I'm in my early 30s and am a California native and I've never eaten at Taco Bell.
I have been drunk and I have not lived a life without regrets.
I guess that could be expected from Nosflow, but, what the fuck. Are people not 17 anymore. Also note that Drum has never been to Arby's, which is slightly but not much more understandable.
I've never even heard of Zaxby's, Culver's, Jason's Deli, Moe's Southwest Grill, Captain D's, or McCallister's Deli. I assume they are all exclusively in Oklahoma.
I find it more surprising that Drum's never eaten at Chipotle.
Chipotle's relatively new, though. The Bell is a longstanding American institution. Has Drum never been a stoned college student out on the town at ten minutes to midnight?
Taco Bell is underrated.
I had no idea Long John Silver was even still around. Who the hell is eating there?
Chipotle's relatively new, though.
Fair enough, but most other liberal political bloggers seem to be obsessed with it for some reason.
Culver's isn't bad. It's sort of like a higher class Long John Silvers. Lately, when I go back to Nebraska, there seem to be lots of higher end, obsessively wholesome, fast food places like Culver's.
I do wonder who the people are who say "I've got a spare $300,000 and have always wanted to run my own business. Let's buy a Long John Silver's franchise and I can spend my life selling breaded shrimp for $5!"
I've been to Culver's. Butter Burgers and frozen custard. Very Wisconsin.
I'd eat at Taco Bell any day over Chipotle and their bullshit Mission style burritos.
Chipotle is O.K. as long as you get it in a bowl. A flour tortilla is like 500 calories of bland.
9: Maybe I should have tried the Butter Burger. The name alarmed me, so I got fried fish.
Chipotle was also the one that stood out for me. I think there are 6 Chipotles in our town (for comparison, there are 10 Starbucks.)
I can see someone never having eaten there - the combination of "fairly recent" and "really only makes one thing" can have that result if it's not a thing you're interested enough in to go out of your way for it. I've only eaten stuff from there because there's one less than a block from my apartment, and even then I've only bought food from there once or twice.
I was surprised at how many of those restaurants I've never heard of, though. Are they older regional ones that are in retreat? I can see the dominance of really large standardized corporate brands combined with the diminishing fast food market forcing smaller chains into smaller pockets of the country.
The butterburger's butter's on the butterburger's bun but not on the butterburger's beef.
"Captain D's" sounds like a pseud for Hooters.
I don't think I've ever been to Zaxby's, Bojangles, Culver's, Papa Murphy's, Del Taco, El Pollo Loco, Jason's Deli, Wingstop, Moe's Southwest Grill, or McAlister's Deli. But I can't swear to all of those--I wouldn't be surprised if I had grabbed a sandwich at some nondescript place in an airport that was a McAlister's Deli, say.
Captain D's was a staple of my childhood, though.
Never eaten at taco bell, ate at chipotle once during a mediation break as it was only place in acres and acres of business park parking lots. Once at subway as it was the only place near a blm office. Was not able to negotiate the very confusing ordering system without help from some biologists which was embarrassing but oh well.
I like Chipotle (tofu sofritas xoxo) and I (sercretly) also like Taco Bell. I mean, the only thing I eat at TB is bean burritos and they are cheaper than dirt.
I've never seen a Jimmy John's but there are lots of pictures of the owner with dead giraffes and back rhinos and whatnot -- so I can add him to my list, with Hobby Lobby and Chik Fil A, of things that I boycott but have never been near anyway.
I believe that I've never had Taco Bell. On the other hand, whenever I visit a Starbucks I find myself behind somebody who wants to haggle: "Why is a frappucino $5.85? I'll give you $4.50 and not a penny more!"
Growing up in Texas, I always thought of Taco Bell as a travesty. The only time I've been was when faced with limited meal options getting off I-5.
21: There was one by my office. It's just regular cow or pig or bird meat. It didn't taste anything like giraffe or rhino.
I thought Del Taco was the California low-budget taco place, but apparently Taco Bell is also form there. Huh.
Moe's Southwest Grill is notable for two things: 1) the workers on the burrito assembly line will without warning shout "welcome to Moe's", and 2) they sell alcohol. Here, that's notable. They often roll their burritos too tight, leading to tragedy.
Jimmy John's has opened quite a few franchises here in the past few years. Given the hardwork-and-bootstraps walk decorations, I'm not surprised their owner is a shitlord. Sandwiches are okay.
It amazes me that it's even possible not to have eaten at a Taco Bell. Most of the places on that list that I've heard of, I've eaten at. I no longer go to Chik Fil A, because OUTRAGE, but damn, they do make a tasty chicken sandwich.
Long John Silver ... Who the hell is eating there?
I decided to try it on a road trip recently (I'd had it as a kid) and it was as bad as you'd expect. Extremely salty breading with a hint of a meaty center.
I kind of hate Chipotle. I need to get my ass down to Pilsen and have a real burrito.
The only time I've been was when faced with limited meal options getting off I-5.
Totally typical Taco Bell experience! How someone can go fifty years without winding up in that situation, I don't know.
Jimmy John's has been around here forever (and wikipedia tells me there's good reason for that: started in Illinois). It's mediocre, just like every other big sandwich chain.
That anyone would get Jimmy John's over something like a Wendy's double cheeseburger is just another sign of a culture in decline.
Taco Bell is a lifesaver if you are a vegetarian doing a cross-country road trip. Especially if you are also on a budget, but frankly, unless you literally brought provisions, there are parts of the drive where money won't help.
They closed the Wendy's by my office. Because society sucks.
El Pollo Loco is secretly actually good. I bring it in sometimes as a family dinner.
Well pick your exit and there's a taco truck just about everywhere in CA. So - why taco bell?
El Pollo Loco is awesome and I miss it. There's now one in the next county to the south and they need to get off their ass and open some up here.
Panda Express is that crap mall/airport Chinese food, right? Do they even exist as standalone restaurants?
Jimmy John's has been around here forever (and wikipedia tells me there's good reason for that: started in Illinois).
Specifically, in Urbana, as I learned when I was on a plane that got diverted there and the staff at the airport mentioned it as a point of pride. IME they seem to be located mostly in college towns and near college campuses in big cities, and to cater mostly to drunk college kids.
Panda Express is that crap mall/airport Chinese food, right? Do they even exist as standalone restaurants?
Yeah, there was one in the strip mall with the Hollywood Video we used to go to when I was a kid, along with a Subway.
What paradise do you people live in where Panda Expresses are confined to malls and airports, where they belong?
Panda Express, the kind that makes Chinese-style food for people, or the one that sells breast pumps for panda mothers?
The Panda Express in the ultra-high-end food court (real silverware and cloth napkins, cleaned by busboys, $22 salad and sushi joints) by my office is weirdly, insanely popular. Always a huge line.
Possibly because it costs less than $22.
I've eaten at 38 of 50 on Drum's list. I'm somewhat surprised the number is that low, as I"m very low class.
In my experience, airport Chinese food is a step below Panda Express. I don't really like Panda Express but it's freeway exit food I consider.
26 of 50. But of the other 24 I only recall ever even being somewhere I would have had the opportunity for 7. I've never even heard of most of the rest. I will admit I've never had White Castle.
Demand for panda breast pumps has skyrocketed thanks to Obamacare.
Yes, taco cabana is the best! Tc's for the win!
48: You beat me. Possibly because I've spent very little time in California.
Of the 12 I've missed, 4 would have been feasible, so far as I can tell.
I ate at subway in Guangzhou because I hadn't had bread in like six months and it was fucking delicious. Miles better than Panda express. Shitty american food in China is way better than shitty chinese food in America (fast food division).
There's a Subway in Guantanamo -- I wish it was a Taco Bell instead. Way better than the McDonalds there anyway.
I've been to all of the top 25, but only 13 of the remaining 25. I don't think I've heard of any of the places I haven't been.
You guys are selling Panda Express short. Think of it as Chinese-inspired American fast-food, and it does that very well: it's consistent (which is tough to do with Chinese food in multiple locations), and it tastes genuinely different from a burger, but like all fast food, it's also secretly (or not so secretly) sweet, so people remember it as pretty good. And given how many truly awful Chinese joints there are (lots of old Jewish people around make for more and worse Chinese take-out places, I think), there's something to be said for a place that won't give you gristly meat or drown your food in some godawful jarred brown sauce. There's a stand-alone PE about seven or eight minutes from us and I'll sometimes go to it when I don't feel like making the 20-25 minute drive to the actually good Chinese place.
You people really are trying to destroy Israel.
I ate at subway in Guangzhou because I hadn't had bread in like six months
Northern Chinese cuisine wasn't an option?
There's a Subway in Guantanamo
Eh. Mr. Just Plain Jane (in his capacity as a "habeas" lawyer) has ordered sandwiches from that very Subway. He thought the food was okay, if the overall setup was a little bit weird.
Weird like when they used to cut the bread in the middle out in a wedge instead of just slicing it?
So from that list:
Eaten at: 29
Never seen: 12
Never heard of: 8
Kinda surprised at some of the omissions, given how many of the top 50 are alien to me. Where's Taco John's, A&W, Sbarro, Great Steak & Fry Co. or Manchu Wok? Maybe they're only in the Midwest, but some of those others have got to be limited to relatively small regions as well.
I'm also surprised that Jamba Juice made the cut -- they've been shuttering locations around here left & right.
Does Taco John's exist outside Nebraska?
Weird like, he could only get to that Subway, strapped in and standing up the whole time, on a military flight to Cuba.
63: It's originally from Colorado, and there's always been locations in Mpls.
Taco Inn was the Nebraska-only one, maybe?
Runza, as we've discussed before, is evidence of some kind of wormhole into a parallel universe situated in and around Nebr.
They aren't bad either. The fries are even crinkle-cut.
I'm not sure I ever saw a Taco Inn when I was living in O-town. Only went to Lincoln about 3 times, so maybe they have them there?
You know what I wish was still around? Embers, the local chain of Perkin's clones. The food and the ambience were much nicer.
Of course he has. There is a Taco Bell, but habeas lawyers aren't allowed to go there.
Where's Taco John's
Where, indeed. This place sounds awesome. Where might I find it?
It used to be called Taco Juan's before the owner wanted to get into the good golf club.
before the owner wanted to get into the good golf club.
There's a good golf club in Colorado?
I am surprised that sbarro didn't make the list as a mall and airport standby.
TJ is originally from Wyoming. It's founder probably did play golf at the AFB . . .
sbarro
Seems to have all but disappeared around here. Used to be in all the malls, but now the only one I know is in a highway "oasis."
My first job that lasted longer than a few days was at a Culver's. I used to refresh myself by scooping out a spoonful of raspberry sundae topping and tossing it in seltzer water with lemon. I did not get that added to the menu, but they did start selling a veggie burger at that particular Culver's in my honor.
It was for a long time what I thought of when I thought of alienated labor: that I had to remember as a matter of stepwise protocol that a customer needed a fork to eat the fish fillet. Include a fork. And a knife? The degree to which I did not give a shit whether customers needed, and received, a fork with their meal, probably exceeds any other shit-not-giving in my life. You'd have to break a lot of laws to compel me to eat there now.
My first job was at a Sbarro in a mall. There was a whole underground barter economy among mall employees— people trading slices of pizza for Taco Bell, Chick-fil-A iced tea, cookies, movie tickets.
59: Northern Chinese "bread" is bread only in the most technical sense, IMO, not that subway is terribly much better. What Guangzhou does have, however, are convergently evolved doughnuts, which are bomb. (Not youtiao, actual, though non-toroidal, doughnuts!)
El Pollo Loco had some kind of concession to sell hot lunch at my elementary school on Tuesdays. Friday was Domino's day; I forget which operations had the others. Looking back from our age of Fat Kid Anxiety, it seems bizarre to me that the nineties would have permitted such an arrangement in a quite well-off public school. But Arizona can't have been the only place.
There's a Subway in Guantanamo...
He thought the food was okay, if the overall setup was a little bit weird.
You could pay with a credit card but they wouldn't tell you what the charge was and there's no means of disputing it.
The overfermented fumes POURING out of subway shops are pretty gross, same from the "bakeries" in chain grocery stores.
They have a side project making booze.
No comments about DQ?
I kind of ... I won't say that I like Panda Express, but I'll eat it without complaints.
I used to get lunch at a taco truck/restaurant deal (it was both, simultaneously and somewhat confusingly) called Planeta Rojo when driving between SF and LA.
I do not understand the love for el pollo loco. I didn't like it at all. Only ate there twice and that was plenty.
I thought Taco John was fast food's Prester John.
I love Subway, mostly because I get pretty much all the free vegetables so I feel like I'm getting value relative to all the people who don't.
Panda Express: also underrated.
Did anyone notice the 'and then I found ten dollars' part of Carson's Yale psychology story?
Ben is broke. Finds ten-dollar bill on sidewalk. Thank you, Lord! A year later, Ben is broke again. Looks for ten-dollar bill, doesn't find one. . . . Ben concludes the story: "The professor then did something even better. She handed me a ten-dollar bill."
That story is really incredible, and not just because it's so obviously something that did not actually happen.
The entire thing is basically "the teacher screwed up and said we had to take a much harder test because of it and the other students said "that is some fucking bullshit" and refused but I did it and teacher said I was the best student of all." I mean, what is the moral - that Carson had way, way less self-respect than literally every other student in the class? It's like Carson wants everyone to know that he was that snot nosed teacher pleaser that everyone knew in middle school only he stayed that way through college. ".. and then I told the teacher that I had seen Kevin smoking during the break and she gave him a detention and told me I was braver than everyone else for coming forward!"
I suspect that he's misremembering his experience as a participant in a social psych experiment.
Speaking of Ben Carson, this is a pretty interesting read centered on the guy who played Ben Carson for years in front of Baltimore schoolkids. I had no idea of the scope of local Carsonmania.
You can't expect the actual Carson to do kids birthday parties.
Everybody knows that long term memory is unreliable, but in Carson's case it seems to be a pathology. That or he's just a lying fuck,
95: TNC I think has written about how he was a hero to Bmore schoolkids.
Well pick your exit and there's a taco truck just about everywhere in CA.
Not here. Looking around Google Street View, it might have been exit 368 around Firebaugh/Mendota. A few chains and gas, all crowded (post-Thanksgiving traffic), then farmland for miles.
Luckily Carson has a response to these attacks.
94- Great, now all the IRB filings are going to have to include, "Possible creation of sociopathic right wing candidate" as a possible unintended outcome.
I liked Long John Silver's so much when I was a kid I still imagine it as delicious though I assume it's pretty gross. I think the chain may have actually started in Kentucky, with its many boats returning daily from deep sea fishing.
I went to high school in Baltimore. We read Carson's biography senior year. I used to have tons of respect for the guy. Now, not so much.
His campaign is doing to brain surgeons what the growth of blogging did to law professors.
Getting a bit more serious, don't Carson contradictions say something about the super-subspecialization of inquiry today? Such that you can do amazing things in one specific area while being hopeless at everything else.
Not being able to find tacos in the central valley would take some doing. But then I wouldn't start my taco truck search using google ....
102: It was my favorite also. I have not been back for reasons of not wanting to know differently.
More Taco Cabana love. I add no value.
Also because I don't want to die.
I'm wondering how you all could like Long John Silver's, which I remember as the most disgusting restaurant of my childhood, but I may be confusing it with local chain "H. Salt Fish and Chips." Either way I remembe a run down interior and a nausea-inducing smell as you walked into the door.
Also not on Drum's list, but terrifying: "Yoshinoya: The Beef Bowl." I think I can reasonably say that few people are more into beef than me, but $3.99 for a bowl of next-level mystery meat in horror sauce from a possibly Japanese-affiliated company with that inexplicably has more than one branch is too scary for this man.
Hey I saw a Jamba Juice this morning. I probably wouldn't have even noticed if not for this thread. Thanks for making my life more complete.
I think having worked in a lot of different kitchens skews my sense of food safety. So I'll happily tuck into a brain taco from a one-off taco joint run out of a dilapidated former no-brand hamburger drive-in off the largely shuttered main strip of your average hard luck CA ag town provided the place has the feel of a relatively popular joint likely to have good turnover and the employees seem cheery. But I'm super suspicious of the hygiene practices in for example a macdo kitchen.
No, Long John Silver's was terrible. But I was seven and living in a smallish town in Kentucky and hadn't yet learned to express "don't you find the ersatz casualness of Babbo too, too wearisome?" with a nearly imperceptible twitch of my right eyebrow.
116, obviously me. I like to think my eyebrows are the most expressive of any commenter's. Nobody, not even the rain, has such large eyebrows.
Years ago, during the mad cow scare, I was talking to someone who had just finished an internship at the US embassy in Moscow, and she said the embassy used the same meat as McDonalds because it was the only supplier there they trusted to meet meat inspection standards.
There is a lot you can do to control food pathogen risk via industrial practices, but 1 - the revolting temptations of further industrial efficiencies always seem to outstrip countervailing hygiene practices,* and 2 - never underestimate the power of the slothful human preparing "food" the preparer will never eat and doesn't really conceptualize as food anyways.
*faster killing dismembering and packaging of meat means more shit left on it, industrial answer is more bleach and damn why can't we just irradiate it?
You think that people who work at McDonalds don't eat McDonalds food?
The trick is to kill the cow before it has time to shit.
Buck has a number of 'recipes' from his time working a grill at MickeyD's to make the food more palatable. Or different, anyway. The only one I remember is that if you wrap a freshly fried McNugget in a slice of pasturized processed cheese food, it melts into a smooth coating.
And the cow/chicken/pig has plenty of shit in reserves.
123: Not all of it.
Also, I can't eat a McNugget. I eat at McD's fairly often, but not the McNugget.
I'm not sure I would like a restaurant where the people preparing my food also ate it for me.
If the food preparer eats my order, I probably won't leave a tip.
Although I guess it would be pretty darn bulletproof food safety-wise.
I worked the grill at McDonald's for one week and got a horrible rash. They moved me to the counter and the rash went away. At the end of the night, you got to eat the meat and egg toppings from any unsold salads. In theory, I think we could have also eaten the greens, but it never came up.
Not very safe if the customers starve.
I guess the moral of the story is McDonald's is safe enough as long as you are more than ten feet away when food is being prepared.
We are so far into the land of not owning TVs. I understand the knocks on fast food, but people who refuse to eat it (like MY MOM and often MY WIFE) make road trips way more difficult than they need to be. If we're on the outskirts of fucking Muncie, Indiana, just EAT THE BURGER. Not least because your best bet for palatable roadside food in many backwaters actually is the fast food joint.
130: well, I guess, but it wouldn't be a hygiene issue. Other safe restaurant concepts: the kitchen burns to the ground as soon as you light the stove; all of the food is actually holograms; ordering, serving and eating happen within a sandboxed iOS app.
95: I had no idea of the scope of local Carsonmania.
Nor did I. People read Carson's biography in high school, like as part of the reading list? Was it supposed to be literature or what? Things have really changed since I was in high school, I guess.
Cell phones, Ben Carson, and Rainbow parties.
135: Who are three phenomena that have never taken place in my kitchen?
||
This is yet another police misconduct/beating story, which isn't enough to make it interesting. But what is amazing is the excuse they used.
"Police claim that they feared for their lives when Velazquez told them that he was calling his sister, so they had no other choice but the escalate the situation to violence"
They've managed to escalate from the more normal "I thought the phone was a weapon and as a result was in fear for my life" to "I thought he was making a phone call and as a result was in fear for my life." It's a whole new frontier in policing!
|>
Not least because your best bet for palatable roadside food in many backwaters actually is the fast food joint.
Like DQ says in 115, if there's a local taqueria, even a bland freeway exit one (srsly King City, that is one bland taqueria next to the Starbucks), that is going to be a million times more palatable than fast food.
132 is really very right. You can't really look at roadside food options in coastal California and assume Indiana must be about the same.
132. Long road trip food is fuel, not really expected to be food as such, but more "food-like."
My wife and kids exhibit the same general reluctance to pick the closest fast food joint that's above the minimum requirements.
It's all about trip time, fools!
The McDonalds in Paso Robles with the arches built into the structure is pretty bad, to be honest. And the coffee isn't strong enough to keep me awake on a long drive late at night. Going down the coast I either eat first or stop at El Pollo Loco in Gilroy.
My parents, who have done many cross country road trips, like places like Cracker Barrel over fast food.
CV not coastal CA! Pretty far from, folks.
But just to entrench ogged's irritation - my then 3 yr old put up an implacable resistance to T Ke//er attempting to convince him that in n out fries are the acme of fries.
In the south, your better-than-fast-food non-chain option is a local BBQ, not a taqueria. (Unless you're vegetarian. Then, you're stuck with Taco Bell.)
Driving through the Central Valley on 5 I usually stop in Kettleman City.
I suppose "coastal California" was the wrong way of saying it. I just meant that part where people live that isn't Death Valley or the top of the mountains or something.
but damn, they do make a tasty chicken sandwich.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: No they don't.
OK, de gustibus, whatever, but the one time I had one of their sandwiches, it was profoundly disappointing. This was before the gay folderol, so politics weren't part of my judgment. I was pretty hungry, so my standards should have been lower. And it was long enough ago that I don't think I was fully aware of just how many people think it's best goddamn chicken sandwich on earth, just that a lot of people like it. And it was completely unremarkable. If you'd told me it was from McDonald's, I wouldn't have been in the least surprised.
Furthermore, there is a national sort-of chain that makes legitimately awesome fried chicken sandwiches: Broaster is a company that sells equipment for amazing fried chicken (some sort of pressure fryer, I think). I guess they have some stores under their name, but mostly they sell to locals who are then able to use the brand name to advertise their tasty-ass sandwiches.
There's one Downtown; I wish it was open right now.
(like MY MOM and often MY WIFE) make road trips way more difficult than they need to be
God, try it when the three passengers are gluten intolerant and one is also a vegetarian.
In the interior West, including eastern California, a lot of the towns are so small that they don't even have fast food.
in n out fries are the acme of fries.
I'll double down on 146 by saying that In N Out may have been the most disappointing meal of my life. AB went hungry* rather than finish hers. And yes, we ordered from the "secret menu", which is the stupidest concept ever: "if you combine this terrible food in different ways, it becomes delicious!"
It's possible the regular fries are fine; I had the double-cooked, whatever they're called, and they were nearly inedible, hard and unpleasant-tasting. The burger was worse than McD, BK, Wendy's, 5 Guys (obvs); maybe better than Hardee's?
*and I mean that literally; she'd had a light breakfast 5 hours earlier, we had no food in the car, and there was no prospect of eating in the next 6 hours, as we were going to be driving through Joshua Tree
I had a Whopper recently for the first time in ages. It was fine, maybe not quite as good as I'd remembered/hoped, but the worst part was an inexplicable amount of ketchup & mayo--it was just pouring out the back end of the sandwich. I was driving, so scraping it off or whatever was impractical. A miracle it didn't end up on my lap.
Finally looking at the list more closely, I think I've eaten at 34 places on the list. I've seen but never eaten at Chick-fil-a, Sonic, Bojangles, Long John Silvers, not sure if I've eaten at Del Taco. Del Taco is why Drum's claim about Taco Bell doesn't surprise me that much. There's lots of them in southern California and they're basically the same king of market.
149: Independence has a Subway and Bishop has a KFC. They're not wastelands, teo.
153: Sure, but those are relatively large towns compared to places like Lone Pine.
Actually I guess Independence is smaller than Lone Pine.
And Lone Pine apparently has a McDonald's. Anyway, there are plenty of communities smaller than these ones that don't have fast food.
150.last: I hope she sang "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" as you drove away.
156: The relevant thing would be a small town right off a freeway exit with no fast food but with other restaurants. That seems a bit uncommon.
Lone Pine is bigger than Independence. The presence of Subway in Independence may be one of the most shocking facts of economic geography.
The presence of Subway in Independence may be one of the most shocking facts of economic geography.
Yeah, Subway is known for going into smaller markets than the other chains, but I'm surprised they would go into a place quite that small.
158: I'm being nitpicky about the Owens Valley but teo's right. The key is that these places tend not to be on interstates.
Lone Pine definitely has a McDonalds. The "there are Taco Trucks near the I-5!" is such ridiculous bullshit neo-snobbery ("snobbery" isn't really right, there actually needs to be a single word for the particular kind of obnoxious the tinge of foodiesm and fake populism -- Pollanism?") because while I'm sure that's technically true, it's not like if you pull off of the freeway there are lines of delicious taco trucks just waiting cor you, the whole point of highway food is that you need to grab something quick by the roadside in a hurry.
One time I took a road trip with the wife and we had breakfast at Burger King, lunch at Wendy's, and dinner at McDonald's. The trifecta!
The key is that these places tend not to be on interstates.
Yeah, if you limit it towns along interstates there a lot fewer of these.
The burger was worse than McD, BK, Wendy's,...I had a Whopper recently for the first time in ages. It was fine
These are the ravings of a madman. In n Out might get overhyped but only Wendy's, which has always been far and away the best of the big three, has a solid claim of been as good or better. BK, OTOH, has always been the worst of the big three with the Whopper being interesting only as a case study of the successful marketing of a hot circle of garbage.
5 Guys (obvs)
5 Guys is terrible.
I just went to a McDonalds to get a salad because I'm too sick to sit in a restaurant and the takeout soup and salad place I went to yesterday isn't open Sundays. Yay vacation!
160: My guess is it's well-positioned to catch out of town campers/bacpackers and drivers between Tahoe/Mammoth and LA.
When we lived in the Teo-Certified Most Remote Town on Earth, the nearest McDonald's was an hour away. I'm told there's now a Mexican restaurant in town. I'm sure I'd hardly recognize the place anymore.
I have trouble recognizing people after they get a new haircut. I bet a new Mexican restaurant would confuse me also.
The burger was worse than McD, BK, Wendy's, 5 Guys (obvs); maybe better than Hardee's?
Hardee's has a longstanding reputation for being inedible shit, which they've worked to cultivate by marketing garbage like the extreme triple-greased double baconator, etc., but meanwhile they've quietly upped their game. As just one example, their grass-fed all natural beef burger is probably the best fast food burger currently available anywhere.
Hardee's is also the only fast food chain that has decent breakfast biscuits.
It's hilarious how strongly people's opinions differ on the fairly narrow range of foods in the category of fast food burger. I've had some disgusting meals at a number of these places and others not named, but I'm not sure any of them have been universally bad across times and locations.
"I got fries that were cooked twice and they were overcooked" -- JRoth
Seriously, if you like 5 guys and don't like In N Out you're just being persnickety.
Except the fries. The fries at In N Out are a travesty.
Have to check out the grass fed burger from Hardee's if I can find one.
(It is true that the fries at In'n'Out are weak, though I remain fond of them.)
176: If you're out west it's the "all natural" or whatever burger that's been at Carls Jr. for a while.
Five Guys fries are great.
Except when people put malt vinegar on them. If someone offers you fries from Five Guys, you have to ask, "Did any malt vinegar get on these fries, or just ketchup like the good lord intended?"
Ketchup is just sugared tomatoes. It's fine, except ingested.
Dbl dbl animal style makes up for weak fries.
Y'all are snobs. No fast food is great, sort of by definition. But some are better than others. 5 Guys and In N Out are definitely better than the comparable fast food chains.
I had to travel with a vegetarian partner and I'm so glad we weren't traversing the country because it would have been miserable. It was still miserable, because airport options aren't much better. Choosing an acceptable restaurant was a total ordeal. But chain restaurants have caught on in many places in the country because it is legitimately the best option in those places. Faux nostalgia for local restaurants in many small towns is bullshit, because the local places weren't any better and at least you know what you're getting from national chains.
I do have an irrational gag reflex to the scent of Subway. I don't know what that smell is, but it sure isn't bread I want to eat. Strangely, the food actually tastes much better than that smell they pump out.
There's been a proliferation of burger places here and I'm not sure if they'd all be considered fast food or if none are. If Five Guys is I guess they are the same. Shake Shack, Tasty Burger, Uburger, Burger Dive. One distinguishing factor was they all had shakes but Five Guys just started selling them too.
If eaten at 44 places on the list, and I've eaten at all but one or two of those 44 multiple times. Never been to Five Guys, Culvers, Del Taco, El Pollo Loco, Wingstop or McAlisters Deli.
I hated the Shake Shack nearest where I lived in the east, but the couple I've been to in NYC have been ok.
We, a pair of vegetarians, have driven cross-country many times and it wasn't miserable! I mean, it was never a culinary voyage of glory (agreed that local restaurants in many small towns are in fact awful), but... eh. I guess we ate a lot of fast-food french fries. We also ate a lot of cereal. Somehow we managed.
Bob Evans isn't bad, if you never leave Ohio and nearby states.
Central valley Mexican food off the interstate is not to be had at taco trucks, but rather little cantina type places. Always has been.
My hot boss always used to insist we stop at Bob Evans when we traveled.
Nobody has mentioned Whataburger! I can't remember if they're good, because of the whole "weird timing for being a vegetarian" thing that happened between me and Texas, but I do remember they will put a fuckton of jalapenos on your hamburger which makes up for a lot of things.
I think that elephant wants you to eat it while on-the-go.
Whataburger is good, as fast food burgers go.
I prefer Lotaburger, of course, but it's much more restricted geographically.
McDonald's has the best fast food fries, and their salads are quite edible.
McDonald's fries are insufficiently potato-y. Wendy's are better.
It's just acknowledging that fast food burgers are made out of elephant meat, as everyone knows. Geez.
Obviously I get all my fries from the local tater trucks, staffed by Idahoan immigrants.
Except these. Sadly, we didn't make it there when we were in Ljubljana.
Okay, the Slovenians apparently use horse meat instead. Everywhere else, though: 100% elephant.
Makes sense, since apparently horse fat is the best for cooking fries.
I forgot Fuddruckers, went there twice this year after not going for over 20 years. They still don't care if you make a salad out of the things at the toppings bar.
205: Horse fat lovers will come for the fries, while Horselover Fats will stay because the empire never ended and they're trapped in the black iron prison.
Y'all are snobs. No fast food is great, sort of by definition. But some are better than others.
I can't agree with this at all. There's plenty of great fast food, as long as you're not defining it as "burgers and fries". And even then, I've had some extremely good burgers that could be reasonably described as fast food (ie not pre-prepared, but you wait at the counter to be served).
Great chain fast food is harder to come by, I'll grant, but it's by no means an oxymoron.
This joke just blew up.
See, I thought 192 was in response to 190, where Moby said, "My hot boss always used to insist we stop at Bob Evans when we traveled," the implication being that the breakfast being had at Bob Evans was of the post-coital variety.
But perhaps my mind is in the gutter.
The elephant is just a thing nobody mentions. Even though it is in the room. It's a saying, I thought.
178. Five Guys fries are just "okay," but they at least make it up in volume. In 'n Out fries are also just "okay." Both tend to be under-cooked: fries should be twice-cooked, but twice-cooked properly, which takes more time and effort. If you do it right they are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
Fries haven't been the same since they stopped cooking them in lard. Mmm, lard!
I don't like the crispy so much. I just like when they cut a fresh potato and drop it in the oil.
My first trip to 5 guys was a couple months ago since they've been opening up around here (prior to that I'd only seen one in DCA.) I didn't know about the peanuts- here, have some free unlimited fat and salt while you're waiting for your excessive amounts of fat and salt?
It does take longer to get your main course fat and salt there than at McD's or something.
199 is right and I'm glad someone said it. I have never been able to determine why McDonald's gets so much praise for its french fries.
Boardwalk, a smaller chain, makes their fries in peanut oil. Which is tasty.
I have never been able to determine why McDonald's gets so much praise for its french fries.
McD's fries have the perfect salt:grease:potato ratio. I don't understand why people would want more potato content in their fries. If that's really what you want, you might as just as soon be eating something healthy.
"I got fries that were cooked twice and they were overcooked" -- JRoth
Because I was assured they'd be great! I like dark, crispy fries; it's not like I was mad that they weren't golden and fluffy. I was mad that they were nearly inedible.
"In N Out: If you ask for it, we'll sell you awful food."
Hardee's is also the only fast food chain that has decent breakfast biscuits.
True. Visiting BOGF's sister in Tennessee, we stopped for biscuits at Hardees, which I thought was ridiculous until I tasted one.
Seriously, if you like 5 guys and don't like In N Out you're just being persnickety.
Not at all. I go to 5 Guys all the time, and there was just no comparison. The only flaw in a 5 Guys burger is the American cheese (which is fine, but could be better); the In N Out burger was nothing but flaws.
I like 5 Guys fries a lot, but I will say that they decline in quality rapidly as they cool. I mean, most fries do, but the curve is steeper, possibly just because they're so great right out of the fryer.
Well, there's a quick and easy way to lose all credibility on the subject of food, and this is one of those ways.
Wendy's new* fries are pretty great. The 5 Guys around here don't undercook their fries: they're medium dark with crisp edges, although I'll grant that they're not completely crisp. That is, if you hold it at one end, they're flaccid. But there's enough crunch, especially the smaller ones.
Now, of course, I want to go to 5 Guys, but instead I'll eat the leftover pizza taglio with king salmon flaked on top. Sigh.
That is, if you hold it at one end, they're flaccid.
The nerves are all at the other end.
I could have just not written 225 and everybody would have assumed it anyway, right?
Well, there's a quick and easy way to lose all credibility on the subject of food, and this is one of those ways.
Dude, the entire state of California, with its bizarre, Stockholm Syndrome-like relationship with In N Out, has lost credibility on the subject of food.
I should add, btw, that this is all J Kenji Alt-Lopez' fault: he wrote this big thing about trying every item on the secret menu, and that's what drove me to try it.
Plus, they kicked out Gray Davis for reasons I never understood and then elected Schwarzenegger over Gary Coleman.
Hardee's is also the only fast food chain that has decent breakfast biscuits.
Au contraire! The McDonald's Southern Style Chicken Biscuit from a McDonald's in the South* is one of the most perfect foods ever created.
* This may or may not hold true in other regions of the country, or even at all McDonald's within the South. But the good ones are amazing.
I'm wondering if not, or hardly ever eating at chain restaurants is somehow equivalent to "I don't even own a television set?"
In a big city it's easy to eat only at independents, and when we do road trips a little research on food boards gives us an itinerary.
I probably have something, usually breakfast from McD maybe once a year, and when traveling in the upper midwest we stop at a Culvers every so often, when we haven't a researched destination.
But these are acts of convenience, and we don't expect much from them; I'm mystified by conversations comparing the fine points of chain faire.
I don't even own a TV, but that's because we have it listed as being in the kid's possession for tax social reasons.
232:
But I seem to be on both sides. We're Ogged-like when it's convenient, as in his Muncie example, but I'm testifying that it isn't too hard to avoid such places 95% of the time at least. Maybe it's the food-board effect, where a general query about a trip in a given direction gives a host of well-informed suggestions.
And it's not a fetish, just a rewarding habit.
THAT'S WHAT I ALWAYS SAY.
In tiny Central Valley towns I've usually found food in 'the store', which is a gas station if you're lucky and mostly sells ice and water and bug-killer and motor oil. But even the cellophane-wrapped pastries are surprisingly fresh, and sometimes the pastries are fresh and unusual in a 'Mrs Good Cook down the way' way, which is great.
Also, there's often good asterisk-vegetarian food, the asterisk meaning "good beans and rice, just don't think about the cooking fat". Have whiled away long drives with other ecosystems people trying to work out if the fat or leather is an excess production so that we could use it without feeling guilty at the margin.
There aren't a lot of words that rhyme with "margin".
If you stretch, you could get "Kantian".
good asterisk-vegetarian food
We say that the cooks must have used "the good cumin."
I don't want to appear aloof!
I've got a truly marvelous proof.
But I'm afraid it's simply too large in size
To fit comfortably within the margin, guys.
That's not bad, but it's got nothing to do with ethical vegetarianism.
Higgeldy piggeldy
Unfoggetarian
Ethical diners
With marginal skills
Seek to avoid all the
Nonvegetarian
Dishes they serve, by and
Large, in the hills.
Thanks to this thread, I went to a Jimmy John's, but I realized as soon as I walked in I'd been to one before.