Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Has anyone noticed that their fries have gotten worse over the last year or so? Since day one in 1948 In & Out used a Shaver Keen Kutter for cutting their fries. Most of the high end steak houses and restaurants use the Keen Kutter because of their quality and unique design of the blades. The blades are thin & cut through the french fry rather then trying to "force" the potatoes through the cutting head with thick blades. They switched to what looks to be a "Nemco" machine or hybrid that has thick blades. When you apply pressure on the potatoes and try to push them through this thick blade design, the patatoe is forced through the cutting head. Were the blade makes contact with the potato it puts stress on the potato. When the cut portion of the potato is exiting the blades it wants to expand from the preasure of trying to get by the bigger blades. When this happens, the potato edges crack or break and allows oxygen to enter through these stress cracks. What does that matter you may ask? Now when the cut fries are being fried, the oil gets inside these cracks which enter the patoto and cook it uneavenly. Not to mention it changes the nutritional facts that have been the same for 60 years. I bet they didn't re-test the fries after they switched their process. I know notice that their a alot more broken little 1/8 & 1/4 picece fries on my tray.

I heard that over the years that the potato's that In & Out grow/buy have gotten bigger and didn't fit the Shaver cutting head, thus changing to a bigger head and thicker blade design. Consistency is key and after 60 years of the same good french fry that helped the company grow to what it is today... why change something that isn't broken.

Still not on. Frankly, I'm not sure they'll actually be on this season.

To clarify, there's no Forty Carrots at the Soho branch, but you can get the same yogurt at Cafe 504 on the 2nd floor! Ah, my head hurts. I need yogurt.

@queensblondie: link is fixed!

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.

Wow! WTF, people?? Waiting 2 hours or more for a pizza?? That's insane.

pizzologist is one hundred percent absolutely correct in his assessment of Jean Georges and his involvement. He's been eating there A LOT:

"I’ve been at Co. every other night since it’s opening"

"I think I’ve gained about 4 pounds these last few weeks. I need to go back on my soba diet…"

I think the griping is 99.8599% sandy vagina related.

Huh??? Please explain to this Texas gal what "animal-style" has to do with melted cheese, onions and 1000 Island dressing?

I'm sure the purist thought is that all these issues stem from Lahey throwing the dough. All of this could have been avoided if he hadn't thrown the dough...sigh. ;)

In n Out will make anything anyway you want. Strawberry shake syrup on your fries? As you wish.

The problem with animal fries is the cheese will coagulate before you get settled in your seat. Never get them to go. I modify these and get the fries well-done, with grilled onions and grilled chiles, if the InO has peppers. Cheese only if eating on site. No spread.

i like my animal fries extra crispy :)

Pretty sure they sell it on tap @ the Bohemian Beer Garden in Astoria

I'm jonesing for In-N-Out now, again. It's probably unhealthy to think back on fast food with a desire more intense than that for filet mingon, but the taste, sight, and smell refuse to leave my head. Unfortunately I had forgotten about the animal style option on my last chance to dine there.

On Five Guys vs. In-N-Out, I don't see the comparison. Sure Five Guys is good, but their bun is crap and their meat lacks in beefy flavor when put side to side. As far as fries go, I like both, Five Guys have better texture, but In-N-Out has better flavor.

@ PommeDG - my bad about the chili, but still, this sounds and looks weird to me...