November 13, 2007
McDonald's McPork (Japan Only)
Last weekend I happened by a McDonald's in Tokyo's hip (read "bizzare and tacky") Shibuya city and saw a large sign for a new pork-based sandwich offering. Immediately overcome by nostalgia for the delightful McRib, I rushed in to give it a try. BIG. MISTAKE. The sandwich is made from 100% US Pork (yum) and is part of the chain's 100 yen menu (about 88 cents at the time of writing) - which sounds good and cheap - but that's where the positives end. The sandwich is composed of a totally plain (unspiced) pork patty, a sort of pepper-ginger-soy-vinaigrette, disturbingly hot lettuce, and McD-standard onion bits, all ensconced within the standard hamburger bun. The taste is like a cheap pork chop covered in bad Asian-themed salad dressing. The lettuce is the only thing keeping the sandwich from being completely mushy, though its bitter edge did nothing to improve the sandwich taste. The worst part of the whole ordeal is a endlessly-lingering metallic aftertaste that stayed with me through several subsequent meals. Even at the low price, I'd say you need to avoid this one like the plague and pray that McDonald's US knows better than to bring it here.
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November 2, 2007
Carl's Jr. Patty Melt
Aahh, those enticing ads… charbroiled all beef patty, grilled onions, two slices of that all American cheese, and all surrounded by grilled rye bread. The description and pictures make you want to run to Carl Jr. and let that Patty Melt just melt in your mouth. Don’t put on your running shoes just yet! The onions that came with my Patty Melt fell short of those shown in the pictures. To better describe it, they looked more like onion powder than the real thing. And for an onion enthusiast such as me, that is a great disappointment. The sauce the onions were engulfed in made it difficult to even continue to live up to my mother’s lessons of “eat all your food, there’s starving kids in other countries that wish they could eat that.” Needless to say, the mere sight of another Patty Melt brings back the awful taste.
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