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

In my recent visit to McDonald’s, I took a look at one of their Real Fruit Smoothies.  In addition to my smoothie, I also added in a meal. I didn’t want a burger and I was already feeling snooty since I ordered a smoothie at McDonald’s (LOL), so I decided to order a sandwich from their Premium Chicken line.

What I Got:  Premium Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich Combo $6.15 (large sized for 80 cents more)

The Premium Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich is made up of a grilled and seasoned chicken breast filet, hickory smoked bacon, lettuce, tomato, melted swiss cheese, and mayonnaise, all served on a honey wheat roll that was shaped somewhat like a mini sub sandwich.

When you order grilled chicken instead of fried chicken at a lot of fast food establishments, they will dry it out.  Thankfully, McDonald’s did not do this.  The breast’s flavor was tender and delicious and also had a mild peppery bite to it as well, so that was wonderful.  The bacon was soft and chewy and since I prefer my bacon that way, I really enjoyed that.  If you prefer crispy bacon over chewy bacon, you may not like this.  When they combined these two meat ingredients with the melted swiss cheese (it was extremely warm, gooey and awesome), it was a truly winning flavor combination.

The rest of the sandwich consisted of the bread, produce and mayonnaise.  The bread was fine and you could taste the honey flavoring, but it was a little hard for my liking.  The lettuce seemed slightly aged, but the tomato was fine, so the produce didn’t really add or subtract from the sandwich in any way.

The sandwich did have one negative though and that was the mayonnaise.  I don’t mind mayonnaise and I usually order my sandwiches without it for dietary reasons, but in this instance I decided to leave it on the sandwich and that was a mistake as there was WAY TOO MUCH on there and I actually had to open up the sandwich and scrape it off.  It seemed like they put an entire tablespoon on there.  Gross.

Would I Buy It Again?  Absolutely. I don’t ordinarily go to McDonald’s for anything other than breakfast, ice cream or coffee, but this sandwich may have converted me back to ordering other things off the menu.  The only problem I had with sandwich was with the mayonnaise, so next time I will make sure to ask them to take it off.

Quick rant here:  McDonald’s fries have the reputation of being some of, if not the best, fries in the fast food business and I just don’t get it.  I think they are vastly overrated and I personally consider them to be mediocre at best.  Whenever I order them, they are never crispy, they are always too greasy and their flavor is exceptionally bland.  I always have to use a ton of salt just to give them some flavor and I almost never do that with fries when I order them at other fast food joints.  Oh well, despite their blandness, at least they are better than Burger King’s (LOL, I had to work a Burger King fries blast into this post somehow).

-IndianapolisEater

Recently, McDonald’s debuted a new item in their quest to be a source for premium drinks using their McCafe line.  In this case, it is a line of fruit smoothies proclaiming to use real fruit.  These smoothies come with two flavor options:  Wild Berry and Strawberry Banana.  Yesterday, it was hot and humid, so I decided to go give one a shot.

What I Got:  Small Wild Berry Fruit Smoothie $2.29

In this Wild Berry smoothie, you are getting a blend of strawberries, blackberries and blueberries along with low fat yogurt.  They take both of these mixtures, combine them with ice and then blend it all together to give you your smoothie.

As far as taste was concerned, it was pretty good.  It really did taste fruity and as if they were using fresh fruit (although I’m 75% confident they weren’t), but one fruit did not really dominate in taste over the others.  It was just a blend as the name of the drink would imply. Its consistency had a bit too many ice chunks in it, but had I given it a minute to melt instead of inhaling it in about eleven seconds after I got it (taking the picture took up six of those seconds and the remaining five were inhaling it), those ice chunks may have been dissolved a little bit more.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, I would. It was cold and refreshing and like I said, it really did taste as if I was drinking something fresh.  Plus, when you look at the calorie count (210 calories), it’s really not that bad for you either.

It’s a bit more than I would like to spend for a “drink”, but because of its consistency, I would almost consider this a substitute for a milkshake.  And when you consider the calorie comparisons of 210 calories for a smoothie and 560 for a comparable strawberry shake, you really are getting a healthier option and that’s never a bad thing.  Because of these savings, I might make this smoothie my preferred treat.

As for other assessments of these smoothies (they find the smoothies to be mediocre, unlike me), check out Grub Grade and The Impulsive Buy.

-IndianapolisEater

I was reading a post at SeriousEats.com the other day where they were comparing the various ice cream-type options at Wendy’s (Twisted Frosty), Burger King (Sundae Shake) and McDonald’s (McFlurry) and I realized two things:

1.  The reviewer was absolutely right about that Oreo Sundae Shake at Burger King.  That thing sucks.
2.  I’ve somehow made it through my life never having tried a McFlurry and I couldn’t figure out how or why (I’ve never had a Twisted Frosty either, but I’ve at least had a regular Frosty, so I at have an idea what a Twisted Frosty would taste like).

I had an ice cream craving last Wednesday, so I decided to cruise on over to McDonald’s to try their new limited time offering, the Reese’s McFlurry (by the way, I could almost guarantee this is not just a limited time offering and will become permanent…why wouldn’t it?).  I could have gone to Dairy Queen and gotten a Blizzard (the king of all ice cream treats), but I wanted to see how McDonald’s McFlurry stacked up since I have never had one before.

What I Got:  Regular Size Reese’s McFlurry $2.35

If you’ve never had a McFlurry, it is similar to a Blizzard.  They take their “reduced fat” vanilla ice cream, dump in Reese’s Cup chunks and blend.  It’s not very complicated.

When I got mine and saw the amount of Reese’s Cup chunks and the ample portion size of the McFlurry, I was very pleased and devoured the first half in about 1.3 seconds.  The taste of McDonald’s thick (I find it to be thicker than Dairy Queen’s) vanilla ice cream was a perfect mix with the peanut butter and chocolate of the Reese’s Cups.  Truly, vanilla, peanut butter and chocolate is the best combination of ice cream and candy that there is in my opinion.

The second half wasn’t as wonderful though as I noticed that I was missing something and thought, “hey, where the heck did all the Reese’s Cup chunks go?!”  Basically, they only put Reese’s Cup chunks in the top half of my McFlurry and not in the bottom half.  I’m not sure if that is standard protocol or if that was just a blending error by the employee that made my McFlurry (maybe someone that has had multiple McFlurrys can help me here?), but I was very disappointed.  I like the taste of McDonald’s plain vanilla ice cream, but that’s not what I was paying for here!  If I wanted plain vanilla ice cream, I would have gotten a plain sundae for $1 and saved myself the money!  I need my Reese’s Cup chunks!  C’mon McDonald’s, I’ve got weight to gain here!  Oh well.

Would I Buy It Again?  Most likely not. I went into this to see how it compared to Dairy Queen’s Reese’s Cup Blizzard and the McFlurry lost.  The McFlurry was just boring.

When you compare the two you are really comparing the taste of the soft serve ice cream that they use (Reese’s Cups are the same everywhere) and while I like McDonald’s ice cream in general, Dairy Queen’s is superior.  Plus, I know that when I go to Dairy Queen, my Blizzard is going to be made by an ice cream “professional”, so I won’t run the risk of getting screwed out of my Reese’s Cup chunks.

The only time it would be acceptable to choose this over Dairy Queen is if in you are dying for ice cream and there is not a Dairy Queen nearby.  Ugh…no Dairy Queen nearby…that sounds like the seventh layer of hell to me.

-IndianapolisEater

If you haven’t figured out from reading my material on the blog so far, I’m going to let you in on something that isn’t really a secret:  I’m not exactly sane (wibia would be happy to tell you all the ways since he and I were previously roommates for more than three years of our lives).

Anyway, one of the things that makes me less than sane is I have an absolutely unhealthy obsession with peanut butter.  Peanut butter, in moderation, is actually healthy for you but when it comes to me, moderation goes out the window and then it becomes unhealthy because  I love the stuff and can’t get enough of it.  Peanut butter, especially when mixed with chocolate, is my definition of what heaven must be like.

I saw a statistic on television once (I want to say it was on Unwrapped but it could have been Good Eats) that said that the average American eats five pounds of peanut butter a year.  This caused me to laugh quite a bit because when I thought about it, I realized that I ate five pounds PER MONTH!  Yes, that is true.  I used to go to the store once a month and buy the 80 ounce jars of peanut butter and go through them in one month’s time.  Of course I would use the peanut butter for sandwiches, oatmeal, pancakes, desserts (I may make a Food Porn-like post about my homemade Peanut Butter Pie sometime) and other regular things (I never did quite get the peanut butter on a hamburger thing though).  Mostly, I would just get a spoon or a fork and eat it directly out of the jar.  It got to the point that I was so out of control with the stuff that I decided to stop keeping jars of peanut butter in my house in order to help my cholesterol and my waist line.  Yes, that is a true story.

To take it one step further, I’ve also gone searching online for other peanut butter flavored products, including gum.  I chew gum constantly (Did you know that chewing gum burns 11 calories per hour?), so if I could mix peanut butter with gum, it would be like a day long walk through the fields of heaven.  Alas, I could find no peanut butter flavored gum in the world and I was a very sad man.  It actually put a downer on my day because I was willing to spare no expense to have peanut butter gum shipped to my door.

Yes, I love it that much and apparently I’m not alone in my love as there is actually a website dedicated to all things peanut butter called PeanutButterLovers.com.  They’ve got recipes, contests, etc.  If you like peanut butter, are just curious by nature or are bored and a total loser like me, check it out.

I’m the same way with Italian pasta salad as well.  If someone puts it in front of me, I will finish it.  I’ll spare you the rest though.

Anyway, the purpose of this post was not to expose me as the crazy person that I am, but instead to find out about some other people’s food obsessions/quirks.  Here’s some that I’ve heard of:

**I once dated a girl that said that her favorite thing to do was go to McDonald’s and get a chocolate milkshake and an order of fries (it worked with Wendy’s Frostys too).  She would then dip the fries in the chocolate milkshake and eat them both together.  This was the first I had ever heard of someone doing this and I thought it was genuinely insane.  Yet, as I’ve ventured through the food blogosphere, I’ve come to find out this is actually fairly common because of the salty/sweet mix.  Despite this, I still don’t get it.

**I have a friend that will only drink a soda if it is a fountain Coke from McDonald’s.  He’s a regular reader of this blog, so I’m “outing” him so to speak, but I’m pretty sure he’ll get over it.  His claim was that fountain drinks at McDonald’s tasted different and the only way he was going to drink a soda is if it came from there (he makes special trips just to get them).  At first I thought he was nuts, but I came to find out that McDonald’s actually does tweak the syrup/carbonation levels in their fountains to change the standard drink recipe, so they really do taste different and he was right all the long.  Go figure.

**Peeps.  I’m sure you all know what they are…the neon colored marshmallow flavored treats shaped like little birds that pop up like crazy around Easter.  I hate them, but for some reason, many other people love them.  I knew a girl in college that would eat them like it was her job and it always grossed me out.  Recently, I saw a post on SeriousEats where someone had made a Peeps pizza.  Absolutely disgusting.

So, do you have any food obsessions or quirks (I know some of you can’t resist ice cream)?  If so, let us know about it in the comment section.  I’ll pick a winner of the craziest quirk that I hear and maybe make another post about it later on.  I don’t have a prize to give you other than the respect and admiration of your peers, so don’t let the lack of a prize or potential embarrassment stop you from posting your quirk.  We may make fun of you, but that should be okay.  This blog is an entertainment blog that just happens to focus on food, so we are all here for fun anyway. 

-IndianapolisEater

I will hand it to Burger King, at they are trying.  Their Double Cheeseburger is $1 and honestly, my favorite menu item regardless of price.  Before I talk breakfast…Dear Burger King, YOUR FRIES SUCK!  In fact, they suck big time and are by far the worst in the industry.

Burger King launched the $1 muffin breakfast sandwich to continue giving McDonald’s the proverbial Dollar Menu middle finger.  I like their English muffin based sandwich.  It is less greasy than biscuits, although the Crossain’wich is pretty bad.

The king of any quick serve breakfast sandwich is the Egg McMuffin.   So I decided to stop by and eat one of each to see which one I like better.  They are within a few blocks, so neither sandwich sat and got cold.

I am not going to spend a lot of time on the Egg McMuffin.  If you read this blog, then surely you have had one?

The BK Muffin was not on the menu, soI had to ask for it.  It is an English Muffin, sausage patty, folded egg and cheese.  I liked that they didn’t skimp on the sandwich, as it was a full size breakfast sandwich.

Lets break it down:
Size: Winner – Burger King 4.8 oz.   McDonald’s 4.6
English Muffin:  McD, by far.  BK doesn’t toast their English Muffin and a lukewarm muffin is bad news.
Egg: McDonald’s, by a lot.  You really couldn’t taste the egg on the BK sandwich
Cheese: BK, there was more.
Meat: BK.  I like the sausage patty better than the ham.
Nutrition: McD
Value: BK. $2.35 for an English Muffin in the capitol city (burbs at least)

Winner:  McDonald’s.  I know, BK is listed more, but the muffin is so bad, that I can’t recommend it over the Egg McMuffin.  However, for $1, it is not bad at all.

BK, just toast the English muffin and you have a winner here, simple as that.

-wibia