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Specialization is for Insects.
Posted on Sep 24, 2007 - 1:24am by John P. in Food, Reviews, Travel
Today while driving from Minneapolis to St. Paul, Minnesota I spotted a White Castle and immediately detoured so that I could relish in the experience made famous by Harold and Kumar as well as the Beastie Boys.
I went inside and immediately spotted the folks at the grill working on those tiny little square burgers that make White Castle famous, and then began to peruse the menu for a half dozen or so cheeseburgers – all the while imagining the delicous taste that was heading my way.
Incidently, did you know that you can purchase a White Castle “crave case” for $50 which includes 100 of those little burgers!
Well, after receiving our order and preparing to chow down on those little devils, my two female companions both remarked about the “quality” of said burgers. Let us just say that they were none too pleased. In fact, they both refused to eat them! It had something to do with the copious quantity of grease that was saturating the miniature buns the meat had been embedded in.
I however tore into those little bad boys with a vengance that would make any carnivore proud! Of course, I soon realized that there was virtually no meat actually in them! I stopped to examine the burger and quickly realized that the cheese was as thick, or thicker, than the beef! In fact, neither was much thicker than a quarter!
Well, I guess that’s about all you get for $.50 per burger, but McDonalds and Wendys sure seem to make $.99 go a lot farther with their cheeseburgers. Not to mention the fact that the White Castle burgers also tasted like… well, crap.
Oh, and did I mention the fries tasted like the cheap, generic, frozen ones you can get at the supermarket for about $.99 a bag?
If there was anything that actually made me happy, it was that they carried Coke and I was able to get a Cherry Coke to wash down the food. As you all know, I’m totally addicted to Coke products.
So, suffice it to say that the White Castle experience was… enlightening. But I don’t think I’ll be stopping back by anytime soon.
I have never been in US, so I havent had the chance to try these rascals, I have plenty of American friends who keeps telling me about them and how good they are. So I am quite surprised about this review.
I will be sending some of them to this site to read up as well :-)
We have burger and movies night here in the house tonight, home made burgers – a few cases of beer and a couple of freshly downloaded movies…
Kim:)
I am not from USA and not understand burgers and other fastfood and IMHO big piece of roasted meat is the most delicious thing.
Oh yee of undeveloped pallet,
You are much like a child who only knows only hot cocoa and has just been introduced to the finest Kopi Luwak Coffee. White Castles are an acquired taste that I acquired genetically and nurtured through the college years.
Please note that the little square (with five steam holes) delicacy are cooked with bun over burger on a bed of chopped onions so grease drips through the onions and the luciously juicy aggregate is the burger steamed into the bun. Also, note, the fries are on the menu for the non-initiated, WC connoisseurs opt for onion chips.
Lastly, a sense of adventure makes them even tastier. The best White Castles I recall having were ones we got whlle venturing south of 8 mile (while Eminem was still rollin in Huggies up in the suburbs) into Detroit after midnight and receiving the burgers through a bulletproof rotating window whilst all the other patrons looked at us with a “you white boys are crazy comin down here” look.
I am so hungry for sliders now I think I may need to bypass the frozen food section and go on a 2000 mile roadie. Mmmmmmm…..
Oh yeah, John – I’ll never, ever forget the first time my husband brought me out here to Alabama and we took a drive out to the local Castle Burger. (Same thing.) A group of us went out there and everyone talked it up like it was a gift direct from the Heavens! And hubby went on and on because it had been so long since he’d had them.
And then we got there.
And all the air came out of the balloon.
I thought all these people I was with must be crazy or something – these things, these TINY things, had no taste! Ick!
The funny thing is, though – after all these years (Mark and I have been together for 15 years) the nasty little buggers have actually kind of grown on me.
And before we left Texas, he was so excited, because, one was opening up in Farmers Branch.
Well having never actually tried those famous White Castle sliders myself, this was pretty interesting to read! I think that if I were trying them for the first time, I too would have expected great things of so famous a burger. When (and it will probably still happen someday) I do try it, I will go into the experience with a bit more of a level head.
From the description, they sound like they were some of the worst that you’ve ever had. Is that true?
I haven’t had a White Castle since I moved to NC from the midwest a couple of years ago. Gosh, I love ‘em. A word of advice to first timers… the horseradish mustard makes the burgers much tastier.
John,
This was my experience with my only two visits to In & Out.. I wanted to give it a chance and I liked that the fries were indeed cut fresh, but the burgers had so much grease it was just nasty =/
Come on nobody doesn’t like In-n-Out burgers! Are you sure that wasn’t secret sauce, tomato drippings, wet lettuce, or just juicy goodness? They are known for their premium and fresh ingredients as well as their secret menu.
Hey John,
you know what? After I saw the Harold and Kumar movie, one of my plans for my near-future travel to the US was to go to one of those places to see how good this could be… But, yeah, after this insightful review, maybe I’ll have to lower my expectations of the place so I won’t be SO disappointed IF I ever get around to going to White Castle…
Always nice to read the news… ;)
Be well…
I checked back with a couple of my American friends last night over a couple of cases of beer :) that all agreed White Castle burgers are crap compared to Wendys or Burger King.
Kim:)