles, wipes cocaine from nose)
railguns are historical?
So you are living in the future, then?
Oh, I see. Wikipedia provides a helpful link to Railway Gun, which is what I was thinking of.
Still a pretty colorful and impressive reference.
one of those guys who talk about "the adventure of being poor."
who universally want a kick in the teeth.
an employee jizzed on a pizza
Jack sauce!
Yeah, I'm okay with sincere Christians who actually do that treating-their-neighbor-as-themselves thing.
236: did you by any chance fight in the First World War? I think it's totally neat; nobody here cares that you're 150.
Verdict: In-N-Out owned by wingnuts but not particularly active ones.
Results:
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Did you see mcmc's reference to a rail gun?
I did, and immediately thought of it as an Akira reference. Though, IIRC, they don't actually use a railgun in Akira. A very anime image nevertheless.
Oh crumm, it's probably because you have to type in a CAPTCHA to get the data. Well, the link indicates that Esther Snyder, president/heir of In-N-Out until her death in 1999, donated about $32,000 to Republicans during the '90s, and nobody working for In-N-Out has ever donated to a Democrat. For more detail do the search yourself.
When I was in college, a friend worked overnight at the dorm's front desk. There was an excellent local pizza place - takeout only, to save on overhead - called Pizza Hotline. We'd hide the stacks of Domino's coupons and encourage everyone to order from Pizza Hotline - "It's better, cheaper, and never too gross to eat" was the slogan we developed. People would always ask why we were anti-Domino's: "because of the abortion thing?" and we'd say, "No, because it's nasty."
Sadly, Pizza Hotline was bought by new owners after just a few years, became more expensive and worse, and went out of business.
became more expensive and worse, and went out of business
I sense a flaw in their business plan.
Good Lord, how could I forget to mention the Belasco Burger - cheeseburger with bacon, fried egg, and ranch dressing. Made at Cupka's II, the more mainstream sibling to a great neighborhood bar on Pittsburgh's South Side.
The name? In honor of "Donnie Belasco, eats like a horse." Sweet Jesus, is that good. Especially if you move the fries from the side to the top.
The In-N-Out fries are nasty. They don't cook them at the right temperature, I think.
In 'n Out fries are delicious. You can get them crispier if you ask.
Carl's Jr. is really gross now. I used to eat it a fair amount, because it had a license to operate on campus, but then one day I got one of their 5-dollar burgers at another location. (The idea was that this burger was as good as the kind you could get in a restaurant for $5; it costed $3-something.) I think that the meat had gone bad. I actually wrote a letter to complain, because I felt sick after a few bites. I never ate the stuff again.
I've had them crispier. Still not right.
You know who has crappy french fries? Wendy's, that's who.
256: You are completely insane.
