REVIEW: McDonald’s Jolly Burger (Canada)

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McDonalds Jolly Burger 1

Ever since McDonald’s (and pretty much every other fast food joint) started storing pre-cooked patties in those weird food drawers, their burgers have ranged from “dry” to “super dry” all the way to “oh my lord is that dry.”

Imagine my shock and befuddlement, then, when not only was the Quarter Pounder patty in my Jolly Burger not dry, but actually kind of juicy. A juicy patty at McDonald’s? Where’s the weird, pebbly texture? Where’s the dessicated beef that crumbles into dry little meat granules? What is this wizardry?

I don’t know if McDonald’s have somehow improved their process, or if I just got lucky with a one-off burger that happened to be fresh from the griddle. I suspect the latter, but I would love to be wrong.

McDonalds Jolly Burger 2

The patty even had a decent beefy flavour that I would categorize as “not unpleasant,” so basically the whole experience made me wonder if Ronald McDonald had snuck into my house and Incepted me.

But of course, the bigger question is how the toppings were; even if I just got very lucky with the patty (and I suspect that I did), the toppings will be more consistent no matter which McDonald’s you go to.

They were pretty tasty!

McDonalds Jolly Burger 3

The star of the show is the creamy peppercorn sauce. It tastes kind of like a variation on peppercorn gravy, with a sweet, pleasantly zesty flavour, and a kick of savoury oomph that complements the burger well. 

The grilled onions were a touch undercooked, with a bit more bite than you’d probably want, but otherwise added more savouriness and blended quite well with the peppercorn sauce.  

The combined sweetness of the sauce and the griddled onions might have been sweet overload, but the two slices of melty processed white cheddar added a nice dose of saltiness to round out the sweet.

McDonalds Jolly Burger 4

As for the one piece of leaf lettuce, it seemed present more for colour than anything else; it added nothing to the taste or texture of the burger.

The whole thing comes on a cross-split bun, which basically tasted like a slightly denser, heartier version of what you’d find on a Quarter Pounder. It was a good fit for the burger at hand.

McDonald’s bills this burger as “holiday-inspired,” and yeah, with the gravy-like sauce and the savoury grilled onions, I can see it. It’s not exactly a turkey dinner, but it’s probably about as holiday-appropriate as you’re going to get from the golden arches.

(Nutrition Facts – 540 calories, 28 grams of fat, 13 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 1220 milligrams of sodium, 42 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fibre, 8 grams of sugar, 29 grams of protein..)

Item: McDonald’s Jolly Burger (Canada)
Purchased Price: $5.69 CAN
Size: N/A
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Juicy, mildly flavourful patty. Blend of zesty peppercorn sauce, savoury grilled onions and salty cheese is quite tasty. Hearty cross-split bun.
Cons: Slightly undercooked onions. Borderline too sweet. Getting Incepted by Ronald McDonald.

REVIEW: Pizza Hut Hershey’s Hot Chocolate Brownie

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Pizza Hut Hershey's Hot Chocolate Brownie

Unlike many of you out there, I am not a chocoholic. Chocoholism is so prevalent that spellcheck recognizes “chocoholic” as an actual word, and it doesn’t even think spellcheck is a word.

That said, there are a few chocolate snacks I can’t resist. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Coffee Crisp candy bars. And, pertinent to this review, brownies and hot chocolate.

Hot chocolate will always have a special place in my heart, since every Christmas morning before I opened presents, my mom would make me a cup, complete with Christmas-shaped marshmallows slowly dissolving on top.

Pizza Hut’s website describes their Hot Chocolate Brownie as “a fresh baked warm Hershey’s Triple Chocolate Brownie topped with toasted marshmallows and drizzled with Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup.”

With two of my four chocolate weaknesses covered, Pizza Hut had me salivating at the idea of their new Hershey’s Hot Chocolate Brownie, despite the deep-seated idea that a brownie coming from Pizza Hut couldn’t be that great. However, I am nothing if not the consummate professional journalist, so I put on my objective tasting hat and waited for the brownie to be delivered to my door.

I am very happy to report that my brownie arrived exactly as advertised. When I opened the box, it smelled exactly like brownies fresh out of the oven, and it looked absolutely scrumptious. Yes, I realize I sound like I just morphed into a Food Network chef, but I can’t help it. The marshmallows covered almost every square inch and looked toasted to perfection.

Pizza Hut Hershey's Hot Chocolate Brownie 2

The inside of the brownie was incredibly rich and super gooey, more like a half-baked brownie than a regular brownie. This texture contrasted nicely with the crunchy edges, which are always the best part of the brownie. I could definitely taste that this was a Hershey’s product; the chocolate was quality and had no fake taste whatsoever.

As if this wasn’t good enough, those marshmallows on top just added to the feeling that I was eating a warm hug. They were super gooey and melty, doing that slow-separation thing that commercials love to showcase. They added a fluffy texture to the rich chocolate center, as well as a tiny bit of extra crunch because they were toasted. Plus, that light and sweet marshmallow taste just gave the brownie an extra layer of flavor.

Despite all this fawning, there were a few downsides to the Hot Chocolate Brownie. Due to the innards being so gooey (sorry for using that word so much, but there aren’t any good synonyms for it), cutting it was nearly impossible, as you can see from my best attempts at taking a picture of a “slice”. You’d be better off just eating it straight out of the pan with a fork.

The chocolate drizzle on top looked nice but didn’t add any flavor, probably because the brownie itself had already reached Maximum Chocolate Richness. While this made it delicious, it also made it impossible to eat more than a tiny square (or glob) in one serving.

As I am but one mere mortal, I had to store the rest of it in my fridge, giving it one last, longing gaze as I did so, even with a slight tummy ache. I knew I would never get that recipe again, and I was right – all that gooey magic goes out the window once it’s cooled down. I thought about re-warming it in the oven, but I’m not very good with things like that when it comes to times and temperatures. Much to my extreme sadness, a lot of it wound up going to waste.

Pizza Hut Hershey’s Hot Chocolate Brownie tastes nothing like hot chocolate, but it does taste like a warm, rich chocolate experience on a cold winter night, which is in the same realm as hot chocolate. However, I highly recommend you find someone to share it with, unless you are a serious chocoholic machine.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 square (1/9 brownie) – 290 calories, 100 calories from fat, 11 grams of fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 20 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 45 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 31 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.)

Item: Pizza Hut Hershey’s Hot Chocolate Brownie
Purchased Price: $6.99
Size: N/A
Purchased at: Pizza Hut
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Quality Hershey’s chocolate. Getting a warm hug from a brownie. Marshmallows are toasted, gooey and fluffy. Brownie is gooey and half-baked on the inside. Crunchy brownie edges.
Cons: Far too rich for one human to consume while fresh. Saying “gooey” so many times. Chocolate drizzle adds no flavor. Sounding like a Food Network chef. Doesn’t taste exactly like hot chocolate.

REVIEW: Burger King Frozen Surge

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Burger King Frozen Surge

Aaaand…now the ‘90s are back. Yeah, the house became full again and a different gender already met world, and the clever girls switched sides.

But it’s only now, when Coca-Cola decided to excavate a forgotten, bootleg Mountain Dew by way of a second-place fast food try-hard that the nostalgia train is perhaps learning it’s running out of track. Surge is back, baby! But at Burger King only! And it’s not really a liquid anymore! And what is Surge again?

Surge was Coca-Cola’s answer to Mountain Dew and launched in the mid ‘90s, but dwindling sales pretty much had it out of stores before Facebook existed. (A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Not drinking Surge.) Successors include Vault — which had more caffeine — and Red Bull chased with green Gatorade left overnight in a hot car. It’s questionable whether the world was thirsting for a rebirth of Surge. But here we are.

Like an imposter, something is different, as much as Coke wants us to believe the vintage drink is being reinstated. It’s in a Slurpee, ICEE form, and it’s being featured exclusively at your local, grungy Burger King. Other things exclusive to Burger King include Chicken Fries and the thought “I wish I was at McDonald’s.”

Burger King Frozen Surge 2

Frozen Surge is serviceable. The Surge flavoring seems more muted than the original drink, which I remember having maybe a handful of times. The ice freezes up the taste buds all nice so practically the entire flavor profile is on the back end of the drink experience, which features an artificial lemon-lime tinge that definitely tastes “green.”

It’s slightly sweet and has a citrus bent that is somewhere between a lemon-steeped carafe of table water and a green Brach’s candy bean. The semi-carbonated, energy drink-soda hybrids have become plentiful in the past decade during Surge’s absence, and this drink feels like a frozen version of all of those put together. There is a light, fizzy tickling of the back of the throat that is more apparent as the frozen parts of the drink become less so. Overall the taste is a neutral proposition — it’s like a watered down Mountain Dew Slurpee.

The biggest problems are the sticky fingers, which made me feel like a dirty ass toddler, and the speed at which I had to consume it. It’s called “Surge,” like some sort of extreme boost, but since it’s so cold I had to drink it super slowly because every other sip would trigger brain freeze. The flavors had me wanting to pound it like a Swedish hacker at 3 a.m., not like a Swedish hacker at 3 p.m. (They’re asleep so they would drink slowly, right?).

The best consistency is probably ten to fifteen minutes after purchasing the drink, when it’s warming up so the flavors surface a bit more. Unfortunately, the drink very quickly begins to melt from the bottom up soon after and leaves a puddle of syrup below a glacier of frozen green stuff. This makes for a delicate balance unsuited to the brutality of stuffing a Western Whopper and onion rings into your maw.

It’s hard to imagine anyone going out of their way to grab this, especially since it’s only available at Burger Kings, but along with a meal it’s a decent accompaniment that delivers light citrus flavors and a little bit of an energy drink kick. I’d say it makes you feel like you’re traveling through time to the ‘90s, but only because it constantly hurt my brain, like reruns of Full House that feature the Beach Boys. Cut it out.

(Nutrition Facts – Medium – 100 calories, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of cholesterol, 5 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 24 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein.)

Item: Burger King Frozen Surge
Purchased Price: $1.39
Size: Medium
Purchased at: Burger King
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Would go well with a meal. Not unpleasant.
Cons: Flavors are slight. Sipping it so slowly because it’s too cold for brain, and then melting too fast.

REVIEW: Burger King Pumpkin Spice Oreo Shake

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Burger King Pumpkin Spice Oreo Shake

Pumpkin Spice Oreo Cookies never had much appeal to me. Of the 487 (unofficial count) flavors Oreo has on the market, I wanted to try that one the least. Then I heard Burger King was offering a Pumpkin Spice Oreo Shake that was apparently different from the cookies of the same flavor. Now you’re speaking my language.

Instead of liquefying the shelf version of Pumpkin Spice Oreo Cookies, Burger King made a pumpkin spice flavored shake with bits of the classic chocolate Oreo cookie. Brilliant decision.

I initially thought the color was going to be off-putting, but when I got a closer look, I liked it. The shake was a very subtle orange color with the familiar black cookie crumbles mixed in.

The shake smelled good. It looked good. How could it not be good?

At first I thought it was better than good. It was surprisingly delicious. Don’t get me wrong, I expected to like it to a degree, but it blew away my expectations.

Once I got beyond the whipped cream that I couldn’t resist adding on, I expected the pumpkin spice flavor to be totally overpowering. It did have a little of that “potpourri” taste on the back of my tongue, but compared to other pumpkin spice products, it was mild.

The bits of Oreo were the best part. The hint of vanilla soft serve actually gave off a flavor reminiscent of the classic Oreo crème filling. The consistency of the cookie pieces held up pretty well for the most part and gave the shake a tiny bit of texture which meshed well with the pumpkin base.

Despite the slight potpourri flavor, it didn’t leave a bad aftertaste. It was quite pleasant. It did however stick around a lot longer than I would have ever expected.

With all that said, it wasn’t perfect.

Burger King Pumpkin Spice Oreo Shake 2

Like a lot of milkshakes, I did get sick of it about halfway through. It wasn’t over-the-top sweet, but even the small size was a bit of a struggle to finish. Not to mention that it lost a lot of its appeal as it melted. Drinking it as a milkshake was delicious. Drinking it as milk wasn’t even close.

I’d actually be thrilled if Oreo teamed with an ice cream company to manufacture this as a flavor. I’d buy a pint in a second, and without the threat of it melting as fast, I could see it jumping to the top of my favorite ice creams list.

I’m a plastic cup half full kinda guy, so I’m giving this a high score despite the last few sips. If I had just stopped midway and called it a day, you’d probably be looking at a 9 out of 10.

Oh, and in case you are considering it, don’t pair one of these with a burger and fries. It would be too much on your stomach. I say get it as more of a standalone dessert.

(Nutrition Facts – 12 ounces – 500 calories, 14 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 45 milligrams of cholesterol, 360 milligrams of sodium, 83 grams of carbohydrates, 66 grams of sugar, and 10 grams of protein..)

Item: Burger King Pumpkin Spice Oreo Shake
Purchased Price: $3.41
Size: 12 ounces
Purchased at: Burger King
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Delicious. Pumpkin spice not overpowering. Chocolate Oreo cookie pieces. Undoubtedly better than the Pumpkin Spice Oreo Cookie. Burger King reminding me they are still an option.
Cons: Potpourri-y. Tastes pretty bad in liquid form. Aftertaste lingered… and lingered. Would probably make a better ice cream than shake. Burger King reminding me they are still an option.

REVIEW: Burger King Buffalo Chicken Fries

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Burger King Buffalo Chicken Fries

Which would you rather fight in a duel to the death?

A) 1 buffalo-sized chicken
B) 100 chicken-sized buffaloes

Across the span of history, this question has troubled every great thinker, from Plato to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and even the wisest philosopher of our time: Waldo of Where’s Waldo? fame. We thought we were searching for him in those colorful pages, but he was really teaching us how to find ourselves.

And while I doubt this age-old enigma will ever have a solution, I think it makes for good food for thought while eating Burger King’s new Buffalo Chicken Fries, which combine everyone’s favorite earthworm French fry shaped chicken morsels with fried breading that’s spiced like a buffalo chicken wing.

I want to take a second to applaud the adorable packaging on these Buffalo Chicken Fries. Though PETA may object to the implied idea of a manmade chicken-buffalo hybrid, I prefer to imagine it as the Burger King’s festive doorknocker.

Burger King Buffalo Chicken Fries 2

My 9 breaded pool noodles Chicken Fries varied in length from “extended middle finger” to “Dixon Ticonderoga #2,” but they all shared a greasy, semi-soggy texture and wiggly flimsiness. As a result, there’s no crisp bite like you’d find in a McNugget. Instead, the sketchy, spongy mouthfeel is closer to that of an over-microwaved Tyson dinosaur nugget.

Or maybe SpongeBob just fell into BK’s deep fryer.

The tastiness of the breading makes up for this, though. True to Burger King’s online description, the buffalo trinity of pepper, butter, and vinegar are all here. The standard floury and oily taste of the breading has a garlic buttery fattiness that’s spiced up by a modest kick of pepper.

Flavor wise, this kick is one part Cayenne, one part black pepper, and one part “generic red pepper from a Looney Tunes cartoon that made Foghorn Leghorn blow steam out of his ears.”

The mild heat wasn’t strong enough to trample my taste buds, but it still left my tongue feeling as pleasantly tickled as the Elmo dolls people got trampled over on Black Friday. And while the tangy acridness of the vinegar didn’t show up until after my meal, for hours afterwards, my mouth was filled with the flavorful ghosts of dyed Easter eggs and pickle jars.

Burger King Buffalo Chicken Fries 3

Unfortunately, this authentic buffalo experience comes at the cost of the actual meat. There was a skinny layer of chewy and bizarrely mealy chicken at the center of each fry, but any poultry flavor is largely stomped out by the brazen hoof of the buffalo breading.

So if you’re like me and are looking for a reliably chicken-y Chicken Fry experience, you’ll need to employ some careful tongue archaeology to extract the flavor of these chickens from their spicy prisons.

But if you’re the kind of buffalo flavor fanatic who rents Mark Ruffalo movies just on the off-chance that the DVD case made a typo, these peppery, buttery Slenderman appendages Chicken Fries might just make you fall in buffa-love.

Either way, I recommend pairing the fragile Fries with a thick dipping sauce to mask the iffy texture. Ranch is a good choice for contrasting the spice with cool creaminess. Plus you get to make everyone around you groan and boo by exclaiming, “Look, I’m a buffalo rancher!”

Burger King Buffalo Chicken Fries 4

But buffalo sauce works, too, half because of the added heat and nearly cheesy viscosity, and half because I like pretending that the Buffalo Chicken Fries are vengeful ghouls spewing forth their own fiery, ethereal ectoplasm.

Hey, Halloween might be over for you…

(Nutrition Facts – 9 fries – 270 calories, 140 calories from fat, 16 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 850 milligrams of sodium, 17 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugar, and 14 grams of protein.)

Item: Burger King Buffalo Chicken Fries
Purchased Price: $3.19
Size: 9 fries
Purchased at: Burger King
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Accurate buffalo chicken flavor. Elmo-levels of tickling spiciness. Pairs well with fiery, ethereal ectoplasm. Changing my college major to “tongue archaeology.” An inevitable SpongeBob/Burger King crossover episode.
Cons: Mushy mouthfeel. Asking, “Where’s the chicken?” in my Wendy’s old lady voice. Licking Mark Ruffalo DVDs. Extinction of the dinosaurs via microwave.

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