It was 8pm a night as we pulled up to the drive-through. We were full of tension and excitement. This was the first time we'd ever been to a drive through. Would our secret mission be a success? The huge red pickup in front of us pulled forward and it was our turn. We edged our way forward to the order window and waited for the voice on the other end, "Welcome to In-N-Out, what would you like today?" We paused, and nervously repeated the order we'd decided on: A double double animal style, a 2 x 4 mustard grilled with grilled onions, cheese fries, a Neapolitan shake and a root beer float. Not a single item was on the regular menu, would this really work? "Sure" came the voice on the other end and repeated our order back to us. Whew, we made it. We pulled forward, grabbed our food, and peeled out. Well... as much "peeling out" as can be expected from old Daisy. In the end we just made our escape at slow respectable pace. We turned to each other and breathed, "We did it. It does exist!"
We decided to go have a "cultural experience" for date night yesterday. As you may know, In-N-Out opened some stores in Utah awhile ago. There was a huge amount of excitement and hype. People waited in their cars for hours to go through the drive-through when it first opened. But not us. You see, we're not really fast food people. In fact, we began the descent into food-snobbishness long ago (but that's another tale) and reading Fast Food Nation didn't help either. Besides, there's so many other places where we can get some very tasty food (mmm... pizzeria 712). But In-N-Out is ok in our book. They pay decent wages to their employees, don't franchise, cook with fresh ingredients and are generally non-evil. We resolved to try it eventually and see what all the talk was about.
After several months we did. It was ok, but still a fast food burger. We could do much better with the grass-fed local beef in our freezer (yet another tale). But then, I ran across an article about The Secret Menu and were strangely intrigued. We had an inexplicable desire to order something "animal style" just because we could. Now, I'm sure most of you were already aware of said secret menu, but it was news to us. So, last night we decided to go have our "cultural adventure." We opted for the drive-through to get the full experience, that and we had Harold in the back.
It was a lot of fun. We really enjoyed ourselves. It's quite satisfying to order something not printed on the menu. And the food wasn't bad. The "animal style" was a definite improvement, as was the root beer float. So, are we going back soon? Probably not. There are still so many other tasty places to eat, plus we can cook pretty well ourselves. But we're glad that we went, and a good time was had by all (except maybe Harold, who was starting to get hungry). I'd definitely recommend trying it out at least once.
And that's how we became members of the secret menu club.
