In-and-Out Burger, Westwood, California

OK I’ll just get it out of the way now. In-and-Out burger is featured prominently in one of my favorite films, The Big Lebowski. So it was with great pleasure that I was able to scarf at this west coast fast food restaurant. I as a rule don’t eat fast food except for a kryptonite-like weakness for Taco Bell but for In-and-Out I made an exception. When in Rome.

Ian had been admitted to UCLA and said he was hungry for a cheeseburger. When your friend is in the hospital and they request a cheeseburger you comply. Stephanie and I returned to the cafeteria that served me an awful burrito only to find it closed so we ventured, with help from the GPS, to In-and-Out Burger in Westwood. Neither of us had ever been to this fast food restaurant so we were not familiar with the ordering etiquette or set up. There was a young man waiting on the street with an electronic clipboard and he was very eager to explain the menu. It is quite simple, one, two, or three burgers on a bun, lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, and “special sauce”, which is similar to Big Mac sauce. Fries, Coke products, and shakes round out the menu. He took our order effortlessly and sent us to the window to pay and collect our dinner.

I ordered the Three by Three. A triple burger with all the trimmings, For Ian we got the Double Double their famous double stacked cheeseburger, and Steph order the single as she is not a glutton and she is a girl. Fries and Cokes all around were also bought. After we smuggled the food back into the ER we started to chow down. This burger was mammoth and I was immediately pleased. Juicy, flavorful, greasy, and totally bad for you, it had all the makings of a great burger. When I say “bad for you” I mean the kind of thing where you are eating it and you know it is going to kill you, add inches to your waste line, and destroy your gastro-intestinal track but you eat it like a death row prisoner on suicide watch’s last meal because you are compelled to do so by some other worldly force sent by the cheeseburger Beelzebub. You know, that kind of thing. The fries were in my opinion sub par and the Coke was good in that I only drink like two Cokes a year. Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal and it brightened Ian’s spirits so it was worth the adventure to get it. As Ian was being transferred to his room the nurse informed us that we had to put the fries into a bed pan if we wanted to take them with us. I could not resist taking a picture of French fries in a bedpan. I have the maturity of a ten-year-old boy. In-and-Out Burger is one of those things that can now be crossed off my list of places to eat at and given the havoc it brought to my stomach I don’t think I will be returning anytime soon. But the gastric distress I experienced was worth it in light of the tastiness of this fast food icon’s burger. Eight out of ten.