I would’ve taken more pictures of these burgers and fries, had an elderly man not burst out laughing as he walked by my table, watching me whip out my Nikon to take a picture of fast food. I was afraid I’d given him too much excitement. Or fulfilled a stereotype that Asians take pictures of everything with big shiny cameras.

Since living in southern Cali for a little over two months, we finally took everyone’s advice and headed to In-N-Out Burger. Was it everything we hoped it could be?

The burger was quite good, better than most fast food joints. We ordered from the standard, visible menu hanging on the wall. Pretty simple menu, actually: hamburger, cheeseburger, or double cheeseburger, fries, soft drinks, and milkshakes. We picked two cheeseburgers, two fries, and two chocolate milkshakes. I don’t know how Chris and I managed to want the exact same thing, but I think we wanted to try simplest things first, then get a feel for what to order next time.

The cheeseburgers were tasty, and came with fresh onions, lettuce, tomatoes and a toasted bun. The bun was also slathered with a sauce which I believed was thousand island dressing? I think?  Next time I think I’ll skip the onions, or ask for them grilled. There were just too many and they overpowered the burger.

The fries were pretty sad. Maybe I’m too use to greasy, over-salted fries from other restaurants. But I would’ve preferred them to have more taste (they were bland). They also weren’t crunchy enough, and were a little undercooked. And sort of cold.

I had read that In-N-Out has a secret menu. Well, not so secret, since they posted it on their website.  According to the secret menu, you can order things such as a 3 x 3 (3 beef patties with 3 slices of cheese), 4 x 4 (do the math), protein style (bun replaced by lettuce), or animal style (meat patty cooked with mustard, served with grilled onions, extra pickles, extra dressing).

I heard that you can pretty much ask In-N-Out  to do anything you want to your order. I heard someone actually ordered a 100×100 once and got it. I heard you can ask them to deep fry everything and put it into a bun. I heard you can get a milkshake with all the flavors in one cup. I heard that you can order everything and have it blended together and put into a cup so you can suck your meal through a straw (no, not really, that’s just a blatant lie). But who knows? The possibilities are endless.

Next time, I think I’ll order my burger and fries both animal style.