For me, the smell of sliced jalapeño peppers is inextricably linked to the spring of 1996. One evening, during the waning days of ninth grade, I had joined a small group of friends at the movie theater to catch a screening of Down Periscope. (Look, the first Mission: Impossible movie wasn’t out yet, so we were pretty hard up for national-security-related entertainment.) As magnificent as the on-screen pairing of Kelsey Grammar and Rob Schneider in a submarine promised to be, I certainly had not come for that cinematic gem. I’d shown up because it was my very first co-ed outing. There were BOYS there. Woooooo!

One boy in particular, a 15-year-old upon whom my friends and I fixated daily was in attendance, and he had a jones for some nachos that night. Being a popcorn-and-Junior-Mints girl, the concept of fast food in a movie theater was still a novelty to me, so when my crush brought his plate of nachos and cheese buried beneath a pile of jalapeños into the theater, the distinctive spicy aroma of the chopped peppers was all I could smell. It was intoxicating… He was sitting so close to me, and the fragrance of jalapeños mingled in the air with the scent of CK One and hormones.

So what does all that have to do with a chicken sandwich? Well, this particular sandwich is loaded with chopped jalapeños, and it was the magical portal through which my olfactory nerves whisked me back to that little Midwestern multiplex. At first whiff, I knew I was gonna enjoy this chicken sammich.

It’s a fact that McDonald’s isn’t exactly a place known for its spicy foods. It’s also a fact that in Southern California, it’s illegal to operate a dining establishment without jalapeños somewhere on the menu. I’m sure I read that somewhere. In general, McDonald’s is trying to break away from the norm and create truly unique flavor combos, and their Jalapeño Cheddar McChicken sandwich is the latest creation to make the regional rounds in California before (perhaps) breaking into other markets. I’m sure people in other states have the ability to appreciate jalapeños as much as we do… I mean, if jalapeños have been movie theater snacks for close to 20 years in the Great Plains then that should certainly be enough evidence. But here in Cali, we’re ride or die homies with our peppers 4 life, and McDonald’s knows we don’t play.

My first hint that McDonald’s is really serious about their new jam was the wrapper. Stamped there, in bold, red font is the name of the sandwich, and the accompanying sketch of a pair of jalapeños shows McDonald’s means business. Upon unwrapping it, I quickly discovered that this sandwich is just like a regular McChicken sandwich, except in place of mayonnaise they’ve added a generous portion of jalapeño sauce and a thick slice of white cheddar cheese. The jalapeño sauce contains actual chopped jalapeños, which provide a good amount of heat to each bite, and the melted white cheddar (while not exactly bold) is smooth and not waxy. When combined with the umami of the seasoned, crispy breaded chicken patty, the flavor profile is complex and delicious … Not at all how I would describe most sandwiches from fast food joints, let alone McDonald’s.

As for the serious jalapeño commitment indicated by the wrapper, I’d characterize the jalapeño sauce’s level of spiciness as “lip spicy” more than anything. It didn’t exactly threaten to liquefy my insides (something for which I’m grateful, since my Teflon esophagus and cast-iron stomach are both on back-order through SkyMall), but it was sufficiently zesty. I think the jalapeños themselves were probably pickled, but I could barely taste the tartness beyond the kisser-searing wall of spice. The cheese was really the only downside. I’d say it was closer to American cheese than cheddar, and there was no flavor to speak of, despite the warm, melty texture. Just like that memorable night at the movies seated beside the JNCO-clad object of my adolescent affection, the cheese didn’t really amount to much. (I think he didn’t like any of us.)

It’s comforting to know that for about a buck fifty, I can revisit the past, and this time, Frasier, Deuce Bigalow, and a janky-ass submarine are nowhere in sight.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 sandwich – 360 calories, 140 calories from fat, 15 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 40 milligrams of cholesterol, 1220 milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of dietary fiber, 5 grams of sugar, and 17 grams of protein.)

Other McDonald’s Jalapeño Cheddar McChicken reviews:
Brand Eating

Item: McDonald’s Jalapeño Cheddar McChicken Sandwich
Price: $1.49
Size: N/A
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Lip spicy. The aroma of jalapeño slices. Sky Mall. Cartoon jalapeños show they mean business. Mission: Impossible. Seasoned, crispy, breaded chicken patty provides nice touch of umami. Movie-going in mixed company. Tasty and cheap. Ride or Die.
Cons: Not available everywhere in the US-of-A yet. The cheese was bland and didn’t really taste like cheddar. Kelsey Grammar and Rob Schneider. The amount of spice doesn’t represent real business. JNCOs.

If I didn’t have a calendar, all I would have to do is see what McDonald’s is offering in order to figure out what time of the year it is. When they release their Holiday Pie, I know it’s fall. When the Shamrock Shake is available, I know spring is right around the corner. And, whenever the McRib is offered for a limited time, I know it’s that time of year when I eat a McRib and then think to myself, “Nope, it’s still horrible.”

But now, I have the McDonald’s McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade to let me know summer is near. Although, I think it’s a permanent addition to the McCafe menu, so I may think it’s summer all the time. But then again, I do live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where it pretty much always has nice beach weather.

The McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade is made by pouring blended frozen lemonade into a cup with strawberry syrup. As the lemonade slush is poured into the cup, the strawberry syrup mixes with some it, creating a swirling pattern. After the two are put together in a cup, they aren’t completely mixed together to blend all the flavors. That mixing is up to you, the straw that’s included, and your wrists.

However, I think McDonald’s doesn’t want you to mix the two because it’s kind of hard to do so with the included straw and because that swirling pattern looks so pretty before the heavier strawberry syrup settles to the bottom of the cup. But, I’d recommend fusing the two flavors together because when the strawberry goop comes to rest at the cup’s bottom, a sweet strawberry shot is what you’ll be tasting with every suck from your straw, leaving you with less of the syrup to slightly neutralize the tartness of the lemonade slush.

If you owned a box of crayons as a child, you know red and white make pink, while red and yellow make orange. But get ready to have your primary colored world turned upside down because thoroughly combining the yellow lemonade slush with the red strawberry syrup turns the McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade pink. It’s what Hello Kitty would drink if she wanted brain freeze.

Looking past the weird color anomaly, the McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade is tasty and refreshing. The ice crystals have a satisfying crunch and create a fluffy slushie. The tart blended frozen lemonade is front and center and the strawberry syrup moderately turns down the tartness, but in the process the strawberry flavor is nearly non-existent. So, basically, McDonald’s should’ve called this slushy beverage the McDonald’s McCafe Frozen Lemonade That’ll Turn Pink If You Mix It.

But, as tasty and refreshing as it was, I had trouble finishing the entire 16-ounce cup. Because, at a point the lemonade got annoyingly tart and the drink as a whole got annoyingly sweet. Thank goodness for freezers because I can enjoy the leftovers later by throwing it at the faces of glee club members.

Overall, the McDonald’s McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade is a pleasant reminder that summer is near.

(Nutrition Facts – 16 ounces – 270 calories, 0 calories from fat, 0 grams of fat, 0 grams of saturated fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 68 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 67 grams of sugar, 0 grams of protein, and 310% vitamin C.)

Item: McDonald’s McCafe Frozen Strawberry Lemonade
Price: $2.59
Size: 16 ounces
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: A tasty and refreshing reminder that summer is near. Fat free. Awesome amount of vitamin C. Swirling pattern is pretty. Shamrock Shakes.
Cons: Not enough strawberry flavor. Becomes hard to finish since it gets to be annoyingly tart and sweet. You have to do the mixing. Breaks the laws of primary colors.

Besides helping to increase toilet paper usage more than other foods, using the same ingredients to create new menu items is what Taco Bell does best. But it appears McDonald’s took a page from Taco Bell’s playbook when they came up with their Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder.

The latest addition to the McDonald’s Angus Third Pounder lineup combines the 100 percent Angus patty, bun, bacon, cheese, onion and pickles from a Bacon & Cheese Angus Third Pounder with the Chipotle BBQ sauce McDonald’s includes in their Chipotle BBQ Chicken Snack Wrap.

I didn’t expect McDonald’s, the 800-pound gorilla of the fast food world, who by the way probably got to 800 pounds by eating McDonald’s food, to stoop to the same level as the company who couldn’t be honest enough to name their Fourthmeal, which happens between late night drinking and breakfast, what it really is — Drunkfast.

Just like all of the other Angus Third Pounder burgers, the Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder has a bit of heft thanks to the meaty 100 percent Angus beef patty. Or maybe they feel heavy because the only regular arm exercise I get is lifting 20-ounce bottles of Pepsi Max. The Angus patty is, by far, better tasting meat than what’s offered with other McDonald’s burgers. Too bad its flavor gets lost in this burger.

The Chipotle BBQ sauce is one of the main ingredients of the Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder, but it’s also the burger’s main problem.

The Chipotle BBQ sauce is like a telenovela without the sensuality — all flavor, almost no heat. But that was to be expected since the McDonald’s Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap also isn’t spicy. While it may not provide any heat, what it does have is a sweet and smoky flavor. However, that sweet and smoky flavor dominates the Angus beef and all of the other burger’s ingredients, because it appears the burger jockeys in the McDonald’s kitchens have their sauce guns set to splooge.

The burger also come with three strips of bacon, pickles, red onions, and cheese, but, again, the chipotle BBQ sauce doesn’t allow any of them much face time, just like I’m not giving them much attention by only talking about them in this one sentence paragraph.

The Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder is my least favorite Angus Third Pounder variety. Not only is its flavor disappointing, but also its lack of creativity. What was so impressive about the original Angus Third Pounders was that McDonald’s was able to take a giant leap away from what we thought a McDonald’s burger should be, with better beef and colorful, fresh ingredients. They’ve shown they can make that leap and create a decent burger, so I’m disappointed all they could do is swap condiments to make something new. All they’re showing now is that they perhaps no longer want to take leaps, just baby steps.

Just like Taco Bell.

(Nutrition Facts – Not available on website. But I’m pretty sure it contains trans fat and enough sodium to make dogs want to lick you when you sweat.)

Other McDonald’s Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder Reviews:
Grub Grade
Brand Eating
An Immovable Feast

Item: McDonald’s Chipotle BBQ Bacon Angus Third Pounder
Price: $6.99
Size: Regular Value Meal
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Great if you’re really sick of the other Angus Third Pounder varieties. Three decent sized slices of bacon. Angus beef patty. Hefty burger. Pepsi Max. The original Angus Third Pounders.
Cons: Chipotle BBQ sauce brought no heat, and it’s sweet and smoky flavor dominated all of the other ingredients. Setting sauce guns to splooge. Swapping condiments isn’t very creative. McDonald’s take a page from the Taco Bell playbook.

Ordering the McDonald’s Fruit & Maple Oatmeal via the drive-thru at my local McDonald’s made me feel like I was in an alternate universe, where McDonald’s brags about being fresh and healthy, while Subway has a fat Jared Fogle dressed up as a clown as their spokesperson.

Oatmeal on the McDonald’s menu board looks out of place, like a fish out of water or the white member of The Roots.

I know McDonald’s has other “healthy” fare, like their fruit parfait and Fruit & Walnut Salad, but oatmeal is in the upper echelon of healthy eating. Basically, its wholesomeness does the opposite of what most McDonald’s food does. It’s been shown to help lower blood pressure, control weight, and reduce the risk for type 2 diabetes. The fiber in oatmeal helps get rid of the bad cholesterol in the body and makes holding in farts more difficult.

The addition of the Fruit & Maple Oatmeal to the fast food giant’s menu looks like another attempt to be like Starbucks, which has been selling oatmeal for a while. I can understand the appeal of a powerful entity trying to be even more powerful, since I occasionally like put on some big women’s sunglasses to see things though the eyes of Kim Jong-il.

But the question that arises is whether or not you can trust McDonald’s with oatmeal. Are they Boy Scout trustworthy or as trustworthy as a random audience member yelling random numbers at you as you stand on a stage figuring out the value of a Price Is Right’s Showcase that consists of a jet ski, a trip to the Bahamas, a sailboat and a Ford Mustang convertible?

After trying the Fruit & Maple Oatmeal, I believe you can trust McDonald’s.

Sure, the pictures above look like a pretentious health nut douchebag threw up into a cup after some detox treatment, but I assure you it’s not. If the oatmeal didn’t come with so much liquid, it wouldn’t look the way it does. Personally, I prefer my oatmeal to be a bit thicker.

Although I had mine with brown sugar (you can order it without), I didn’t think the oatmeal was overly sweet.

There’s an assortment of fruits with the whole grain rolled oats: diced green and red apples, dried sweetened cranberries, California raisins and golden raisins. They provide a wide variety of flavors and textures to go along with the soft oatmeal. There’s an ample amount of fruits, which ensures that there’s something in each spoonful.

Overall, I think the McDonald’s Fruit & Maple Oatmeal is a winner and I definitely see myself buying it on a regular basis. Its flavor easily makes most packets of instant oatmeal seem like dull mush. Its warmth is nice during these cold months here on this rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Plus, I think it’s hearty enough that it could be a meal by itself.

If McDonald’s keeps releasing more healthier products, I wonder if our universe will end up being the alternate one.

Whoa! I just totally blew my mind.

(Nutrition Facts – 9.2 ounces with brown sugar – 290 calories, 40 calories from fat, 4.5 grams of fat, 1.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 57 grams of carbohydrates, 5 grams of fiber, 32 grams of sugar, 5 grams of protein, 2% vitamin A, 130% vitamin C, 10% calcium and 10% iron.)

Other McDonald’s Fruit & Maple Oatmeal reviews:
Dave’s Cupboard
Grub Grade
Foodette Reviews

Item: McDonald’s Fruit & Maple Oatmeal
Price: $2.49
Size: 9.2 ounces
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Really good. Right amount of sweetness. Available throughout the day. Lots of fruits. Decent source of fiber. Winning both Price Is Right Showcases. Hearty. Excellent source of vitamin C. The Roots.
Cons: Too much liquid for me. 32 grams of sugar. Getting oatmeal from McDonald’s seems weird. Putting on women’s sunglasses to seeing the world through Kim Jong-il’s eyes. Fiber makes holding in farts harder.

Of all the great rivalries we have in this country — Democrats vs. Republicans, Yankees vs. Red Sox, Edward vs. Jacob — there is only one that will truly last the test of time: Pie vs. Cake. Epic battles have been waged between these two desserts (I counted 120 on YouTube, alone), but it appears that this holiday season, McDonald’s has bravely attempted to bridge the gap, so that we may all bask in the glow of holiday togetherness. Behold, the Holiday Pie, a 250-Calorie hybrid for those who like a little pie in their cake and a little cake in their pie.

I bought mine for 69 cents PLUS tax, which is a travesty, considering they were sold for much less last year. It appears that McDonald’s may have come upon hard times and is scraping up every last nickel to spend on magical unicorn oil or whatever it is that they use to cook those awesome fries. Case in point, the McDonald’s where I purchased my Holiday Pie had been forced to hang old coffee cups from the ceiling as their Christmas decorations. Le sigh…

The presentation of this pie is a bit off-putting. First of all, there is a guy on the box who looks like he’s frantically trying to avoid having to kiss his amorous girlfriend who has most likely just polished off a limited-time-only McRib and now has killer onion breath. Second, the Holiday Pie is a “Special Order.” It says so on the sticker that someone lovingly placed on the box. How special? It’s special enough that it has sprinkles that remind no one of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan or Boxing Day. Which holiday does this thing represent, exactly? Sugar Puff Glitter Ponies Remembrance Day? The man on the box seems to beg for answers through his twisted scowl. But there are none to be had.

A fairly sweet and crumbly “sugar cookie” crust encapsulates a nuclear yellow pudding, which tastes an awful lot like yellow cake. You’ll notice I put a space in between the words “yellow” and “cake” in order to differentiate between the tasty baked food and the uranium-derived powder used in nuclear reactors. Strange that they both produce the neon colors present in this menu item. Coincidence? Only Mr. Kissy-Face on the box may know for sure. Maybe his desperate expression is meant to be a warning.

The Holiday Pie isn’t terrible. It’s sweet without being too sugary, and it’s served warm without scalding your mouth (like their molten lava-style apple pie). On the downside, the texture of the crust is slightly silty… like fine sand. There is also a strange, chemical aftertaste that accompanies the pudding, which makes me think I’m going to go home later and suddenly develop super powers. I call dibs on X-ray vision!!!

What? I like to watch.

So, yeah, the Holiday Pie. I’m not hating it… but I’m not lovin’ it.

(Nutrition Facts – 260 calories, 120 calories from fat, 13 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 150 milligrams of sodium, 30 grams of total carbohydrates, 12 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein, and a single, solitary gram of dietary fiber)

Item: McDonald’s Holiday Pie
Price: 69 cents
Size: 1 pie (2.7 oz)
Purchased at: McDonald’s
Rating: 5 out of 10
Pros: Pie/Cake hybrid, sweet & warm, 69 cents, Glitter Ponies, Special Order, The Holidays, super powers.
Cons: Possible nuclear components, 69 cents plus tax, onion breath, inexplicable sprinkles.