According to my most trustworthy sources, McDonald’s employs 1.7 million people and feeds 58 million others every day in 119 countries. As a reward for its unprecedented worldwide success, the Illinois-based chain has become, among its countless, extremely vocal detractors, the poster child for the evils of globalization and the leading cause of America’s slow decline into a fat, lazy, fast-food society. I concede that there are many, many reasons to hate McDonald’s. (Just ask PETA.) But more so than any of these gripes, what has always offended me most about McDonald’s is the chain’s complete disregard for the quality of the products they sell.
Though I have a weakness for a hangover-curing Sausage Biscuit, an itch I scratch couple times a year, I can’t recall the last time I ate anything off the McDonald’s lunch or dinner menu. Nor can I recall ever having endured an eight-minute period more soul crushing than the eight minutes I spent waiting last week for my “threemendous” Cheddar Bacon Onion (or “CBO,” as it’s been branded), the latest addition to McDonald’s “premium” sandwich lineup. Making each minute longer and and more insufferable than the last was the strong suspicion that I was waiting on what would be a truly shitty sandwich. But this blog is dedicated to enjoying every sandwich, not just the ones made with locally-raised, grass-fed beef and pickled organic daikon, and this feature is intended to challenge and, I hope, to disprove our preconceptions about chain restaurant food. I tried as best I could to keep an open mind.
On paper, the CBO has all the makings of a phenomenal sandwich. Served with a “creamy mustard sauce” on a kaiser roll and available with a grilled Angus burger, grilled chicken breast or crispy fried chicken breast, the eponymous components are two slices of white cheddar cheese, hickory-smoked bacon and caramelized onions. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, the execution doesn’t nearly live up to the conception. On my visit, the chicken breast was as crispy as a grease-soaked marshmallow. The cheese was dry and congealed. The bacon was rubbery and tasteless. The construction was haphazard, with three strips of bacon stacked almost perfectly atop one another, a clump of onions piled off to one side of the breast and absolutely no coherence among the various components.
In fairness, there are some highlights worth mentioning. The sauce, though globbed unevenly on the top bun, has a very nice smoky horseradish flavor that would probably complement the bacon well, if the bacon wasn’t as bland as cardboard. The caramelized onions, which appear to be actual onions, are a massive step up from the pebbly onion-flavored paste deployed on the chain’s the less-than-premium offerings.
On the whole, however, the Cheddar Bacon Onion is a total failure and the epitome of all we’ve come to expect from this restaurant and its ilk. This kind of post is not what I had hoped for or envisioned when I launched the Chain Reactions feature, and while I remain convinced there are some great chain sandwiches out there, all I can do is call it how I see it: McDonald’s sucks.
Postscript: There is no evidence to suggest the incident had anything to do with the CBO, but days after my visit, and while in the process of writing this post, somebody literally drove a car into the McDonald’s around the corner from my apartment. It has since reopened for business.
Comments
Well, that’s the quality one comes to expect from food “products” that are manufactured and partially assembled off-site, and then prepped and heated for you. Just look at that photo, top right! They can do some amazing things in chemistry labs these days.
I have a nasty confession to make. When I started eating hamburgers this year, I also developed a fondness for McDonald’s plain cheeseburgers, nothing on them but cheese. I try not to eat them too often, but… man, I love ’em.
I heard first hand testimony of a former McDonald’s employee last night describing the burgers being “like frozen plinko chips” when they were delivered. He vividly recalls the metallic clang they would make when emptied onto a steel prep table.