From looking at an In n Out menu it looks like every one of their burgers comes with their “special” sauce. I’m not a sauce kind of guy when it comes to burgers and from asking around it seems like the “sauce” is the whole draw to what makes the In n Out so great.
So if I went and ordered there sans sauce am I just getting some average burger?
Sorry, yeah, a chai with a shot of espresso. I had a sidenote clarifying it and then thought people would be like “uh, we know what dirty means” so I deleted it.
It’s confirmation. For some people large is the absolute biggest cup available or it might be 16 ounces, dammit, I am not a camel, or some other line of reasoning that makes sense in their head but nowhere else.
There are quite a few places around here where ordering green tea gets you iced tea. The reason at those places is if you want hot green tea you just order tea and pick out a green tea tea-bag from the box. The ice tea, on the other hand, is in a big jug behind the counter.
The most unusual ordering system I’ve run into wasn’t confusing at all but it wasn’t one I’d seen before. I was in Japan and ate at a restaurant where everyone sat at a counter and the chef would make various foods cooked on skewers. There were maybe 40 different foods and he’d make them one batch at a time and offer them to everyone at the bar. If you took one you’d eat it and put the skewer in a ceramic fish next to your plate. (There was also much drinking of hot and cold sake while all this was going on). When you were done someone would come by and count the number of sticks in your fish and that was how they knew how much to charge you.
I’ve been to restaurants (cafeterias? Not quote the paradigmatic case of either) with stations – Italian. sushi, burgers, etc – where you go in, get a ticket, the people at the stations put what you got on the ticket, and you pay for the whole thing before you leave. Like Katz’s, except more than just deli food and you pay at the end, so you can switch off eating and ordering if you’re a glutton like I am. I think of them as “marketplace restaurants” though there’s probably a different term. There used to be a restaurant set up like that at the Prudential Center in Boston and in 2000 there were plans to put one in the World Trade Center in NY. Once I figured out how the system worked, I liked it.
Except the Starbucks joke (or “joke”) seems to me to be based more on what small-minded people like to fear would happen rather than something that happens with any regularity, or is remotely typical.
I personally think their straight up burger is about as good as a fast food burger gets, but In n Out is the only place I’ll get a hamburger with any mayo-based condiments on it, and I go with the lettuce and tomato. That said, my first In n Out order was my standard for evaluating burger joints: single cheeseburger with ketchup, mustard, onion, and pickle, and I thought it was perfect. I got addicted to them right then and there.
Izakaya!
Great places!
(sorry I got here late)
No, I second aruvqan. I prefer the middle size, but if I say medium or middle size coffee I know I need to watch them like a hawk as at least half of the time they’ll reach for the smallest cup.
Yeah they probably parse medium as “regular” and regular as smallest, but it’s their own fault for confusing things in the first place with “tall”.
No, I’m not going to say grande.
I’m not a stand-up comic but basing the hook of your joke on the premise that no one had actually been in the wildly successful chain you’re talking about seems a bit weak.
Joe’s Fox Hut in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin makes some great pizza, but their ordering system is down right bizarre.
The front of the building is a typical Wisconsin tavern, which you walk through to the restaurant at the rear. Once in the dining area, you go to a small window where you grab a piece of paper and write down your pizza order and hand it to someone.
Now, you’ll want something to drink. If you want a soda, they have a vending machine. If you want a beer, wine or mixed drink, you go back into the bar and order it there.
Now go back to the dining area and find a table, provide yourself with napkins and silverware and wait for someone to bring your pizza.
At the end of the meal, go back to the bar to pay your bill.
Anyone been to Cooter Brown’s in NOLA? You order beer at the bar. For most menu items you go to the kitchen and tell someone what you want. When the food is ready they call you. Except for oysters on the half shell, those you ask about at the bar. The bartender then sends you to talk to the shucker.
That’s the thing though- the people who hadn’t been in it thinks that’s what is happening there, so think its funny. Or they believe its true, because someone is making the joke. The folks that have been and for the vast majority don’t get treated that way find it much less hilarious.
It’s hyperbole, based on stereotype.
If you can get 5% of the population of the country to go to you establishment, you’re going to be a wild success. But that’ll still leave 95% who’ve never been there, and who will therefore laugh at the jokes.
Sometimes I’m reminded how many people “on the spectrum” this board attracts.
Look, it’s very simple. It’s funny because it’s an exaggeration of the truth. Some people go into a Starbucks and get the eye roll or correction/clarification. The stand up comic then exaggerates this experience, relates it to an audience, and the exaggeration and universalization of an experience we can imagine or have experienced causes us to experience spontaneous diaphragmatic spasms with loud wordless vocalizations and a feeling of camaraderie and pleasure.
Y’all didn’t find Seinfeld particularly funny, did you? It’s okay, observational humor ain’t for everyone. But it was a huge part of comedy in the 90s. And it was all about observing daily events and then exaggerating them for comic effect.
[QUOTE=Pixel_Dent]
The most unusual ordering system I’ve run into wasn’t confusing at all but it wasn’t one I’d seen before. I was in Japan and ate at a restaurant where everyone sat at a counter and the chef would make various foods cooked on skewers. There were maybe 40 different foods and he’d make them one batch at a time and offer them to everyone at the bar. If you took one you’d eat it and put the skewer in a ceramic fish next to your plate. (There was also much drinking of hot and cold sake while all this was going on). When you were done someone would come by and count the number of sticks in your fish and that was how they knew how much to charge you.
[/QUOTE]
Sounds very much like the traditional self-serve “sushi boat” system where a parade of sushi floats by, or more likely now, rolls by on a conveyor, and you snag whatever looks good. When you’re done, they just count up however many white plates, how many red plates, etc. and charge accordingly. Most dim sum places work on a variant of this, but the server ticks off the number and price category when they serve it, otherwise, they’d have to leave the table covered in serving plates until you’re done.
The first time I went I wasn’t impressed. The second time I went with people who loved it and knew all about the secret menu. I still wasn’t impressed. The burgers are okay - better than McDonalds but no better than your local mom and pop burger place here, but the fries are the worst fries I’ve had in any restaurant ever.
Five Guys, btw, has awesome fries. Far superior.
Is that response to my comments? If it was, frankly it was a bit hurtful. I’m hardly “on the spectrum”, and for whatever litmus test that is, I find observational humor very funny. I was responding to the assertion that the comics made jokes about it because it was true. I was offering an alternative option that it could be equally funny even if it wasn’t true, because it hits the insecurities of the audience instead. And to some it wasn’t funny at all.
Agreed on this part. In N Out’s fries are not very good. I don’t know if it’s the type of potato they use (which they mention by name in their literature) or what, but it’s a surprisingly dull, bland fry, despite being freshly cut and fried. I’ve even tried it cooked well done, as others have advised, and it just doesn’t work.
My perfect combo would be an In N Out burger with Five Guys fries.
This is the BEST, I would have tipped Ken extremely well. Or married him, maybe. My mother is a perpetual menu ditherer and I would pay extra for this service.
Regional thing. What was called lo mein in NJ is called chow mein in the Bay Area. If Panda Express started around here, that explains it. No such thing as lo mein around the Bay Area.
Rice has been an extra charge side for ten years at least. Easy way for the restaurants to make more money, I guess. Or some money.
Their Cajun fries are indeed great. Too bad their burgers aggressively mediocre.