The Best Fast Food Burger

I have nothing against fast food. I'm rather fond of it actually. It's a soothing, thoroughly enjoyable guilty pleasure on the same level as reality tv; it's not sophisticated, it's not high falutin', there's certainly a time and place for it. I don't believe in food snobbery, particularly since I'm pretty conscious of how I eat and what goes in my body on a regular basis. Once a month is an appropriate number of times to enjoy a fast food feast. Five days a week, not so much. The thought of eating fast food five days a week makes me rather nauseous. Whoops, I forgot I wasn't snobby.

While there are many genres, nuances, flavours and textures when dealing with fast food, we are talking about the fast food burger. Oh the burger possibilities run the gamut: Frozen, fried and flattened to within an inch of it's life right up to fresh, bouncy and juicy. Again, not sophisticated, not high falutin', there's a time and place for every type of fast food burger.

In general I'd like to love all my hamburger darlings with equal weight. I wouldn't want any one of them to think they were the lesser child. Fast food is fast food. I don't have a ton of expectations. But of course there is always a favourite. Some of those darlings just don't measure up, if I'm being brutally honest. Shhh, don't tell Krystal. Actually I have two favourites: the best fast food burger evoking a quality of intense nostalgia, and the best fast food burger with darn good meat.

The Best Fast Food Hamburger with darn good meat.

Five Guys knows how to make a burger. They don't do much else. The menu consists of burgers, fries, dogs, and a couple of off menu items. I love the simplicity of my Five Guys experience: burger, fries, that's it. The burger is fresh, it's made to order and while technically not as fast as it's competitors, the product is well worth the wait. I really like the experience of waiting for my burger at Five Guys. You can appreciate the time it takes when you know your burger's not sitting around in a warming tray. And besides, there's free peanuts.

Does the Five Guys Burger change my life? Well, I don't really expect a hamburger to change my life. Who's having their life changed by a hamburger, I want to meet that person. But it is a quality, solid, and tasty burger. That, is some darn good meat.

The Best Fast Food Burger evoking a quality of intense nostalgia.

I can't help it. I love the Big Mac. I know it's bad for me. I know it has a gillion calories. I know all the scary stories about the secret sauce. But the Big Mac and I go way back. I don't recall ever eating the kids meals at McDonalds, it was the Big Mac and me from day one.

As a kid, my favourite activity was to deconstruct sandwiches and eat them one layer at a time. Can you imagine the world of wonder the Big Mac held for me? It took years to eat that burger and I loved every minute of it. And now while I've moved on from eating in such a fashion (in public anyway) there's nothing that makes me smile like biting into two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun. The carnival of flavours always brings me right back to my smaller self cracking open the styrofoam box (cause that's the way they did it back in the day) and staring at a little piece of burger heaven. Ahhhhhhh.

Learn more about this author, Lindsay Price.
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