In-N-Out Animal Style Cheeseburger

Review of In-N-Out Animal® Style Cheeseburger

Website: http://www.in-n-out.com/

What they say:

Our commitment to quality starts with our hamburgers. And our burgers begin with our patties. We make them from fresh, 100% pure beef. They are free of additives, fillers and preservatives of any kind. Animal® Style: Burger of your choice with hand-leafed lettuce, tomato, a mustard cooked beef patty; add pickle, extra spread with grilled onions.

Price: $2.59.

Calories: Unknown.

In-N-Out seems to have a sort of cult following on the Internet. I think it is from California and seems to be rather popular. Let’s find out why…

In-N-Out Animal® Style Cheeseburger
Flash, ah-ha…!

It has a very distinctive logo. Makes me think of Flash Gordon. Instantly recognisable. The red and white colour scheme of the decor and uniforms is faintly reminiscent of Five Guys, and like Five Guys, has a very small menu.

Basically, you can get a hamburger, a cheeseburger, or a double. And they have a secret menu which is described on their menu, so not the world’s best kept secret.

Animal style means the patty is cooked in mustard, there are grilled onions and more sauce. The “not so secret” menu also includes one of my least favourite things in the world, the bunless burger.

In-N-Out Animal® Style Cheeseburger
Branding is king here…

So I ordered my Animal Style Cheeseburger. The very low price was quite staggering. I think this is easily the cheapest burger I’ve had in America, and with the exchange rate, probably cheaper than anything I’ve had in the UK too.

After a short wait, it came out in a deep red tray, wrapped in branded paper. It was also presented sideways, mouth open, like Shake Shack does. The presentation was very good. It really looked like a bit of an animal, a messy one.

In-N-Out Animal® Style Cheeseburger
The best cheap burger you’ll ever find…

I unwrapped it and this was HOT. Incredibly fresh off the grill. And the sauce was all over the place. Very messy to hold and eat.

On top of the patty were grilled onions and cheese, while downstairs had lettuce, tomato, pickles and sauce.

Lots of everything. When I took my first bite, I went down through the hot stuff on top and into the cold stuff on the bottom. The temperature difference was very noticeable.

In-N-Out Animal® Style Cheeseburger
Mouth wide open…

The other thing that was very noticeable was the pickles. To my palate, they completely dominated the whole thing and they had to come out.

I lifted the lid and world through the goo to get to the pickles. It was like a Crystal Maze challenge. There were five thick slices in there. No wonder the taste was so strong. “Start the fans, please!”

It improved after this point. The bun was nothing fancy – just a roll, but a decent one – the sort that cracks across the top. Having removed the pickles I did actually leave the tomato in. It was a single slice, but a pretty large one.

In-N-Out Animal® Style Cheeseburger
Messy animal style…

Lettuce and tomato are lettuce and tomato. There’s not a lot you can say about them.

Anyone who pretends they add much to a burger is wrong. But onions – grilled so they were all dark and almost caramelised, they put a sweetness onto the top of the patty that was frankly delicious. And at completely the other end of the burger, the peachy-orange coloured mayo was also delicious.

In between all that was a decent patty. Quite thin, but looked to be quite loosely packed, with subtle seasoning.

It was a good experience. The place was spotless, service impeccable, price surprisingly low and yet the burger would seem to me to be worth at least double what I paid.

In-N-Out Animal® Style Cheeseburger
Check it out, Animal Style…

Now granted the Internet does tend to make more of an obsessive fuss about things than is usually warranted, and it’s probably overblown in this case. Ignore all that though, and have a great fast food burger experience.

Get into In-N-Out and see what all the fuss is about.

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