Carl's Jr.

[Tuberski]

Whataburger. That is all.

meh. They salt their patties too much.

ACK!

[The Mad Monk]

Had 5 Guys on the way home. Cheeseburger with grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, and barbecue sauce. Nice and simple. Juicy, tasty, and a fresh bun that didn't fall apart.

Large fries, of course. Fantastic potato flavor.

[Spaced Cowboy]

I've only had Carl's Jr. one time evah...in Shanghai. Probably one of the best burgers ever, but tainted by the fact that I had been there for almost three weeks and was pretty toasted on native. Plus it was real close to my hotel.

There used to be an iconic burger joint in Austin...something ee's, north of downtown on Lamar I think. It was supposed to be the best, but I was not impressed. When I moved there in '82, this guy takes me to Dan's saying this is the best burger evah. But Dan's is like a Whataburger clone, ok, but not the best.

Tried In-n-Out here in Dallas, not bad, but there are much better little holes around that make their own bread. Meat aside, a burger on morning fresh bread is the bomb.

[DaShi]

There used to be a decent burger joint in Hangzhou. But it, like many of the western restaurants with the best food, didn't last. The Chinese prefer western crap as much as we prefer Chinese crap.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Luckily there are 1M foreigners in Shanghai so the restaurants have good diversity.

[DaShi]

God, I miss it.

[regexcellent]

Remove "the" and you're correct. BK is the bottom of the barrel as far as I'm concerned (as in, below McD's). I'd go to _any_ FF restaurant over BK. By far the least consistency between franchises of any major fast food establishment (perhaps KFC rivals it, but it's harder to screw up fried chicken).

I prefer BK to McD's

[The Mad Monk]

It depends on what what their specials are that month. BK's chicken parm sandwich was the bomb, and I could eat angry whoppers all day, but I find I'm happier at McDonald's in general.

[Dinner]

Had 5 Guys on the way home. Cheeseburger with grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, and barbecue sauce. Nice and simple. Juicy, tasty, and a fresh bun that didn't fall apart.

Large fries, of course. Fantastic potato flavor.

I took this post as a challenge to try another location and see if it was just the La Jolla location; I snapped some pictures on my smart phone to illustrate my points. So, anyway, a friend of mine recently got divorced and to make ends meet he had to get a second (part time job) to help pay the bills (as he has child support, spousal support, and lawyers to pay), I agreed to pick him up at his work so we could go together to a beach party this afternoon. Since there is a brand new 5 Guys across the street from his work (it's on Balboa Blvd and it opened last week) I ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a coke and here is the reciept; $13.80 is not a very good price at all especially as there are wonderful burgers (grass fed, organic, never frozen, etc...) which can be bought for the $7-$10 range with fries and a coke.

Here's the receipt:


After buying I drove across the street to my friend's work, sat down in the back to eat while I waited for his shift to end, total travel time was less than 5 minutes. First the French fries all looked like this:


They were all soggy with oil, mushy, and limp as a flaccid penis. Here's a picture of another fry, notice how it isn't even the slightest bit crisp and instead sags and is limp with the exterior being soggy without even much sign of browning much less being golden-brown.


The burger was some what better at this location as I saw the guy behind the counter at least wasn't pressing down on them and squeezing all the juices out of them so I guess he was a better cook. The burgers came out about medium well, which I like, but which actually isn't allowed under 5 guys company policy as the policy says all burgers must be cooked well done for safety reasons so it looks like I got lucky as the burger guy was rushing due to the crowd and so he broke company policy by not over cooking the patty. As you can see the bun is still flat as a pancake and was slightly soggy just from the 5 minute trip across the street but at least the mayo wasn't sliming off of the thing like at the La Jolla restaurant. It was still a messy burger but I'm ok with that.


So this location didn't suffer from the bone dry patty but the fries and the bun were still completely substandard and unacceptable (especially given the price) and if we assume everyone in the thread has been honest (which I do believe is the case) then it seems 5 Guys has some major problems with delivering a consistent product. I'm not sure why, maybe they just expanded too much too fast and didn't keep good enough control over quality, but it certainly seems that quality is very hit and miss. McD's and the other fast food places might not use high end ingredients but at least they are absolutely rock solid 100% consistent with their products no matter where in the world you walk into their restaurants. That doesn't seem to be the case with 5 guys and that's a major mark against them in my book.

That said, this burger was juicy, the first one I've had in four trips, but as I said I think I got lucky as it wasn't cooked well done the way the company policy demands they be cooked. The fries were an absolutely horrible limp and soggy mess which I would not recommend to anyone and the price premium they're charging means they should be held to a higher standard, a standard they haven't remotely met.

[Dinner]

Oh, and their sliced tomatoes kind of sucked as they were obviously run of the mill supermarket tomatoes with hard chewy skins and which just tasted like water without any flavor in them at all. The other places use heirloom tomatoes which have super soft skins and lots of flavor to them. I did like 5 Guy's pickles though as they did seem to be of better quality than usual (not super soft or overly salty).

[Dinner]

Over all I am still left dumb founded as to why anyone would say 5 Guys makes a burger worth buying. Either other locations make their food in a radically different manner, or those people have extremely different definitions of what is good or what constitutes a "crisp french fry", or they're not being even remotely objective about the food (possibly they just bought into the fake hype created by advertising). Maybe a bit of all three.

On my score card 5 Guys isn't worth buying because there are a huge amount of better burger places which not only can get the basics right (like french fries which are actually crisp) but which also offer superior ingredients & which are cooked to a higher standard. Hell, even Fuddruckers, a company which hasn't changed anything in decades nor even bothers with advertising, runs rings around 5 Guys in every possible way yet still costs substantially less.

[The Mad Monk]

I think I see part of the problem. "crispness" means little to me; I dislike fries that are over crisp. I hate when they are dry and crumbly inside. 5 Guys fries are moist (I would not call them soggy), solid instead of crumbly (I really like the texture), and have the truest potato flavor I have ever experienced in a french fry.

[DaShi]

Sorry, but I find 5 Guys fries terrible. They are simply soggy. Oerdin's picture is a perfect example of nearly every fry they serve. All those grease spots on the bag are formed solely from the fries after a few seconds. If you like them, good for you. Me, I prefer my fries to be distinguishable from noodles.

The 5 Guys burger isn't bad. However, I often feel that I need to buy the double, which it looks like Oerdin ordered, to get any flavor out of them.

The conversation I get whenever 5 Guys comes up is always the same. People like it, but always name some place better: In-N-Out, ShakeShack, or some local burger joint.

[Tuberski]

Over all I am still left dumb founded as to why anyone would say 5 Guys makes a burger worth buying. Either other locations make their food in a radically different manner, or those people have extremely different definitions of what is good or what constitutes a "crisp french fry", or they're not being even remotely objective about the food (possibly they just bought into the fake hype created by advertising). Maybe a bit of all three.

On my score card 5 Guys isn't worth buying because there are a huge amount of better burger places which not only can get the basics right (like french fries which are actually crisp) but which also offer superior ingredients & which are cooked to a higher standard. Hell, even Fuddruckers, a company which hasn't changed anything in decades nor even bothers with advertising, runs rings around 5 Guys in every possible way yet still costs substantially less.

Funny hearing you calling out people for believing fake hype, being a hipster and all.

I'm with Mad Monk on fries, however, crispness means little to me. Most places with crisp fries are using frozen fries, anyway.

ACK!

[Tuberski]

I've gotten better fries in bowling alleys than most fast food joints.

ACK!