I am going to have to bust into a WB soon cause all this.
I'm not against all Tex Mex Fast food. I'll chow on some Taco Bueno. But they can be hit and miss.
A combo of chopped beef brisket and Hot links w/ jalapenos and onions from a shack nearby (Randy's BBQ here in Texoma)
If there's one thing I'm jealous of Texas for, it's the sheer amount (and quality) of American BBQ. I have yet to find a contender or anything that comes close within LA County lines.
Whataburger is good in florida (though their fries leaves much to be desired!). Big and tasty. In fact it reminds me of burger king about 3 years ago when they had the absolute best burgers (they cheapened and lowered the quality now ).
But, for 'fast' food here in my town the best place is not a burger joint but a Mongolian bbq place.
There is no drive through but its damn fast.
Their system is unique too. They only have three choices for you: 1 bowl, unlimited or bowl+soup.
1 bowl .. they give you one bowl and you head to the buffet style area (more on this later)
unlimited..they give you a different colored bowl and as the name says it, its all you can eat.
bowl+soup is 1 bowl with unlimited soup...so they give you 1 bowl and the smaller soup bowl.
When you have your bowl, you go to the buffet area. They have it in five sections: Meats, Veggies, Pasta and the Salad&soup area on the side. The fifth section is the SAUCES section.
You just go to each area and fill your bowl with the RAW meat/veggies/pasta they have there. Then you go to the Sauce section and fill up as many little cups of sauce you want (ranging from sweet to spicy, teriyaki, etc..you name it they got it).
You take your bowl+sauces to the main grill area. They have a HUGE circular grill where they have 3 staff members that come in ,take your bowl and sauce, cook it in front of you (takes less than 2 minutes) and give you a clean bowl matching your bowl color with your food in it.
If you want to take it home you tell the guy and they pack it in large chinese-food-style boxes.
Its delicious and when I go to pick up food to take home it takes me less than 5 minutes from the time i park my car outside to the time i get back in the car with my food. Its even faster than many fast food joint drive throughs here. cheaper and more food than them too!.
mmmm
Oh yeah, we got Mongolian BBQ here too, and lots of them. Best thing is they charge per bowl you create. When I was a teenager me and my friends would joke "do you know how to pack your bowl" when we would go to one. Of course it was a bad joke, but we seriously had a system down. You take a napkin and with the palm of your hand, pack down the meat and other goodies you fill your bowl with as hard and dense as you can (before they cook the stuff up). You know you did it right by two indicators: 1) the look on the chefs face when he dumps the contents of your single bowl onto the grill, spreads it out, and it takes up 1/4-1/2 of the grill and 2) when your one little precooked bowl would result in two styrofoam to-go boxes filled with the cooked results.
Having lived in California for 4 years and Texas for a lot longer, I would have to say that In-n-Out is by far the better fast food burger than Whataburger. The one and not insignificant advantage that Whataburger has is the jalapenos. Now it's been a long time since I've had an In-n-Out burger, so it's possible that their quality has slid since then but I've never heard that.
There is a believer amongst the heathens! Hallelujah!
As I said, the food quality is still good and tasty here in California, and In-n-Out is well loved and liked out here ever since it opened its doors. The reports from Texas of it being otherwise is disturbing and concerning to me though. If anyone from Texas comes out here to Cali and has a chance to hit up an In-n-Out, please do. I'd love to hear your comparison.