Burgers for the road #4: Big A Burger, Truth or Consequences, New Mexico

For sir: Green Chile Cheeseburger, small fries, diet coke.
For Madame: Green Chile Cheeseburger, small tots, sprite.
Good burgers! Soft, slightly sweet buns, lightly toasted filled with perfectly cooked 1/3lb beef patties which bore no trace of greasyness¹. Topped with a fresh spicy green chilli stew, lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles. Fries were solid and showed evidence of a steady hand at the deep frier² but paled in comparison to the tots. Half croquette, half hash brown, all deep fried - its a travesty that don't we have these crispy, crunchy little fellas in the UK. Write to your local MP and frozen food manufacturer and demand action immediately.

A near perfect meal only marred by an excess of raw onion in my burger; next time I'm passing through I may ask them to grill it for me, by which point I may have stopped burping my way through the first batch.
Kate loved the banquettes. And the tots.

1 "which bore no trace of greasyness" is a trademark of Food Blogging Cliche Company LLP, 2001, all rights reserved
2 "showed evidence of a steady hand of the deep frier" is a trademark of Food Blogging Cliche Company LLP, 2003, all rights reserved.

Burgers for the road #3: Jack in the Box, Mount Shasta, CA

For sir: Sourdough Steak melt ("Marinated steak, American, Swiss-style and real Cheddar cheeses, grilled onions and Peppercorn Mayo sauce on toasted sourdough bread"). Not what I asked for, but that which I was given. This was like a steak sandwich served at 3:15pm in a pub near a large roundabout A-road somewhere in England. The pub has a strong smell of vinegar and complete collection of Heinz sauce sachets on each dirty table. The only other customers are three middle aged builders drinking pints of Fosters one of whom occasionally gets up to play the "Only Fools and Horses" fruit machine. There is an excess of mayonaisse and the meat is of very poor quality.
For madame: Sourdough Jack ("Beef patty topped with bacon, tomato, Swiss-style cheese, Mayo-Onion sauce, and ketchup on toasted sourdough bread"). It is ironic that the bread on this sandwich is shaped like a heart because it hates you. It particularly hates your digestive system (short term) and your cardio-vascular system (long term). Nonetheless, better than the steak melt.

Attempt to salvage something from visit: 2 x "Big Cheeseburger": This tasted like a burger you would get in a roller rink. No vegetable content, not even a pickle.

Fries: 1 x regular, 1 x curly. Passable.
To drink: root beer.

To put a tin lid on the trip, the Australian Hat shop ("Over 2000 Hats!") next door had gone bust. It's the economy stupid! Or the hats. Hard to call really.

Due to the extreme unpleasantness of this meal this may be the last entry in the "Burgers for the road series". Coming soon: hummus and celery: on the road again!

Addendum: Addendum: I heard in the changing rooms at Harbin Hot springs that Mount Shasta is the earth's crown chakra. It seemed a lot more like prostate chakra to me.

Burgers for the road #2: In N Out Burger, Modesto, CA

"A lot of ins, a lot of outs, a lot of whathaveyous".

For sir: a double double animal style (from the secret menu, a mustard-fried double cheese burger topped with pickles, onions marmelade and extra thousand island dressing). This was like a very nice version of a Big Mac.

For madame: a double double animal style.




Fries: 1 x plain: very thin, pale, good. 1 x Animal style: topped with cheese, onions, thousand island dressing. Straddles the line between clever and stupid; genuinely unable to decide whether it was an abomination or delicious.

To drink: root beer.

Kate got bumper stickers and over excited. Mostly because Ryan, our server, looked like a giant Clark Kent made out of triangles and olympic swimmers.

Burgers for the road #1: Carl's Jr, Oakdale, CA

For sir: a hot carl. This was like a nice version of a whopper. Just don't look up the name on urbandictionary.com.

For madame: a jalepeno burger. Like a nice version of a whopper with jalepenos in it.

Fries: thick cut, rustic, skins on. Good.

To drink: root beer.

Rounded it off with a peppermint schnapps at Oakdale's premier nightspot, the Cow Track Lounge.