Heavyweight Fast Food Burger Battle: In-N-Out vs. Shake Shack

I know it's just fast food, but I'll admit, I can be something of a snob when it comes to fast food burgers.

I've ranted about disappointing and overpriced local burgers on the blog before, I've dropped bits of praise for North Carolina chain Cook-Out, and I'm not shy to admit that as a California native the In-N-Out burger chain has always been tops for me.

The issue with In-N-Out is that its locations are confined to California, Nevada, Texas, Arizona, and Utah.  And while I've been living in the eastern half of the country over the past decade, I haven't found myself able to make too many trips back home to the west very often.  This summer, though, K and I flew out to visit her family just outside Las Vegas and I made a quick trip north to see a few members of my family.  Of course getting my hands on some In-N-Out wasn't my top priority, but let's just say that I was pretty determined to make that happen at some point.

I did get to In-N-Out on that trip, and it was still as good as I remembered it--better in some ways, in fact.  But I also recently made a weekend jaunt down to New York City and got my first taste of Danny Meyer's praised and popular Shake Shack burger.  And I have to say, those were some good burgers, too.  In the end, my heart still rests with In-N-Out, though not fully because of the food itself.

Mission Chinese Food: So Hot (In More Ways Than One)

You know what I haven't done much of over the years?  Eaten out at hot, new, trendy restaurants.  I'm not talking about some falafel joint in Pittsburgh that all the cool kids would flock to.  I mean the kind of restaurant that's getting written about in magazines, reviewed by the Times.

Part of that is simply lack of opportunity--not enough time spent in the kinds of cities where hype machines rage endlessly.  But there are other explanations that offer a slightly deeper glimpse into what kind of person I really am:

1) I do not handle crowds or long lines particularly well.  These often must be negotiated if you want to get seated at some hot new spot.

2) It is hard to find a hotly-discussed new restaurant that is not fairly expensive; this would require spending large sums of money on a meal, which is something I generally avoid doing.

But in the weeks before K and I made a holiday trip to New York City, I don't know how many magazine articles or internet posts I read about Mission Chinese Food, the sort of fusion Chinese restaurant in the Lower East Side that opened up in May 2012.  Mission Chinese was started first in San Francisco by Oklahoma native Danny Bowien, and what struck me in all I read about the restaurant was the way Bowien takes many of the Chinese flavors and cooking traditions I know and love and puts a decidedly 21st century American-kid spin on them.

Kung Pao Pastrami?  Chongqing Chicken Wings?  Tingly Tea-Smoked Chicken?  I could go on and on--almost everything on the menu grabs you by the wrist in a devilish way, begging you to come closer.  Close enough to touch, close enough to smell all that chili oil and Szechuan pepper.

The Hop-Pickle: A Delicious Collaboration Between Brooklyn Brine and Dogfish Head

 
If I'm not mistaken, federal law requires that every article about a successful collaboration must begin with a list of legendary duets/duos from music or sports.  You know: Sonny and Cher, Simon and Garfunkel, Stockton and Malone, Gretzky and Kurri.  You get the idea.

In that vein, when I think of the great Hop-Pickle collaboration between the Brooklyn Brine Co. and Dogfish Head Brewery, I think of some of the great side projects from already-established musicians.  Temple of the Dog automatically comes to mind, though Pearl Jam hadn't even released their first record before that collaboration with the guys from Soundgarden.  There are also several comparable examples from fairly recent vintage.

The Hop-Pickle collaboration reminds me most of successful teamings of some unique musicians, like David Bowie joining Queen for "Under Pressure" or (on a lesser scale, of course) M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel combining for their She & Him albums.  Each had blazed a distinct trail on their own before these collaborations, yet after hearing the results of such teamwork you'd have thought they were born to play together--a phrase you could easily apply to Brooklyn Brine and Dogfish Head.

Enough music for now.  We need to talk pickles.