The
Ultimate In-N-Out Secret Menu
(and Super Secret Menu!) Survival Guide
By FBWorld
Did
you know there was a secret, unpublished menu that fans
and insiders of In-N-Out know about?
Well, there is. And I for one, am going to be trying it
out here in northern California. The guidelines for trying
it out yourself are found in this article by my favorite,
J.Kenji Lopez-Alt of Serious Eats.
I'm
no stranger to In-N-Out, the massively
popular California-based fast food burger chain (that
is apparently poised to expand
East, if only a couple states closer to me-hooray!).
And of course, I've been aware of their secret menu for
years. I've eaten plenty of their signature veggie-heavy,
never-frozen, well-balanced, tangy-sauced creations. I've
even had them frozen and FedExed across the country in
order to recreate them at home (that particular experiment
was a great
success, by the way). That said, last Sunday
I found myself about to attempt something that I've never
done before.
The
Location: the In-N-Out
near Sausalito, just out of San Francisco.
The Time: Sunday afternoon, 3 p.m. The Mission: Order
and document every single item and option on the menu,
public, secret,
super-duper-secret.
Anybody
who's been halfway around the block is aware of In-N-Out's
secret
menu, which allows you a few custom options
other than the regular hamburger, cheeseburger, fries,
shakes, and Double-Double that appear on their printed
menus. But the options don't stop there.
Before
I ever set foot in the store, I culled the Internet, eventually
stumbling upon the Davis
County Wiki, which has a full user-generated
page devoted entirely to In-N-Out menu
options. I drew up a list that included about two dozen
distinct menu items designed to demonstrate the entire
width and breadth of the custom options available at your
typical In-N-Out location before hopping into the car.
The
Options
Along with the listed single and double, you can add up
to four patties to any sandwich. Ask for a three by three
or a four by four, and what you get is a triple cheeseburger
or quadruple cheeseburger, respectively. They used to
accommodate sandwiches larger than 4 x 4 (check out a
100
x 100!), but no longer do. I was fairly certain
that they could also accommodate a 2 x 4 or a 4 x 2 (that'd
be two patties, four slices of cheese, or four patties,
two slices of cheese), but hadn't actually tried it in
action on an unsuspecting cashier.
You
can up the flavor by asking for any burger mustard grilled.
After cooking the first side, the cook will squirt some
mustard onto the top of the patty before flipping it so
that it sizzles into the meat on the grill. It's so good
that I've started doing
it myself at home.
That
said, there are those rare moments in life when all you
want to savor is the cheese. Order a grilled cheese, and
what you get is a soft toasted In-N-Out bun with two slices
of American cheese beautifully melted in between. I like
to eat these with pickles. If you ask for it, you can
even get the standard lettuce, tomato, and raw onion slices
stacked inside.
A Grilled Cheese.
Of course, those aren't your only veggie options. Grilled
onions cooked down in the collected meat juices on the
hot griddle can be added to any sandwich, and come standard
if you ask for your burger or fries Animal Style. An Animal
Style burger also includes extra Thousand Island spread,
mustard grilled patties, and extra pickles. Animal Style
fries, on the other hand, are topped with cheese, spread,
and grilled onions. You'll want to mix 'em up with your
fork before the cheese starts to coagulate (of course,
you can also ask for just plain old cheese fries). And
these options are just the start.
Personnel Issues
With such a large and complex order, I figured the best
strategy to achieve my goals without getting kicked out
of the restaurant would be to order in waves, always including
one simple, anchor sandwich (say, a regular Double Double)
along with a few of my "special" requests. My
first interaction with the bright-eyed, young cashier
named Thomas went easily enough.
"Welcome
to In-N-Out."
"Hi-I
want to make a kinda weird order, ok?"
"Of
course!" he said, almost a little too brightly. I
must remember to shed my mistrusting New Yorker attitude.
"Ok.
I'd like one regular cheeseburger, with everything on
it. Then I'd like one regular cheeseburger with chopped
chilis.* Oh, and could I also have a bag of chilis
on the side?** After that, I'll need a cheeseburger
with everything, split in half,*** along
with an order of fries, well done,****
if you can do that."
"Sure
we can! Anything else?" He's totally unfazed.
"Uh
yeah, I'll take a root beer float*****
as well, and... that's it for now."
"No
problem. You'll be order number 4 today."
*
That's super-hot pickled sport peppers chopped and pressed
into the bottom of the burger. ** A small bag with two
whole sport peppers. *** Any burger will be cut neatly
in half upon request. **** Fries cooked extra long. *****
Root beer with vanilla ice cream
Our
order arrived a few minutes later, produced exactly as
requested. Shocking! At my local McDonald's, the cashier
has trouble even getting a single cheeseburger right,
never mind special requests!
After
documenting the goods, I went back for me second order.
"Hey-you're
back. Still hungry?"
"Yep.
I'm going to order a few more weird things."
"So,
are you just trying to order everything on the menu?"
Sh*t,
I thought to myself. The gig is up.
"Yeah...,"
I said sheepishly.
"Awesome!
I've been waiting for this day ever since I started working
here!"
Things
just got a whole lot more fun. We proceeded to spend the
next 15 minutes poring over our options, colluding like
'80s kids in a clubhouse trading Garbage Pail Kids, expanding
my original list with Thomas' insider information.
Here's some more: If you don't like your onions chopped,
you might want to instead opt for a whole grilled onion.
Thomas was hyper-enthusiastic about this one, saying it
was his favorite, and describing the flavor as "almost
diner-like." I've got to concur. It's fantastic.
Say the magic words medium rare, and any burger can be
cooked so that it retains a nice pink center.
Buns
come toasted, and burgers come medium-well by default.
But you can, of course, request that your bun come either
no toast or extra toast, the latter helping to help protect
it from excess burger juice.
Say
the magic words medium rare, and any burger can be cooked
so that it retains a nice pink center. Don't worry, the
patty still manages to form some of that signature In-N-Out
brown crust.
As
for those chopped chilis, I'm no amateur when it comes
to heat, but biting one of these diminutive fire-bombs
in half nearly brought me to tears. They're not for the
faint-hearted!
By J.
Kenji López-Alt courtesy of seriouseats.com
For the rest of this original article, click
here:
|