Burger King's Disappointing Halloween Whopper

This is what we could have had...

Earlier this year, bits of the internet where I hang around were going crazy over a black burger (complete with black cheese) that Burger King was selling in Japan. The "going crazy" part was how people were clamoring for BK to bring that burger over here, because why whould Japan have all the fun, dammit?

Well, in "celebration" of Halloween, Burger King did bring a bastardized version of the black burger home to the US. If they had just given us a Whopper and a cheeseburger with black buns and black cheese and left it at that, everything probably would have been fine. But no, BK did a half-assed job with this and trust me, it's more trick than treat.

...but no. We get this.

Even considering the usual vast difference between what you see in a promotional photo and what you get when you peel back the wrapper, you can see the huge difference between the original black burger and the Halloween Whopper. Flat-black bun dotted with standard-colored sesame seeds. Regular yellow cheese. And A1 Sauce, which might not be so bad if they weren't so heavy-handed with it (I'll get to that in a minute.)

This is, to be quite frank, nothing more than a standard Whopper with a colored bun and some A1 sauce. And those two features - upon which the King could have built a great specialty burger - are the sandwich's failure points.

Let's start with the bun. All the advertising BK has done touts this special black bun "infused with A1 Sauce flavor." Dammit, Burger King, you should have stuck with the Japanese squid ink coloring and left it at that. But no - you needed infused flavor. Well, thanks a lot for giving us bread that tastes like a fainter version of Beggin' Strips dog treats. Yeah. Play-Doh and smoke, exactly what I want to wrap a Whopper in.

And what is it with Burger King and A1 Sauce, anyway? They "infuse" the bun with it, and then the kitchen crew adds more when they put the burger together. And when I say "more" - holy shit, it's a good thing that the Halloween Whopper is not going to break any sales records because if it did there would be a nationwide shortage of A1 Sauce since they must use half a bottle's worth on every burger.

This is why we can't have nice things.

This is far and away the sloppiest Whopper I have ever tried to eat. There is just so damned much A1 on it that when I unwrapped it, the outside of the sandwich was coated with overflowing sauce. Even after I cut it in half for easier handling, sauce just poured out of it constantly. Pick it up, it drools A1. Take a bite, more A1 squirts out the opposite side. Put it down, A1 slowly oozes like some High-Fructose Corn Syrup lava from between every layer. I felt like I should have been wearing a Tyvek hazmat suit to keep all the spatter off me.

Hey, that must be why it's a Halloween Whopper! It bleeds like an extra in a slasher film!

Thanks to all that cheap slather, there isn't much else you can actually taste in a halloween Whopper except for the sauce. That's either good or bad, I guess, depending upon your feelings about A1.

My personal recommendation is that you skip this slop and satisfy your Burger King craving with a regular Whopper. Or, if you simply must experience the black bun, ask for them to hold the A1.

(I've read that the coloring agents BK used in the American version of the black bun partially survive the trip through the human intestinal tract and will turn your turds green. I hope this is true. It will be this sandwich's only redeeming feature.)

Burger King Onion Rings Revisited

I last wrote about Burger King onion rings almost exactly a year ago. They sucked. But because I never seem to learn my goddamn lesson, there I was in Burger King last night ordering onion rings again. I couldn't help it. I really love onion rings, and the BK I was in was pushing them hard, and I thought to myself, "Self," (which is what I call myself) "Self," I said, "It's been awhile since we gave those onion rings a try. What say we give 'em one last chance?" So, even though I know full well it's not going to be the last chance really, I ordered the rings. And a tub of Zesty Sauce to go with them.

Well, guess what? Just like last time, the onion rings were okay when they were first handed over to me and then quickly deteriorated into slippery, greasy, artificial-tasting nastiness. The only thing that saved them was the Zesty dipping sauce, which I had never tried before but decided to get this time, figuring that if the rings were as bad as ever at least I'd have something to mask the shittiness.

Commercially-produced sauces labeled "Zesty" are usually not very zesty at all, but I was pleasantly surprised. Strong horseradish and hot pepper notes are prevalent - it's quite obviously a clone of the stuff that less-casual restaurants serve with "blooming onion" appetizers.

The Zesty Sauce was also pretty good for dipping BK's popcorn chicken, which is good to know because BK's Kung Pao sauce is crappy soy sauce-flavored corn syrup. Thanks to my new friend Zesty, the onion rings were a little more tolerable.  But they do still suck.

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Review: Burger King's Memphis BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich

Burger King has taken a little break from slavishly copying McDonald's McCafe beverages to introduce several new BBQ specialties, one of which is the Memphis BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwich.  I stopped in to the local BK yesterday to give it a try.

Here's what it looks like in the advertising:

Photo by Burger King

And here's what it looks like in real life:

Now, I've acknowledged before that comparing real fast food to advertising-agency-styled fast food is a cheap shot, but trust me - this sandwich is so completely disgusting that the way it looks is only the beginning of how shitty it is.

There was no meaty pile of pulled pork on a crusty split-top bun. It was a small - significantly smaller than the diameter of the bread - knot of crappy, low-quality meat on a squishy oversized burger bun.  Even though I actually looked at the contents of the sandwich when I took this picture, I still mustered up the courage to take a bite.

The pork was drenched in cheap, sticky BBQ sauce that tasted mostly of corn syrup and artificial smoke and it was the texture of shredded flannel. And worst of all, the entire interior was completely smothered in mayonnaise. So not only did the sandwich look like someone took a dump on a hamburger bun, it tasted like an overly-sweetened old washcloth sopped in slime.

For the first time in the history of Dave's Cupboard, I was unable to stomach so much as a single bite of a review subject. This heinous wet lump of filth was so horrendous that my first and only bite was instantly interrupted by my gag reflex and I spit the gnarly bolus back at the cardboard clamshell in which it was served.

On the other hand, the sweet potato shoestring fries that I got as a side were pretty good. So the visit wasn't a total loss.

Burger King Onion Rings

Burger King's onion rings are on their "value menu" for a buck. They'd be too expensive at half of that.

Right out of the fryer, they're tolerable I guess, but the second they start cooling down the quality starts dropping sharply. They have a slippery mouthfeel, they have an artificial salt/onion powder flavor, and the grease coats the inside of the mouth.  

I can't figure out why they're so damn bad.  They're made from real sliced onions as far as I can tell, and they've got a fairly standard crumb coating. And yet, they're far and away the worst thing on the menu.

What's worse, I already knew all of that when I ordered them, so I have no one but myself to blame for giving them a second chance.

Burger King Minis

Hey, look! Burger King has little tiny burgers again! These are, essentially, the very same small pull-apart burgers that the chain has been selling on and off since the mid-1980's when they were called "Burger Bundles" and sold in sets of two for 89 cents.  They've also been sold as "Burger Buddies" in the early 1990's, and most recently as "Burger Shots" in the late aughts.

Back when I reviewed "Burger Shots" three years ago, I said I couldn't understand why BK can't seem to make a success of them. They're just miniature versions of their standard flame-broiled cheeseburger. Everything I said about them then is still true today - delicious, would be great for a few kids to share a box, and a pile of them at a party would be pretty cool. I think the biggest problem Burger King has with them is people incessantly compare them to White Castle sliders.  Minis are not sliders. They don't pretend to be. They don't taste anything like sliders; they taste like what they are: little replicas of Burger King cheeseburgers.

New to the lineup this time we find Chicken Minis, small breaded white-meat chicken patties dropped on the buns with mayo and pickles.  I'm not sure I like these as well as the burgers. The breading outweighs the chicken, for one thing, and even though the seasoning is decent, plopping a big-ass slice of pickle on top just overpowers it. The taste isn't bad once the pickle is gone, but they're just too bready for me.

Are Minis going to be around for awhile? Who knows - given BK's track record with miniaturization, I wouldn't bet on a longer run than about six months or so. If I were the Burger King's Prime Minister or Grand Vizier or BFF or whatever, I would tell him to just ditch the little bastards once and for all. They've never been successful enough to earn a place on the permanent menu, and eventually the marketing department is going to run out of descriptive names for small sandwiches containing 1-ounce meat patties.

Or maybe not.

Burger King's New Chicken Tenders

For quite a while now, Burger King's chicken nuggety-things have been vaguely crown shaped, mostly non-descript breaded chicken pulp.  Other than shaping them like crowns,  it never seemed like BK was putting much effort into them. No one really cared, because BK didn't put much marketing into them either as they concentrated on selling burgers and sending the King out to spook people with his creepiness.

And I think people still wouldn't care about Burger King's Chicken Tenders if BK hadn't gone around pointing at them and yelling about how great the New And Improved Chicken Tenders are.  Thing is, they're not all that "new and improved," they're just "different from how they were."

It's clear that BK is trying to mimic McDonald's Chicken McNuggets with their new Tenders. They've given up the sorta-crown in favor of the slightly randomized blobtangle shape Mickey D's has used forever. BK and McDonald's both can call it "white meat" all they want. There are a lot of inferior places on the top end of a bird where you can find "white meat," and because the Tenders are made with chopped and formed chicken, I'd say chances are pretty good that both the King and the Clown are already familiar with some of those places.

Both products share that "kind-of-like-chicken-but-more-like-bouillon" flavor that lots of fast-food chopped/formed chicken has, and there are other similarities to the McNugget as well. The Chicken Tenders are drier and less spongy in texture than their McDonald's counterpart, but the coating is quite similar: The seasoning seems to be (lots of) salt, a little pepper, and that's it.  Burger King really isn't trying all that hard here.

I should probably also mention the sauces that are available, but they're every bit as "meh" as the chicken.  There's generic "Ranch," Burger King's standard "BBQ Sauce" (cheap, smoke-flavored corn syrup), "Sweet and Sour" (not even as good as those little packets the Chinese take-out tosses into your bag by the handful), "Zesty" (a completely WTF flavor that defies definition - also, it's orange), "Buffalo" without the heat, and "Honey Mustard" (like dollar-store honey mustard poured right out of the jar.) It's like Burger King was going out of their way to be unremarkable.

Burger King's New BK Stuffed Steakhouse

Burger King has a spicy new sandwich on the menu:  The BK Stuffed Steakhouse.  It's a large patty "stuffed" with chunks of jalapeno pepper and orange American cheese, topped with lettuce and tomato, and finished off with a creamy poblano chile sauce on a "corn dusted" bun.  We stopped at the local BK yesterday to give them a try.

When I stepped up to the counter and placed my order, the young man behind the counter looked down and sighed deeply, "The Stuffed Steakhouse."

"Please don't tell me you're out of them," I said.  "I've been looking forward to trying one since I first heard about them."

"No, we're not out of them.  I had one for lunch today and..." his voice dropped to almost a whisper, "they're so awesome."

Wow.  Seriously, how many times do you find that level of enthusiasm in a kid who has to stand behind a counter all day selling burgers and fries?  (Actually, I run into it pretty often at this particular Burger King, because the kids working there are always pretty fast and efficient while still managing to be friendly and kind of goofily cheerful on the job.  It's one of the reasons I really like going to my local Burger King.  But I digress.)

The strangest part of this sandwich is definitely the patty.  It's not so much "stuffed" with cheese and jalapeno bits as it is "studded" - the meat has been formed with the pepper and cheese tumbled in.  Even with the additions, though, the burger retains it's typical BK flavor profile.  And incorporating the peppers and the cheese into the meat hasn't hurt the burger's texture, either - it doesn't crumble or fall apart, and it isn't tough or overworked either, the way ground beef can be when it's been handled too much.  And I have to take a minute to mention the creamy poblano sauce.  That shit's amazing.  Really.  If Burger King were to put it in a bottle and sell it over the counter, they would have a huge hit.  It would be awesome for so many other dishes, you can hardly imagine - Lynnafred, for example, mentioned that it would be a perfect replacement for the sour cream that Taco Bell puts on stuff like the Crunchwrap Supreme, or on nachos, or on just about anything else.

So, you ask, what is the actual sandwich experience like?  In a word: bitchin'.  The heat level is just right for a non-burn-your-ass-off lunch.  I thought it was comfortably spicy with a good kick.  Lynnafred, whose heat tolerance has been steadily building over the past couple of years, thought it was even a bit on the mild side.  We all really liked the burger and would absolutely get it again.

Cross-section of the stuffed burger, enlarged to
show the texture in disturbing detail.

There were a couple of things less than optimal about the BK Stuffed Steakhouse, though.  Our January-purchased burgers suffered because of the crappy winter tomatoes that were sliced onto the top of the burger.  It would be so much better in the late summer, when delicious red ripe tomatoes are available.  And I wish that the jalapeno distribution was a little more even within the patty.  The random distribution of the peppers and cheese through the meat led to bites with no jalapenoey goodness within (though I freely admit that they were much more even than trusting the BurgerLord behind the counter with sprinkling on jalapeno slices by hand.)

Other than those little nitpicks, I'd say The King has a winner here.  I hope this sandwich finds a permanent place on the menu.

Burger King Ribs

Although I like most of Burger King's  burgers, over the years I've found that the rest of their menu is kind of subpar.  Their breakfast offerings completely suck, their iced coffee is some kind of coffee-flavored corn syrup bastardization, and their onion rings coat the mouth with sticky lard-like fatty waste.  So when I found out that they had added spare ribs to the menu, my expectations were pretty low.

I wasn't disappointed.

First of all, these are not ribs.  These are half-ribs or maybe even 1/3-ribs.  They're barely two inches long, and they're not even that meaty.  In fact, most of them barely have any meat clinging to them at all.  They're also obviously frozen and reheated, and they've almost certainly been "tenderized" and seasoned as well; some of them - especially the ones cut from the end of the rib with the cartiledge - have a spongy texture, and all of them sport a weird salty "enhanced rib" flavor.  This ingredient cocktail probably has a lot to do with that flavor:

Pork rib pieces, water, seasoning [yeast extract, maltodextrin, onion powder, gum arabic, tomato powder, sugar, salt, garlic powder, smoke flavor, flavors, disodium guanylate and disodium inosinate, artificial flavors, carrot juice solids, modified corn starch, vinegar solids, onion broth, spices, grill flavor (from sunflower oil), and tumeric], salt, rice starch and sodium phosphate.

I bolded the four times "flavor" occurs in that ingredient list, just because it's so damn ridiculous. What's the difference between "flavors" and "artificial flavors," anyway?

My local Burger King didn't have any ribs ready on the line when I went in to order, so the young lady taking orders asked if I minded waiting a few minutes for my batch to be prepared.  That was okay with me but if the same thing happens to you, be aware that it takes 6 minutes to cook your order.  That doesn't sound like a lot of time - and in the real world, it isn't - but when you're waiting on line in a fast-food restaurant, it seems like forever (especially when there are people waiting behind you.)  Also, since everything else on the menu seems to takes thirty seconds to drop down the chute, the staff might push your order to the back of the queue while your ribs are being prepared.  I try to give the kids working at fast food places some slack - it's a crappy job, they have to deal with short-tempered asshats all day, and they go home stinking of old fryer oil every night - but one guy who had ordered ribs just before me was less patient.  "Six minutes??  Why the hell do they call this fast food, anyway?"  Herp derp, asshole, you sure showed that 16-year-old part timer a thing or two.  Bet she never heard that one before, huh?  You're a regular Jay Leno, you are.

Anyway, now let's talk about price.  Six ribs - six tiny little sawed-off two inch ribs - cost me $5.49, or a little over 90 cents per nubbin.  Or, I can convert that side order to a "Value Meal" by adding a soda and fries and paying $7.49.  I don't really see the "value" in that.  The soda and fries would each cost me a buck on the a la carte menu anyway; is there additional "value" in paying $7.49 for something that would otherwise cost me $7.49?

Bottom line:  Skimpy, taste weird, expensive.  Good thing it's a limited time offer. I don't think there's going to be much demand for them anyway.

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Burger King Sponsors Getafe CF, Awesome Shirts Ensue

Spanish soccer club Getafe has a new sponsor: Burger King! And as part of the sponsorship, their kit features the BK logo prominently on the front:

Now, it so happens that this sponsorship is creating something of a controversy in the world of Fútbol - not so much because of the big BK logo on the front (though that is kind of over-the-top, I admit) but because of what's printed inside the shirts:

The King is printed upside down on the inside of the shirt so players can pull the hem of the shirt over their heads and celebrate goals in stylish royal splendor. The shirts come with an "instruction sheet" which I find pretty hilarious:

If you read any footie-related message boards, you'll find that this idea is being met with some disparagement by many fans. But personally, as a fan of the King, I think these Getafe shirts are pretty damned awesome. I might even be tempted to click over to Univision to watch a Getafe match now and again in hopes of seeing a goal scored and the player royally celebrating.

And if anyone knows where I can get one of those shirts, please email me.

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Burger King Breakfast Shots

I like Burger King's little Burger Shots - small, fun, customizable - they're delicious. So it was only natural that I should try the King's Breakfast Shots as well. Same soft little buns, but with scrambled egg, choice of ham, bacon, or sausage, cheese, and something BK is calling "smokey cheese sauce." I bought a couple of the bacon variety.

Gotta say, I'm fairly unimpressed.

The eggs are weird: Thin, flat rectangular sheets of egg that look like they've been cut with scissors from a ShamWOW towel. and the "smokey cheese sauce" add nothing to the mix, other than a sort of slimy saltiness. But the worst part of all, I think, is the overall squishiness.

Texture is an important factor in taste. A soft, fresh hamburger bun is wonderful with a hamburger, because the primary ingredient - the burger - is firm and, well, meaty. The textural contrast between the firm burger and the soft bun makes the sandwich more interesting - and therefore, more delicious - to eat. Add another contrasting texture, like crispy lettuce and fresh, thinly sliced onion, and it's even better.

This is also one of the reasons McDonald's had such a hit with the Egg McMuffin. An egg is soft. English muffins are firm (and even a bit crispy when toasted.) They taste good together and the contrasting textures are complimentary.

But BK Breakfast Shots are uniformly soft - pillowy bun, sheet of scrambled egg, runny cheese sauce - not even the bacon could help because it wasn't crispy, it was just kind of cooked and thrown in. There's just too much squishy softness in one place. That's the same reason I've never like their "croissanwich." Squishy.

Guess I'll stick to my beloved Sausage McMuffin with Egg for breakfast, and save Burger King for lunch.

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ANGRY WHOPPER - YEAH!!

Burger King introduced their latest spicy offering earlier this week: the Angry Whopper. A Whopper patty topped with pepper jack cheese, bacon, pickled jalapeno slices, "Angry onions," tomatoes, lettuce, mayo, and "angry sauce," all on a sesame seed bun.

I really liked Wendy's Spicy Baconator during that sandwich's limited run, so when I heard about the Angry Whopper I decided to ignore the stupid name and give it a try.

My daughter and I got to Burger King during the quiet lull between lunch and supper, hoping that the lack of a crowd would mean the BurgerDoodlers on the line wouldn't just chuck our sandwiches together. Hahaha! Good one, right?

Here's what my Angry Whopper actually looked like inside: A whopper patty, as expected, topped with pepper jack cheese. There is a slice of bacon on there somewhere - it's hiding under the tomatoes at the top there. I guess the "Angry Onions" got pissed off and stomped away, because there weren't any crisp spicy fried onions on my burger, just some plain old sliced yellow onion. That orange stuff is supposed to be "Angry Sauce." I thought it tasted more like sugary French dressing, but my daughter swore that it had some heat when she tasted it. It didn't do anything for me, though.

The pickled jalapenos were generous and quite hot - spicier than the average jalapenos in this case, and after getting about three of the slices in a single bite, I opened up the sandwich again and repositioned them to spread them more evenly around the inside. That made the heat much nicer, and reduced the vinegar concentration from the pickled pepper. Lettuce was standard iceberg, looking like they'd cut it up with a weed whacker, and tomatoes were also substandard winter tomatoes, with grainy pulp and hardly any recognizable flavor.

In spite of the obvious defects, the Angry Whopper was pretty decent. Heat level was adequate for me and not overwhelming. I fall fairly in the middle of the "heat tolerance" range, though, so if you're a chilehead you may find the "Angry Whopper" to be a "Somewhat Annoyed Whopper." I'd like to try it at a different Burger King restaurant next time, just to see if they have all the correct ingredients.

If you plan to try it out, you've got until 30 March 2009 - this is a limited-edition burger.

Links:
Burger King's website. (No mention of the Angry Whopper on their main site at the time I wrote this)
Angry Whopper press release at Business Wire.
Burger King's "Angry Gram" website, where you can send an "angry gram" e-mail featuring a talking Angry Whopper to someone you don't like.

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Burger King Burger Shots WITH BACON

I really like Burger King's Burger Shots. Flame-broiled beef patties, tasty orange cheese, just the right size to share - they're just made of win. When I first reviewed them back in June 2008, I said:

"The only thing that could make me happier with them would be if they were topped with BACON. You got that, Your Highness? Get some bacon on those Shots and you'll have an unstoppable juggernaut of flame-broiled goodness."

Last night, looking for a quick supper, I stopped at the local BK and decided to take a chance. I ordered a six-pack of Burger Shots and then asked the kid behind the counter how customizable those burgers were.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, I know I can get cheese on them. I was wondering if I could get bacon on them, too," I said.

"Um...I think so. I can check..."

"Can I get extra meat, too?" What the hell - might as well go for a six pack of Bacon Double Cheeseburger Shots, right?

"Woah. I have to ask my manager. Can you hang on a sec?"

"Sure."

He called over the manager and explained what I was asking for. The manager looked a little puzzled. She looked up at me and said, "You want extra meat?"

"Yeah. Wouldn't that be awesome? A sixpack of miniature Bacon Double Cheeseburgers."

"I, um, I'm sorry," she said, "But I don't have any way to ring that up. There's no key on my register for extra meat. I can give you bacon, and cheese, but I can't ring something up if there's no key for it." I looked down at the keypad registers that they use, and it was true: there was truly no provision for them to charge for extra meat.

I could have been one of those asshole customers that bitches and causes a scene until they get what they want, but I'm not like that and besides, I was taking a wild shot that I'd be able to get something that really was off the menu. So I smiled and said, "A six-pack of Bacon Cheeseburger shots is just as good, thanks." And that's what I got.

Before I left, I asked the manager to pass my suggestion up the line. Bacon Double Cheeseburger Shots would indeed be awesome. In the meantime, though, I'll be happy with the bacon.

Burger King Burger Shots

Back in 1987, Burger King introduced some miniature burgers that they called "Burger Bundles." Sold in sets of three or six, the little snackers were not a big success, even though BK tried spreading the concept across their menu, with sausage/egg/cheese "Breakfast Bundles" and chicken patty "Chicken Bundles." Later, the small sandwiches were unsuccessfully reintroduced using the cuter name "Burger Buddies."

Today, Burger Buddies are back, under a brand new name: Burger King Burger Shots. They're sold in six-packs only, packaged in flat cardboard flip-top boxes. Apparently, this item is still in development - with my area of Southern New England as part of a test market - because they're called "Burger Shots" on the signage, "mini BURGERS" on the packaging, and they are missing entirely from the official BK website.

Miniature burgers are a great idea - a sales gimmick that has worked for years for White Castle and Krystal - and I can not understand why Burger King hasn't been able to make a go of these. They are delicious. Each burger is made up of the same 100% beef as the standard patties, flame broiled, given a pickle, a small squirt of ketchup and mustard, tasty orange cheese if desired, and topped with a marvelously soft and fresh lightly grilled top bun.

Burger Shots have other good points besides deliciousness. Small food is fun, you know. If you have a couple of kids to feed, I guarantee they'd be delighted to share a box of Shots. They'd be great party food, too. Three or four sixpacks of Burger Shots stacked up on a platter next to the beers, a ballgame on the TV, and you're all set for the afternoon. The burgers are bigger relative to the buns at this scale, too, so they might even be a better deal than getting a couple of cheeseburgers. A six pack of these things are just made for sharing, you know? My wife and I split a box between us. It's more eating than a standard burger, but lighter than two of them. It's just about the perfect-sized lunch.

The only thing I don't really like about them is they're made in some kind of strange connected form - you need to pull two apart to get a single burger, and sometimes the pickle or the patty slips and winds up hanging out of the bun (messy.)

Overall, though, they're great. The only thing that could make me happier with them would be if they were topped with BACON. You got that, Your Highness? Get some bacon on those Shots and you'll have an unstoppable juggernaut of flame-broiled goodness.

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The New Burger King Steakhouse Burger

Burger King introduced another new burger to their menu recently. Thanks to a buy-one-get-one-free coupon in the paper last week, my daughter and I tried out the new Steakhouse Burger.

Burger King advertises it as "Angus Beef, melted cheese, crispy onions, lettuce and tomatoes, all smothered in A-1 Thick & Hearty Steak Sauce." Their model burger (pictured in the photo at left) shows the idealized presentation, and it certainly is enough to make your mouth water. Too bad the reality doesn't come anywhere near that lovely fantasy.

To be fair, no one expects the real-life burger to look anything like the pictures, but you should be aware of a couple of really significant differences: For one thing, Burger King really doesn't use curly leaf lettuce as a rule. They use whatever they can get most cheaply, and around here that means iceburg lettuce that's been roughly cut to fit. And there are no red tomatoes in New England in April, so our burgers were topped with two sad-ass slices of barely pink flavorless things that resembled tomatoes if you squinted from three feet away. You can pretty much forget about the big handful of "crispy onions" promised in the advertising, too. You'll be lucky to get the barest sprinkling of fried onion straws and they will likely be found in a tiny puddle of A-1 sauce. It adds up to a kind of slapped-together oversized gimmicburger that probably isn't going to be on the menu for very long (not too surprising, actually, since Burger King holds the record for largest number of failed sandwiches introduced and then later quietly dropped from their menu.)

But the strangest - and most offputting - thing about the Steakhouse Burger is the meat. Burger King says it's made with Angus Beef, and that may be true, but by the time it goes through their processing and into your mouth it's barely recognizable. My daughter and I noticed it with the very first bite: the meat is spongy and feels almost artificial. There's a weird "enhanced" flavor to it as well - we identified it as related to the "Grill Flavoring" found in many other processed foods. A quick trip over to Burger King's website reveals the reason for the strange taste and mouthfeel of the meat - the ingredients listed are: Beef, Encapsulated Salt (Salt, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil), Flavorings, Beef Fat, Beef Stock, Dextrose. Every other burger on BK's menu has only one ingredient: "100% USDA inspected Ground Beef (Fire-Grilled)." Why did they think they needed such an overprocessed patty for the Steakhouse Burger?

As tempting as the Steakhouse Burger may look in the ads, it really isn't worth the price. The garbage pile of flavors compete with rather than compliment one another, and the "salty bouillon sponge" taste of the beef will give you the impression that Burger King is trying to dress up a substandard patty rather than provide an actual high-quality "Angus" product. If you have a hankering for a Burger King burger, you'd be far better off with a Whopper or a Stacker - at least then you can be sure of getting unadulterated 100% ground beef.

Links:
Burger King's website
Burger King's Ingredient Listings

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Burger King Ketchup & Fries Potato Snack

I didn't really know what to expect when these things first showed up in the vending machines at work, but the initial five bags the vending company experimented with were gone in half a day, so I thought they might be interesting to try.

The teaser copy on the back of the bag calls the flavor a "mystical merge of ketchup, fries, and snack chips." For a more realistic comparison, think of a broad noodle made of dehydrated potato, dusted with a salty bright-red tomato-flavored powder. I have to admit I kind of like these, not so much for the ketchup flavor (which is a little vile) but for the delicious dried-potato flavor. That spudly taste so reminiscent of taters and plastics is why I like Pringles, Munchos, and Ore-Ida Potato Buds. There's just no accounting for taste, huh?

Burger King's New BK Stacker

This idealized photo of a BK Quad Stacker
is from Burger King's website.

Here's Burger King's press release about their new BK Stacker:

[2006-07-05] The BK™ Stacker is now available in three sizes to satisfy any appetite, BK™ Double Stacker, BK™ Triple Stacker and BK™ Quad Stacker.

Two, three or four flame-broiled hamburger patties are stacked high between a sesame seed bun with equal slices of melted American cheese and up to eight slices of crispy bacon, smothered in original BK™ Stacker Sauce. The bigger the burger ordered, the more layers of bacon and cheese.

“The BK Stacker is simple and built with the very ingredients our restaurant guests love best--meat, cheese, and bacon,” said Denny Marie Post, senior vice president and chief concept officer, Burger King Corporation. “We’re satisfying the serious meat lovers by leaving off the produce and letting them decide exactly how much meat and cheese they can handle.” The BK Stacker is a permanent addition to the menu and is now available at all participating restaurants. The BK Double Stacker sandwich is available at a suggested price of $2.49, the BK Triple Stacker at $3.29 and the BK Quad Stacker at $3.99.

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This is what a BK Quad Stacker looks
like in real life.

I had a BK Quad Stacker for lunch today. They aren't nearly as overpoweringly huge as they look in the TV ads, but they're no small snack, either. The Quad has five slices of cheese, four Whopper-sized burger patties, eight slices of bacon, and a dollop of "Stacker Sauce," which seems to be a mixture of the cheapest BBQ sauce available, and mayonnaise.

The smokiness of the bacon and the flame-broiled flavor of the beef compliment each other nicely, and the cheese seems to be the standard Kraft mild orange cheddar that every burger chain uses. The Stacker Sauce is unobtrusive - there's enough to give a hint of flavor, but not enough to drool onto your shirt or get all over your fingers. There's definitely something sweet going on there, though, and I bet the stuff is loaded with high fructose corn syrup.

Despite the sloppy appearance of the burger in the photo, the bun is of adequate size to hold everything together without making the sandwich too "bready" - though with four burgers and a handful of bacon sitting on it, you'd need to slice a pound cake in half to hide the meat here. The sandwich is so tall it's hard to get my mouth open far enough to take a bite, but surprisingly enough, the layers don't slide around or mush around the way some huge burgers do.

If there isn't at least a thousand calories in one of these sloptrough burgers, I'll be amazed. I ate one two hours ago and just the thought of dinner tonight is making me groan.