I love hamburgers. Big deal, you're thinking, everybody loves burgers.

You don't understand. I really love burgers. I'd eat burgers every day. Every meal. I've been known to daydream about hamburgers. I lust after burgers. It's really an unhealthy obsession. Even as a teenage boy, if you'd offered me a choice between a half-naked supermodel in a Mustang OR a really good burger … well, I'd have taken the half-naked model in the Mustang, but I'd have resented you for making me choose.


Of course, there's no burger like a homemade, charcoal grilled burger … but most of the burgers I eat are fast food. There used to be a Sagebrush restaurant in the nearest big city, and they had an outstanding half-pound cheeseburger, but they closed a few years ago. Among the burgers available to me on a drive-thru basis in this area, the Hardees Six Dollar Burger is easily the best. That's it, in all it's glory, to the left. Of course, that's a promo pic of the burger … they never look quite that good out of the box, but they come closer than any fast food burger I've ever had. What's more important, they taste good. They taste incredible, in fact. I'd happily run down to the Hardees that's five minutes away and buy one right now, just so I could post a picture of it so you could see what they actually look like out of the box … only problem is, the poor thing would never survive the ride home.

Of course, eating the Six Dollar Burger (which actually cost just under four bucks) is nutritional suicide, but the way I look at it, you only go around once in this life. Nobody lives forever, and when I find myself standing before the throne of judgment, I plan to have ketchup on my shirt.

Now, Hardees is a regional chain. The same restaurant (for all intents and purposes) is called Carl's Jr out west. The parent company manages this marketing juggling act because people are serious about regional loyalty. Nonetheless, the two chains are really one, right down to their virtually identical logos. Go to either one and order the Six Dollar Burger and you'll pay about four bucks for heaven on a bun. I'm always tickled when I see people mention it at their blogs and have to admit that they're surprised at how tasty it is.

As a burger aficionado, I'm fascinated by regional fast food restaurants and I'm always curious to try the local fare when I visit a new area. Of course, for a good burger, you have to search out the locally owned places, the legendary mom-n-pops. What I'm always curious about, though, is the local chain-restaurant burgers. I always want to sample what folks in a given area are likely to take for granted.

When I visited Wendy's family for the first time in Long Island, Wendy indulged my burger lust by taking me to the Good Steer, a locally owned restaurant in Lake Grove. Wendy had always told me about the Cheese Dream, a cheeseburger on the Good Steer's menu that she'd adjudged the greatest burger ever. I couldn't wait to try one, and I had to admit that it was a darn good burger. But what I was really curious about, what I couldn't wait to try, was the world famous White Castle Slider, a legendary chain-restaurant burger that I'd heard about my whole life and never tasted. White Castle, at the time, was my idea of Burger Mecca. It seemed I'd spent my life hearing about the restaurant without ever getting close enough to their North East stomping grounds to actually eat there. Between scenes in Saturday Night Fever and Beastie Boys lyrics, White Castle had taken on legendary proportions in my mind. I could not wait to finally enjoy one of their burgers for myself and see what all the fuss was about.

My first attempt to eat at White Castle was a disaster. On our way to the BQE, leaving Long Island on a Saturday night, we stopped at the first and only White Castle we saw so I could go in and order a Sack Of Ten for the ride home. Simply going through the drive-thru wasn't good enough. I wanted the White Castle experience. And, boy, did I get it. It was like something out of a sitcom. There I stood, wide-eyed southern boy, unable to even get in line. Busy, indifferent Noo Yawkahs pushed past me at a rate of about ten per second, ordering things that weren't even supposed to be on the menu, according to my idea of White Castle. Why, for instance, was fried chicken on the menu? And fish sandwiches? WTF? I finally gave up in disgust and left Long Island without my Sack Of Ten, without my first taste of a Slider, and with more of the "White Castle Experience" than I'd really wanted.

Our second visit to Long Island was more successful. After an evening with Wendy's family, we headed back to our hotel room and passed a White Castle on the way. No big crowd, nothing threatening, so we made our move. We went through the drive-thru and got some Sliders and fries and ate them back at the motel. My verdict: Ehh.

Ever since reality killed my romantic notions about White Castle, my idea of Burger Mecca has been In-N-Out Burger, a chain restaurant out west that's noted for it's simplicity, it's secret off-menu items that you have to order in code, and it supposedly delicious hamburgers. If I ever find my way out west, I look forward to the In-N-Out experience (and you can keep your smart-alleck remarks to yourself).

I recently stumbled across a website dedicated to reviews of regional fast food chains, and I'm titillated to see that the In-N-Out review is a rave. That's good because it kinda confirms that the In-N-Out phenomenon isn't exclusive to those West Coasters who have made it a local favorite.

I have to admit, though, that I'm daunted by some of the secret-code orders. The menu itself is very simple, offering only a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a "double double." However, if you know how to phrase it, I'm told that you can get much more. Order a "4x4" and you'll get a burger with four patties and four slices of cheese. Order a 5x5 and it's five patties and five slices. You can apparently take the numbers up as high as you want. Here's an article (complete with pictures) about a guy ordering, receiving, and eating a 20x20. And apparently, judging from the picture to the right, if you order a 100x100, the good folks at In-N-Out will darn sure serve one up.

Maybe "Burger Mecca" isn't really the way to think about In-N-Out Burger. Maybe a better analogy is this one: If burgers are heroin, In-N-Out is Amsterdam.

Today's burger musing was indirectly inspired by MCF, who set my mind reeling by merely mentioning the Roy Rogers fast food chain.

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