My favorite part: "This is an ongoing Pulitzer-caliber project."
1: I'm not sure it's good or bad that McDonald's food comes closest to looking like the plastic models in the ads!
Well, presentation is better for ads, of course, but at least everything is recognizably the same food. And the just-served-in-store look of the first vs. the after-take-out-journey look of the second is a factor too.
What gets us in our house is how un-appetizing food ads are even with the presentation advantages. I'll see ads for Ol/v/e G/rd/n on the Food Channel, and my reaction is "What were they thinking?"
I once talked with someone who was a 'food artist' for commercials. I think they are legally required to use the actual ingredients used by the restaurant, but they'll go through bags and bags of frozen shrimp looking for the perfect six for the red lobster ad.
7: If only there was somewhere convenient where you c ould go and get one?
I want one delivered from a pneumatic tube.
7: there are healthier ways available of satisfying your craving for hot meat.
You're kidding, right? Those things don't even look appetizing when prepped for the ad.
I swear to the gods I thought that KFC thing was going to make me sick.
What is a "Famous Bowl" anyway? The advertisement looks kind of like mashed potatoes with succotash and chicken nuggets and grated cheese; the real thing looks kind of like cat food with melted cheese.
(Which does not seem like an ideal combination to me.)
Hmm, some of the photos he took were blurry, and he admits that he went and bought them at the place and then drove them home in his car before taking the picture - no wonder everything is congealed.
I was hoping for ceteris parabus comparisons.
I have never eaten one, but apparently (from the ads through which I've fast-forwarded) it is mashed potatoes with corn on top, then chicken, then cheese. I don't remember if they have gravy in them. I can't... no, I can't think about it.
11.---I'm sort of but not really kidding. I eat a big mac maybe once a year, but they must put crack in it because every once in a while I get a craving for one.
During the notorious McLibel case in England (McDonalds sued a couple of green activists for producing a leaflet and the trial lasted 7 years), a McD internal memo was leaked which said:"We can't really address or defend nutrition. We don't sell nutrition and people don't come to McDonald's for nutrition."
You pays your money and you takes your choice.
Hey, to each their own. If you really enjoy it I am not going to slap it out of your hand or anything. I just had an equally visceral reaction in the opposite direction. For purposes of comity, despite being disgusted by about 90% of fast food I occasionally suffer an uncontrollable urge for a Chik-Fil-A sandwich; like, put the hurt on anybody who gets in my way kind of craving.
Here's something for PK if B. shows up. An ecstatic hamster eating broccoli for the first time, via Digby.
Thanks for the link. I just woke up feeling a little hungry, but now I think I'll settle for another cup of coffee.
17: I get the same way once a month about a Whopper, and maybe once a year about Chicken McNuggets. Go figure.
20: Okay, now that video was painfully cute. Those feet!
The only thing that would have made it better would have been if the little guy had pooped while eating. You know, to make more room.
In Bourbonnais, there was a Mexican restaurant that had photos of their meals that all looked like the right-hand column. My favorite was their photo of a burrito -- it was literally just a burrito sitting on a plate. Don't you think they could've gone for a cross-section?
One of my roommates (an "art major") had an ongoing fantasy that he would be able to convince them to hire him to do some decent photos in exchange for free food for life. Like with so many of his plans, he didn't make even the slightest step toward actualizing it.
I get the same way once a month about a Whopper
Even McDonalds is more appealing than a Whopper. At least Wendy's tastes decent.
On the Revolting Meter, it's a tight race between that KFC bowl and the Filet O Fish.
I think they are legally required to use the actual ingredients used by the restaurant
Yeah, but only the specific stuff they're selling. So a Cheerios ad has real cereal, but the milk is fake.
I heard that the milk in cereal photo shoots is actually glue.
We ate fast food occasionally when I was growing up, and I ate it some when I was single. But over the course of my marriage and family-raising, the habit has dropped away completely, and I have no desire for this stuff at all. Once every couple of years we find ourselves needing to eat at a S/bw/y for lack of alternatives, and the only other occasions for encountering it are hanging with members of my family. The idea of it being a craving is amazing to me.
Haven't eaten McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, KFC or other international hippie-suing fast food in more than 10 years, I realize now. How odd.
6: Right. Food styling and photography are rather difficult specialties. There's a lot of picking just the right chips and there's split-second timing involved too.
Don't the people who haven't eaten fast food ever go on road trips? How can you avoid it? (Not that I avoid it; I actually kinda like some fast food.)
Presumably they pack lunches. My parents did this on road trips when I was a kid.
The other day while standing in line at Burger King and staring at the plastic menu board, I couldn't help but notice that the arrangement of sesame seeds was exactly identical on the buns of each of the various items shown. In other words, Photoshop shenanigans! Those sandwiches never even existed in reality!
On road trips, we eat if possible in reasonably-sized towns where there are non-chain restaurants. Over the years, on familiar and repeated journeys you can built up a list of good, sometimes very good places. There are many guidebooks about this, if it's important to you.
S/bw/y once in a while, always an unpleasant experience. Often we take a picnic lunch for the day, or buy the ingredients for one at a grocery store. And we try to stay places where we can cook and store food.
To some extent the constant eschewing of fast-food is snobbery. If I'm working late here, I have choices of restaurant to get a bite to eat. I can pay $2, or I can pay $7. Sometimes I feel hungry, but not for anything in particular, so might as well save money.
Why Portland rules, reason no. 498: the metro-area fast-food chain uses local, seasonal ingredients, so they have things like berry shakes, and onion rings made from Walla Walla sweets.
Most of the difference is care in preparation and lighting- I expected much worse. The tartar sauce is dripping off the side of my sandwich- false advertising! Actually, things like the taco salad look worse because they give you more meat than the ad, so you can't see the beautiful green lettuce peeking out. Is more meat ever a bad thing?
Overall, though, fast food is gross- I just think both the ad and the real thing realistically depict that.
If I'm working late here, I have choices of restaurant to get a bite to eat
Depends on how predictable this condition is. If you're talking about once in a while, I've been there and have to make do. But I pack sandwiches whenever I have a reasonable expectation I'm going to need to eat. Here in suburban officeparkland, I've brought lunch, either leftovers or a sandwich I make the night before, every day of the several months I've worked here.
Yes, I bring lunch everyday. Staying late is not as predictable.
Do places like Chipotle and Cosi count as fast food?
43: "abomination" seems a bit strong.
I actually ate dinner at McD's last night, for the first time in ages. I'd just been to the gym and couldn't face another burrito from the place I always go after the gym. The food was nasty and satisfying.
Perhaps 43 was slightly overstated. They are, however, child abuse when fed to kids on road trips.
I just finished lunch from Hardee's, which I have about 3x a week.
Apo really is teh hero. People who shun fast food make me want to vote Republican.
I'm with ogged. I've never packed a sandwich, eaten it, and felt like I'd done a good thing. Sandwiches are a time-sensitive food, people.
They are, however, child abuse when fed to kids on road trips
Hope prospective mate learns this opinion before committing, so as to be fully informed in the premises.
Is more meat ever a bad thing?
Yes? Or at least, the wrong ratio of meat to other stuff. I hate ordering a sandwich (for instance) and getting barely a taste of the vegetables I ask for and a third of a pound of meat. That seems to be the standard at the place I often pick up lunch. Maybe the solution is for me to start eating all-veggie sandwiches. Or, giving in to the abomination of packed sandwiches.
I do go to Subway. Toasted veggie max sandwiches are cheap, delicious, not un-nutritious, and quite visually appealing. The pic of the Subway sandwich seemed the most edible of the real foods. I can't say the other real-food pics looked different enough to me from their equally repulsive fake-photo versions.
The hamster video was cute, but I think he was stuffing most of that broccoli in his pockets, which is why he cycled his feet. It helps adjust the pocket-stuff. I had hamsters when I was a kid, and they were addicted to Brazil nuts, which are about 1/3 their body length as it is. But they'd insist on stuffing each pocket with two Brazil nuts, doing all kinds of horrible contortions with their feet to fit them in and then get them out later. I kept asking them if they understood that the nuts were in their foodbowl and therefore not likely to escape anywhere. Stupid hamsters.
Subway has some kind of nasty chemical stuff in their food that makes it taste funny. Worse is Quizno's, although there the toasting is nice. Luckily in New York you almost never have to settle for a chain sandwich.
48: There's something about seeing "Hardee's" in print that just looks wrong.
Oh, and I stop at that particular Hardee's about twice a month for a tasty sausage biscuit and hash rounds on my way to work.
Why on earth you NC people are going to Hardee's for lunch when you have the option of going to Bojangle's I'll never know.
53: Yeah, that has saved a few times on the road. Not my first choice, but okay enough.
I wonder how the same comparison would work with those amazing Japanese plastic food replicas . .
When you get fast food, you want it to be fast, so I find that even a few blocks can decide where I go--I never go to the In n Out that's about ten minutes away, for example.
56: Hardee's is right beside my office park. Bojangles is a 15-20 minute drive.
It's funny what I will and won't walk to in NYC. I will walk sometimes from midtown to my home in Park Slope and think little of it. I love walking. But for lunch? I'm doing good if I can get myself to leave the building, much less go somewhere actually good.
Ogged understands.
This is much nicer than "I've been pwned," isn't it?
I'm thinking they do, if subway does. In-n-out is also acceptable fast food.
I enjoy walking or riding my bike to fast food establishments. It's like doing penance.
In-n-out is also a hilarious name for a fast-food chain.
In-n-Out is good, but when serious people talk about West Coast burger joints, they talk about Fatburger.
67: It's right next to the Wham Bam dry cleaners.
AWB: hamster expert, HMS expert, psycho aficionado.
never been to a Fatburger, but I know it from the Dre video.
For the record, "Kum n Go" is neither a fast food place nor a massage parlor, but a convenience store.
70: It's all I have to offer, John.
68: Once, when I was living in LA, them was fightin' words. Now that I'm back in God's country, I can just sigh and say, "Poor misguided fool."
BTW, I enjoyed two tasty double-doubles just six days ago in sunny Las Vegas.
eateries with special codes: pleasures.
OK, OK. PhD, cultural commentator. But those are a dime a dozen.
Kum n Go's slogan i "We go all out". And no, they don't provide enemas either.
that's quite a record John is compiling.
Best west coast burger chain is Giant Hamburger in the Bay Area and points west.
(Also I have a warm spot in my heart for Fast Eddies Meal On A Bun MOAB, but I believe they are specifically a Modesto burger chain.)
So Cal car culture makes a big difference in how you chose your fast food. I've seen drive thru lines at In N Out that are easily fifteen minutes long. That's fast? Personally I've been going to the service deli at the market. Fast and cheap, but you do have to get out of your car. The horror.
Burgerville really is good. Better than In-N-Out. Fatburger is awful.
There's a chain in Southern California (and perhaps beyond) that makes chili-burgers... the chili dyes your skin orange for hours... so wrong.
Some people are ready for Fatburger, and some aren't. I don't begrudge you guys for your innocence; in fact, I envy it.
Jesus is to young to remember the Portland Whizburger chain. Generic burgers, but a unique logo. It was unrelated to the San Jose or San Francisco Whizburgers.
Similarly: the best Texas burger chain is clearly Whataburger.
You know you could get out of your car and go inside In-N-Out.
Five Guys in DC is much better than In-N-Out.
Also I have a warm spot in my heart for Fast Eddies Meal On A Bun
Like where it soaked through the wrapper?
38: You get what you pay for. Besides being a fairly insane way to produce food, in my experience pretty much all that stuff tastes nasty. Maybe it's because I haven't eaten any in years, so there is an aclimatization thing going on. But it's mostly been my experience too that if you look a little, there is always some similarly cheap option from some non-chain that is much better. A mom & pop place, or an asian noodle shop or whatever.
I have Five Guys for lunch almost every day. It's right across the street from my office. Very tasty.
85. Noob. The one closest to me has a walk up window, but no seating. I think it was number 3. All of their newer sites do have in store dining, but the older ones make only token attempts at accomodating the carless.
Then I'll defer. I am only a visitor to your desert land.
I agree with 68 and 82; Fatburger doesn't have very many locations, though.
Fatburger is sort of a different beast from In n Out, and not better.
Packed sandwiches are an abomination.
So you get some salami, some bread, some cheese maybe, an apple, and you eat them separately.
I hear that some genius has invented Iranian fast food and opened a chain in the DC area. What really upsets me about this is the name. What lunatic names a chain of Iranian kebab places "Moby-Dick"?
The wrongness of 82 is only surpassed by the rightness of 84.
Moby Dick! Good stuff. There was one in my old neighborhood out in the suburbs.
82: Yes! There's a Fatburger right across the street from my office. It's bad news on the keep-the-docs-happy front.
This is fast food heaven. Chili-cheese 'a plenty!
(And on summer Sundays--Church services in the parking lot.)
It's dangerous of you to post this link today of all days.
Mo reminds me that Arby's is also worth eating from time to time.
In the same realm of "sometimes I simply must have one," inside that 10% of fast food that I don't find gross, is definitely a roast beef sandwich from Arby's. Also, there is never anything at all wrong with a chicken biscuit from Bojangle's.
Even before you get to the meatariffic sandwiches, the potato cakes alone make Arby's worthwhile.
100 (!) -- they have renamed themselves to "Chock Café", a name which always makes me double-take. They have locations (that I know of) in midtown Manhattan and Hoboken; surely elsewhere too.
67: In junior high the cool thing among the boys was to get your parents to take you to SoCal so you could get an In n Out Burger bumper sticker, then you'd remove the B and the R and stick it on your binder.
Whataburger is wretched.
I've never had a Fatburger. Their only Bay Area location is in Pleasant Hill, which explains why.
I've never heard of Giant Hamburger, unless you're talking about the 1/4 Giant Hamburger chain that has a branch in the Oakland Airport.
BTW, speaking of gross, the Asian carp are on the move. Luckily for Heebie, they're moving north.
108 -- the only two branches I know are in Berkeley and in Pleasanton, but I'm sure there are others. I think it is actually called Nation's, or Nation's Giant Hamburger.
With locations all over the East Bay, from Alameda to Vallejo.
Mmmm, carp. Tasty, not pretty, like catfish. I doubt that Scarlett Johansson would be as tasty as one of those ugly things, not matter how good looking she is.
No, not a mackerel joke. Just saying that you eat your food, you don't ogle it.
Carp are a perfectly handsome fish, actually. Anthropomorphized, they're the jowly beadles of the riverine world.
And I wouldn't count Scarlett out. Human flesh is apparently crazy tasty.
Just saying that you eat your food, you don't ogle it.
Speak for yourself, prude (#30).
Human flesh is apparently crazy tasty.
Mmmm, hufu.
So, can any of the people who've eaten at Moby Dick tell me why an Iranian fast food chain is named after a white whale? I'm really bothered by this.
Hey JM, you're from Berkely -- can you back me up on the superiority of Nation's to other west coast hamburger chains?
I love the ominous ring of this: The taste and texture of Hufu are the result of painstaking research and extensive testing in our kitchens. It's too bad Hufu was a hoax.
I mostly remember Nation's milkshakes (good but not as good as Fat Apple's). Back when I went to Nation's every once in a while, I didn't eat hamburgers.
Yeah, it really is. Same with Manbeef.
from the site:
Coming to America 24 years ago, [the owner, "Mr. Mike" Daryoush] opened the Bethesda "Moby Dick Sandwich Shop," named for a famous eatery in Tehran, then realized that there was a growing demand for affordable but exotic fare.He accordingly opened the first Moby Dick House of Kabob in Bethesda in 1987; three other locations followed, in Crystal City, Georgetown and McLean.
Blake's Lotaburger is definitely the best New Mexico-based fast food chain. I've never been to Manning's Thatsaburger (which as far as I know has only one location, in Shiprock), though.
the Bay Area and points west
Points west of the Bay Area? What, like Guam?
I would regard a tasty Scarlettburger as a terrible waste.
Thanks, mike d!
Those reviews are sort of amazing, and not in a good way.
not in a good way
At a meeting I had today, one participant said that if her phone rang she would have to take it because it would be "about cocaine, and in a bad way."
That's the sort of comment that I might not ask clarification about.
Blake's Lotaburger is definitely the best New Mexico-based fast food chain.
My mom worked there in high school. It's where my parents met, I think.
Ever been to Alamogordo, Teo? I visit once a year.
No, never been there. I don't get down to that part of the state much, and when I do I'm generally just driving through on I-25.
126 -- Farallones. No burger joints out there, though.
Not to go all Midwestern, but Skyline Chili? Here at least the food looks like the ads (which may not appeal to a normal person).
111: Ohh, Nation's. Yeah, I've heard good things about them, but I haven't tried them yet (fell off the veg wagon in November). When I moved into my house, my movers were SO PSYCHED because they were going to be able to go to Nation's for lunch. They spent the entire morning talking about it.
Even better than any burger joint listed above: GopherBurger.
If you're going to get right down to the locals, there is surely nothing better than Char-Grill or perhaps the Honey's Honeyburger.
My stomach seriously growled when I thought of them.
No one's said Sonic yet?!? Dude--burgers with actual tomatoes on them! Fries or tater tots! Cherry lime soda!
Sadly, there isn't one here. Dammit.
And thanks to John for the happy hamster link. PK had an absolutely awful day, and really needed a pickmeup.
140 -- ok, well I'm going to take your movers' excitement as vindication of my childhood memories of Nation's.
It's taken me over nine hours to get 101, but -- funny!
I've always thought it would be interesting to map out the regional boundaries delineated by fast food. How far does In-N-Out extend (more into Arizona than I expected), where is the Hardee's/Carl's Jr. divide and does it correspond to any reasonable notion of east/west, that sort of thing. Similarly with grocery stores (e.g. Piggly-Wiggly: I think deep south, but they exist in Wisconsin! what does that mean?). Wouldn't it be fascinating to have an atlas of these things? Or maybe I'm just weird. Google maps might make it relatively easy to explore....
Also, this thread needs some mention of Harold's Chicken Shack. So there: Harold's Chicken Shack. Because what's fast food without bulletproof glass?
That Chinese place next to it was fuckin' nasty, though.
152: assuming you mean next to the Harold's in Hyde Park, definitely. Possibly the worst Chinese food I've ever had. Though I don't think I've ever had really memorably good Chinese food anywhere in Chicago, including Chinatown.
150 would be interesting. Hardees used to be in Utah, but disappeared about probably about 10 years ago. It wasn't until several years after that Carl's started finally popping up around Salt Lake. I don't think we have Jack in the Box up here either.
I don't think I've ever seeen a Piggly Wiggly west of the Rockies. Out here the Kroger store we have is Smith's. Back in L.A. it was Ralphs.
150: I'd like to see this mapped over a map of, say, North American regionalisms. Then we could find out whether there were any In n Outs where you could order "pop" without the employees looking at you funny.
OH MY MOTHERFUCKING GODDAMN IT.
Tonight sucked.
-A Becks-style update. Motherfuck. Jesus Christ.
I'm just whining. I was inches away from two truly awesome things and blew them both, I guess, totally. Whimperingly, inchingly close to glory, both way way way out of my league. But I am intoxicated.
Ah, sorry to hear it. It sounded like perhaps you'd lost a toe. Keep drinking.
Would that there were fewer inches. Condolences, AWB.
This thread makes me want a fucking Big Mac. Which I kinda like, even though I can never eat the last few bites b/c by that point I feel kinda sick.
Thanks. I'm fine. Just, uh, sorry.
That's the word I was looking for.
inches away from two truly awesome things and blew them both
So what's the problem? Sounds like a great night at the Mineshaft! (Kidding -- sorry you had a frustrating evening.)
In & Out's good, but we're fortunate enough to be in walking distance from Carney's. Bad website, great burgers.
No one's said Sonic yet?!? Dude--burgers with actual tomatoes on them! Fries or tater tots! Cherry lime soda!
I refuse to go to Sonic because despite being a regional chain they have huge amounts of national advertising in places where nobody has ever seen a Sonic. Stop taunting us, Sonic! Bojangles and In-n-Out Burger don't advertise in Pittsburgh, why do you?
I once got really sick from a Carl's Jr. $5 burger. I even wrote a letter, because it was so bad. I'd had one before, but I think that this location was using bad meat or something.
I love In 'N Out and think that it's much better than % Guys.
In Brunswick, ME there is a great seasonal restaurant called Fat Boy. It's really cheap, and they have the best onion rings I've ever tasted. Their lobster rolls are inexpensive and delicious. I've never had fries there. The sit-down area is small, but they have trays that they will attach to your car. I don't, however, think that the waitresses are on roller skates.
As a result of this thread, I ate a Whopper for the first time in months today.
I've eaten a Big Mac only once but ended up tasting it twice.
I don't, however, think that the waitresses are on roller skates.
It must be said, A & W is a fine establishment. And to mention another specifically Modesto chain, Webb's Drive-In.
I've eaten a Big Mac only once but ended up tasting it twice.
Two bites, huh?
Then I will cherish my memories.
The best burger I've ever had, other than home cooked, was on Lasqueti Island. Not at a chain, as it's not the kind of place with chains.
not the kind of place with chains
No dungeons?
I got sidetracked thinking about Lasqueti -- hmmm, cheeseburgers -- and got to looking at the stats from the Canadian census. (Hope the link works -- it's from the bottom of the wiki entry linked in 174). Someone needs to teach math to Canadians. They seem unable to make the rows and columns add up. For example, there are said to be 10 Catholic women on the island, no Catholic men, and the total for Catholics is 0. Five widowed people -- 5 are men, and 5 are women. 105 single people over 15, of whom 55 are men and 55 women. 115 married people, of whom 55 are men and 55 women. Of 365 people total, 360 claim no aboriginal descent, and 10 claim some. (All 10 are women, by the way -- no obvious math error, just an interesting demographic fact. Think they might be Catholic?)
365 people total
I wonder if each of them has a unique birthday.
You guys who want an atlas should just set up a Wiki, then go to the various chains' corporate sites. The publicly-traded ones always have the number of locations in various states in their 10-Ks; most privately held firms will at least give the regions they operate in. This whole thing could be finished in a matter of hours through the power of the Internautical Hive Mind.
Where I come from Moby Dick is a chain of fried-fish-sandwich fast-food restaurants. Not Persian kebobs.
Isn't the name of the fried-fish chain hyphenated?
I think I know why it's called Moby Dick.