Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I think the person who wrote this review has one helluva pallet, which I doubt or reaching for a bad review. Either way, the food was good and I would visit and recommend again.

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions a couple months ago! I've got a pork shoulder slow cooking at home as we speak. I can't wait to get home and finish it up with a quick high heat and then we're making burritos this first night.

I returned to this post because I know we'll have pounds and pounds leftover, and I'm going to try some of these ideas. (After my original post we ended up just making some burritos and pulled pork sandwiches.)

@hungryinhouston that brunch casserole sounds amazing.

long post ahead to answer the simple question for the above post

French Fries(FF) animal style like everything else on the "secret menu" came to be at the request of our customers. Before 2000, FF animals did not exist, animal style burgers did. In 2001-02, one customer must have asked some cashier if they could melt some cheese and put that on the FF. Thus the birth of the animal FF.

In 2002, we did not have button for animal FF on the order taking screen. We just charged the customer 40 cents for the two extra cheese and the cook would make the animal FF. There was also no policies on making FF animals. Some cooks melted chz on them, then put some fried mustard in the grill onions, added a little chop pickles along with the grill onions and spread. This was the true animal FF because it had the same extra condiments that went on the animal burgers.

The problem with this was that this is an extremely time consuming process. The FF has to come out early for the cook to make them animal style. It also took grill space to melt cheese. Not a huge deal when you made animal FF once or twice a month. When animal FF started spreading like crazy, they became very inconvenient.

The only way to make everything fresh and to order, is to have a very simple menu. One kind of bun, one kind of cheese, basic condiments. No bacon, sesame buns, chicken sandwiches etc. The cooks sees how the customer wants their burger and makes it that way. Animal FF takes a huge toll on the cook. They are fairly simple to make, but during a rush when the cook has to make some 80+ burgers/30min all with different condiments, they are just rhythm killers. They are wrenches in the cooking mechanism.

The company saw this too late and animal FF became much too popular for them to just say no when the customer ordered one. The are very few complaints about in-n-out as a company. The two big ones are lack of a menu variety and the other is wait time. The first one is never going to change because the INO foundation is built on fresh food made to order. The second one is caused by this ideology. A burger will take about 5 mins to cook from the time you order it, no matter what. During the rush this will increase and animal FF will not help. So the next best thing the company did to try and slow down the FF animal popularity was to make them very expensive.

A Double Double, THE all American Cheese, 100% beef patty, on slow rising true sponge dough with granulated sugar, with ace grade tomatoes, iceberg lettuce, and secret spread cooked to order became the 2nd most expensive item behind some FF with 2 slice of cheese on them and some condiments. Imagine if FF animals cost $1.75 instead of $3+. The not so great wait time would be horrendous with the amount of FF animals made. This is why if you don't know about animal FF you never will, animal FF will never be advertised by the company and they will never ever appear on the official menu. Heck, they don't even advertise them on their official website on their secret menu tab.

So yea, they are expensive, and yea they are good. At least, some stores are now retrofitted with steam machine that will melt the cheese, making them a little easier to make, but still very time consuming. FF animals are the biggest thing to change for INO since they added Dr. Pepper in like 1997. Keeping it simple and fresh is the INO motto and FF animals are not simple. Just be glad they didn't axe them like the famous 5X5 and bigger burgers we used to make.

Thanks for reading and thanks for making my check possible every 2 weeks.

i'm pretty sure that if you swallowed this whole - it would eventually come out looking the same way.

A torpedo for the digestive tract.

I see that there are so many other's already capitalizing on this crazy recipe. I found www.mountainproductssmokehouse.com this morning. They have their own version, which looks to be less deadly!

Paintchipgirl, I'm so glad you liked them. I tried 'em a few times with different amounts of sugar, and found that the extra two tablespoons were just right for me. I have a bit of a sweet tooth, though, so take it with a grain of salt. (Or sugar).

A further request for folks posting Serious Efforts threads (which I think have been great threads so far!): please post your recipe/technique when you make your initial post. If everyone knows where you're starting from, you may well get more specific advice/information. Thanks!

Delicious! But I was confused about the extra 2 Tablespoons of sugar called for in the ingredients list. I just used 1/2 cup of sugar and they were fantastic -- didn't miss it. (I'll have the try the applesauce, Cebca. That would make them even lighter.)

Look, I understand. I want to have a half-smoke as bad as the next guy. I respect and love Ben's and the half-smoke. Beyond the food the place has a history more important to D.C. than most people know. It was the only business in the area allowed to stay open during the riots following the assasination of Dr. King. People searched for answers, truth and a hold on the moment following one of the most jarring moments in American History. BUT - I live in Ohio and I hate to have to tell you guys, most people outside of Washington don't know what a half smoke is. We're poor, deprived, scurvy knaves who are missing out on the delicious half beef, half pork smoke-a-licious-ness.

I can vouch for the greatness of the half-smoke.

It was on our top-priority list of "must eat there" restaurants when we visited DC three years ago, after having read about it all over the blogosphere. Great atmosphere.

If I'm not mistaken Obama paid anyway for his meal anyway.

Thank you again for all of the ideas... if you're interested in the outcome, you can check out my blog post:
http://megan-deliciousdishings.blogspot.com/2009/01/homemade-ravioli-with-chicken-marsala.html