Burger Battle, Round 3: A Big Dog Goes Wild for Animal-Style at In-N-Out

See Round 1 in Burger Battle, PJ Lifestyle’s ongoing debate to find America’s best burgers, by Bryan Preston: In-N-Out Vs Five Guys

And Round 2 by Bridget Johnson: West Coast Homer Votes In-N-Out 

Stay tuned for more installments as PJ Lifestyle’s other contributors are also invited to upload pictures and reviews from their preferred burger joints around the country (and perhaps the world?) Readers too can share their recommendations participate in Burger Battle. Take a picture of your favorite burger and email it to me DaveSwindlePJM AT Gmail.com along with your instructions for where to get it and how to order it.

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At the end of their visit to PJM headquarters last week, I drove editors Bryan Preston, David Steinberg by the In-N-Out Burger at LAX before their flights back to Texas and New York. And we made a big mistake. We didn’t take PJ Washington DC editor Bridget Johnson’s advice to order “Animal Style”.

As a result, Bryan wrote in his blog post that he still preferred Five Guys. And driving away from the airport after dropping off my colleagues I unwrapped my burger only to receive confirmation of my previous opinion: The Habit is SoCal’s Best Burger. The flavor of In-N-Out just wasn’t as vivid even though in many other ways they still offered an excellent burger.

Then Bridget stepped in to remind us we’d forgotten her advice. If you don’t have an In-N-Out Animal Style then you might as well not bother.

So last night after wrapping up the last PJ Lifestyle post, I grabbed Maura, and hopped in the car. The plan: grab an Animal Style Double Double and head to the park. Here are six photos of our adventure to figure out if this could really elevate In-N-Out as high as Bridget claimed.

"Please let me have some too!"

They asked me when ordering if I planned to eat in the car. Not thinking, I said "yes". I should have said no because I planned to eat in the park. So while driving there I worried that Maura hair would blow onto my burger! But we managed to get there without any Husky undercoat contamination.

Four small changes make ALL the Difference: pickles, extra spread, grilled onions instead of fresh onion, and mustard fried onto the patty. That's Animal Style.

I'm sorry Maura, I'd let you have more but this has onions on it.

Anywhere else in the San Fernando Valley where Maura and I should go seeking tasty burgers? I'll have an installment with pictures from our visit to Fatburger next. And with Bryan's insistence on Five Guys superiority maybe they deserve another shot. (Last time I was not impressed.)