In-N-Out Burger: The Movie

On the advice of my best friend James I finally made it to In-N-Out Burger to try its produce. There's some history here, in that James would often drive us up to Hanley when we were at college to get lunch from the Mexican stand at the shopping centre food court. This was the home of the best burger in Stoke-on-Trent - a half pound monster that came with free chips, proving the staff had a sense of humour. Since then, whenever I've been back to Stoke, Jim has known exactly where to go to get the best burger the town has to offer. As he stated in an email to me before I flew out to Vegas, he's "Always on the path to a better burger".

So you can see that when Jim says I need to visit In-N-Out burger, I should take it very seriously. Especially when he backs it up with a poll from Lasvegas.Citysearch.com which gives the store a user rating of 9.7 out of 10! Last year I failed him miserably by never setting foot in it, despite the fact it's just a short walk from out hotel. This year I had to do better.

The only thing in my way? That unbelievably good buffet at our hotel. In fact, it's that daily ritual of breakfast and evening meals at the buffet (no lunch necessary) which kept me from stepping foot in In-N-Out until today. With only one half-day remaining of our trip, I hoped I wasn't going to regret having more opportunities to eat here.

My initial impression as I approached the building was I couldn't believe how full it was. It's just off the Vegas strip, but you have to cross a freeway bridge to reach it, and I was probably the only walk-in customer (everyone in Vegas drives). My next impression was that this is how fast food is supposed to be. The menu is very simple, with enough choices for variety but not so many that the staff behind the counter can't cope. And what's that man doing in the background? He's feeding potatoes into an old-style chipping vice, pulling the lever and making chips out of them! I'm not one for fries as a general rule, but I had to have some and I wasn't disappointed. The only thing that did disappoint me was that I had my mini-camcorder rolling the whole time. I've yet to check the footage, but I'm pretty sure he stopped chipping before I took up a spot where I could capture him doing it.

Overall, the burger was excellent, with very fresh salad. Even the information on the burger wrapping told me why McDonald's would never be able to better this place:
* All the burgers are with fresh beef that's never been frozen.
* The buns are made without preservatives the old-fashioned way.
* All lettuce is hand leafed every day.
* The fries are peeled and diced from Kennebec potatoes
* Fries have been cooked in cholesterol-free oil since 1948.

I had a double-double burger with fries, which came to about $4.49 (£2.50). As soon as the last piece was in my mouth I regretted not coming here before. I won't make the same mistake next time I find one.