McDonald’s
http://www.mcdonalds.com 

McDonald’s continues to add to their collection of Angus Third Pounders with the new Cheddar Bacon Onion Angus Third Pounder (CBO).   To be honest with you, I’d rather see them do this then figure out how to make a Big Mac into a Snack Wrap.

What I Got:  Cheddar Bacon Onion Angus Third Pounder; $4.39.

The CBO is hickory smoked bacon, caramelized grilled onions, two slices of white cheddar and a creamy mustard sauce.   Sounds pretty decent right?   When I saw it on the menu, I thought that it could taste a bit like a Steak Diane (plus cheese), which is an old school dish at this point, but when done right, it’s hard to beat.

Anytime that I have had one of the angus burgers in the past, I can’t get over how dry this patty is.   There always has to be a good amount of mayo or cheese on it to balance out the dryness.   This burger follows the same equation.   Two slices of cheese seems like a lot.   When I make a burger at home, I never put more than one slice on it and it tastes great.

I have no beef with the bun (pun intended).   McDonalds bacon has always been some of the worst in the market.  The onions added a little sweetness here and I liked them.   What I really liked though is the mustard sauce.   A good tart Dijon that worked well on the beef.

Would I Buy It Again?  791 calories, 41g fat and $4.39.   Probably not.   It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t worth the calories.   I love a little crunch in a burger and with raw onion, lettuce, potato chips and whatever, this burger was a lot of mushy.  I don’t think that McDonald’s has any intention of keeping this on the menu and that is probably a good move.

-wibia

There could be no better story for this blog than this one.

First, I am a huge Chicago Bulls fan.

Second, I am a Jordan fan.  However, his Hall of Fame Speech was a disgrace.

Most importantly – The McJordan was a Beef Wennington with mustard.   Btw, still no response from McDonald’s.

$10,000 for BBQ sauce?!   Are you crazy!?   Who knows if payment actually happened in this transaction.  To be honest with you, McDonald’s has never produced a BBQ sauce worth the space that it occupies on the shelf.

Enjoy,

-wibia

McDonald’s
http://www.mcdonalds.com

I don’t know why since it seems like it would be right up my alley (food related), but it took me forever to finally see “Supersize Me.”  While I found the movie to be mostly propaganda and biased, it did do a good job focusing on how many unhealthy eating options there are at McDonald’s.  While they may not say it is directly because of the movie, McDonald’s has started to focus on more healthy items, even going so far as to put calorie counts on their menu boards, and while I don’t typically eat at McDonald’s, a gift card found its way into my hands so I had some money to burn.  Not wanting to turn into Morgan Spurlock (or my former self) and perhaps feeling a bit of self-loathing due to watching the movie, I decided to give one of those “healthier” options a try and that leads to this review.

What I Got:  McDonald’s Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken; $4.79.

I know it’s a salad and most salads are boring, but since this is “premium,” don’t you think it’s worth a review?  Well maybe not, but you are getting one.  Anyway, McDonald’s describes this salad as “Our hottest salad yet: fresh-grilled chicken, fresh mixed greens, oven-roasted tomatoes, fire-roasted corn, savory black beans, poblano peppers, shredded cheddar and jack cheeses, chili lime tortilla strips and a fresh-sliced lime wedge on the side.”  So, I’m guessing that McDonald’s wants you to think this is hot, eh?  Regardless, kudos to whatever creative writer at McDonald’s wrote this…not sure I’ve ever seen a salad described in such detail.

So, as I bit into the salad, I can definitely agree that it was hotter than your typical salad.  The peppers and corn brought a nice kick to the entire package and that was hit with the tartness of the lime juice, which I squeezed over the salad (thought it would be kind of silly to eat a lime whole, rind and all).  The tortilla strips then offset the soft and chewy beans by adding crunch and after mixing those together with all the other ingredients like the cheese, tomatoes, etc., it was as if I was eating a deconstructed taco.  Tacos=good, so if using that brilliant mathematical equation, that means this salad is good too, in my opinion.

Would I Buy It Again?  I sure would and already have gotten it a second time and it was just as good as the first time.  This is a solid sized salad too, so it works perfectly as a nice sized lunch or a main entree for you dinner.  As long as you choose a healthy dressing, you can keep this down to a respectable amount of calories and maybe if more McDonald’s customers ate this, there’d be less people in the world that look like Grimace, the old me or Morgan Spurlock by the end of the movie.

-IndianapolisEater

McDonald’s
http://www.mcdonalds.com 

I have been doing better with fast food and going a lot less.  However, on a road trip, I decided that I wanted a cold drink and my girlfriend wanted a McDonald’s Diet Coke.

I tried a Mocha Frappe and I like it quite a bit.  When the Chocolate Chip version came out, I had to give the sister of my one time guilty pleasure a try.

First, this has some pretty nasty stuff in it.   Read The Impulsive Buy review for ingredients. Second, it is 500 calories.   I can’t keep the physique of Adonis by drinking this.

Lets make this quick…

Would I Buy It Again?   No.  The biggest problem is that you sip the drink and get chunks of chocolate chip.   I don’t like to chew anything that I am drinking.  Until I read the Impulsive Buy’s review on this drink, I purposely didn’t look at the ingredients or calorie count.   Either way, I am done with frappes.

All in all, I should’ve stuck to this promise.  Bring back Beef Wennington or else!

-wibia

McDonald’s
http://www.mcdonalds.com

In case you weren’t aware, 2012 has been the year of the chicken wars.  What are the chicken wars, you ask?  Well, McDonald’s introduced Chicken McBites and then a couple months ago introduced a newer flavor of their McBites line with the Spicy Chicken McBites.  I guess that the McBites line set off one of the most famous purveyors of chicken products, because within the past week or so, KFC has introduced its own McBites type line of chicken products called Original Recipe Bites.  Whew, what a feud and the consumer gets to see the benefit.  Yeah, whatever…

Anyway, I was headed back from Wrigley Field recently and since I had a decent sized lunch and really only needed a small dinner, I grabbed a chocolate shake and an order of…

What I Got:  Snack Size Spicy Chicken McBites; $1.99.

As you can see, this comes in a Chinese takeout type container and I have to admit, it is a bigger portion that I would have expected.  It’s not going to make an entire meal, thus the snack size name, but it is a fairly healthy amount of food and is probably comparable to a regular sized cheeseburger.  If you matched these with an order of fries, you could probably make a meal out of them easily.

In terms of taste, they were just standard sized chicken nuggets (minus the uniform shape) with crispy breading that had an orange hue with noticeable pepper flakes.  They also carried the smell of your typical hot sauce, so you could clearly tell they had a bit of spice in them going in.

When I bit in, I could definitely tell there was a bit of heat in them, but it was nothing spectacular.  If I had to compare the heat to something, I would say that it is similar to Frank’s Red Hot Sauce type heat, which means it has some heat, but it’s not going to kill you unless you are particularly sensitive to that type of thing.  As for the McBites themselves, well, they were crunchy due to the thick breading, but the chicken (at least mine) was particularly dry.  I guess I can’t really expect a lot from McDonald’s when it comes to tender chicken, but these were so dry that they were a bit tough to chew at times.

Would I Buy It Again?  Probably not.  It’s not that there is anything wrong with these, but they are exceptionally boring.  Sure, they have a bit of heat, but it’s nothing memorable that would want to make me order these again, despite the fact that I have a variety of dipping sauces available to change their flavor profile.  Frankly, these exist for menu diversity and I’m all for that, but a box of these McBites is certainly not going to put the chicken empire that is KFC out of business.

-IndianapolisEater

McDonald’s
http://www.mcdonalds.com/

I have a confession to make:  over the past year or so, I have become an ice cream junky and/or freak.  After going most of my life having kind of an apathetic attitude toward ice cream and not really liking or disliking it, I can now not get enough of it and would eat it before, during and after every single meal that I eat if I could.  Thankfully, I’ve managed to discipline myself to indulge in large servings of it only two to three times a week now, so I consider that a small “victory.”  Based on me being a junky now though, I have a feeling that you are going to start seeing a lot more of these ice cream treat reviews from me.  Consider yourself warned (ha!).

I primarily get my ice cream treats from either Culver’s, Ritter’s, Cold Stone Creamery, Handel’s or Dairy Queen, but recently I’ve seen a lot of reviews about McDonald’s newest McFlurry offering:  the Rolo McFlurry.  The reviews haven’t exactly been glowing and despite the fact that I’ve had past negative experiences with McFlurrys, I was intrigued enough by the thought of a long forgotten candy (at least in my mind) being included in a limited time offering, so I made the leap.

For those of you that don’t remember what a Rolo is or need a refresher, it’s a chocolate candy with a caramel center or as Hershey’s describes it, “For the classic combination of chewy caramel and milk chocolate, grab a roll of ROLO chocolate covered caramels!”

What I Got:  Small Rolo McFlurry; $2.39.

One of the main complaints of McFlurrys by both me and the previous reviewers is that McDonald’s doesn’t always do a good job of mixing their McFlurrys and you always end up with all of your mix-ins in the top of the McFlurry and then the bottom of the McFlurry is just their basic yet tasty, in my opinion, soft serve vanilla ice cream.  To avoid this, I specifically asked when ordering for them to make sure to do a good job mixing mine.  Whether they actually paid attention to that request or it was just a product of good fortune, I actually ended up with a well-mixed McFlurry that had Rolo candy pieces throughout the treat.

What also made it nice was that the Rolo pieces were broken up and there were bits of chocolate interspersed with streams of gooey caramel throughout my entire McFlurry.  Since chocolate and caramel are two of my three favorite candy flavors (peanut butter being the other), this combination mixed with the tasty McDonald’s vanilla soft serve ice cream was heavenly.  My only complaint was that after a minute or two, the caramel starts to harden and that makes it slighly sticky and difficult to eat, so eat it fast and watch out for the brain freeze!

Would I Buy It Again?  Absolutely.  McDonald’s isn’t always my first choice for an ice cream treat (more like my fifth or later, depending on what is available) and this treat is a limited time offering, so I may not be able to get another one for a quite a while, but if I’m in a place where McDonald’s is my only option, I will certainly not hesitate to order this one.

In case you are interested and don’t want to take my positive word on this treat as the final word, here’s the negative/lukewarm reviews that have been done by the other blogs:

*Foodbeast
*The Impulsive Buy
*On Second Scoop
*Brand Eating
*FATGUYFOODBLOG (the most positive; his was loaded with Rolos and mixed well)
*BevNerd (another semi-positive one)

Basically, just like all McFlurry offerings, it all boils down to how well your McFlurry gets mixed.  This happens with Blizzards, etc. as well (although seemingly less often than the McFlurry), so buyer beware!

-IndianapolisEater

McDonald’s
http://www.mcdonalds.com

McDonald’s continues their bipolar product launches with an offering from the healthy side.  Keep in mind, their next menu item was the Chipotle Bacon 1/3 lb. mess.  I swear they are still trying their best to continue damage control from “Super Size Me.”  No matter what they stick on the menu, to most people that hate fast food, they are still Enemy #1.

What I Ate:  Oatmeal (Free); usually ~$1.99.

There was a coupon for a free Oatmeal, no purchase necessary, so I said, why not?  When opening the lid, there was a lot of fruit in the container.  Dried cranberries, apple, and raisins.  The apple was crunchy, which I liked because it added a different texture.  I don’t like anything cranberry without vodka quickly following it.  Therefore, I could’ve done without them.

Which leads me to another question…if I ordered this oatmeal dried without cranberries, what do you think would happen?
1.  No fruit at all.
2.  Keep the fruit in there
3.  A teenage punk would have to pick them out of the mix, which I can almost guarantee that he would add some boogers and snot in my oatmeal.

Okay, let’s get this over with…

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes.  It was better than I expected.  Look, it is not stone cut from Bob’s Red Mill, but it is really not that bad.  It is a lot cheaper to go to the store and make your own oatmeal, but if you are looking for a quick grab and go, this (along with Starbucks) is the only fast food oatmeal out there, and not a bad one either.

-wibia

McDonald’s
http://www.mcdonalds.com

I was generally excited to see the release of this burger.   I love the taste of Chipotle.  I keep a puree of Chipotle in Adobo Sauce in my fridge and find many ways to sneak it into food that I already like.   It is a strong heat with a smoky flavor.  In fact, I even use it in my non-award winning chili (which is BS, because it rocks).

What I Ate:  The burger in the subject line for $3.99 (previous rhyme kind of intended).

The burger consisted of Chipotle BBQ sauce, burger, sesame seed bun, red onion, bacon and two slices of cheese.  My version had a lot of red onion on it, so I took a few rings off before my first bite.  Speaking of the first bite, it was pretty boring.  My bacon was really crispy, ya know…the kind that a stiff wind could disintegrate it into dust.  The most disappointing part was the Chipotle bbq sauce.  Honestly, it tasted pretty much the same as what is on the McRib.  I couldn’t taste any heat that I would expect from a chipotle labeled product.

However, I enjoyed the crispy pickles and the red onion was pretty fresh considering fast food.  I could also due just fine with one slice of cheese.  Two was a little much.

Would I Buy It Again?  Nope.  This is the closest sandwich to my beloved Beef Wennington and it was a big let down.  Like Grub Grade said, “1,000 calories of mediocrity.”

-wibia