tuckeratlarge.com

So we have a new “Limited Edition” at McDonalds. A Deluxe burger with or without bacon and a side order of Chunky Chips.

As people who know me will testify I likes me some burger. However although my youngest daughter is a devotee of the Golden Arches, I myself am a Burger King fan. Their XL Bacon Double Cheeseburgers are Sublime. They have also introduced a “Dark” Whopper, which I shall sample and review soon.

That said I do go into McD’s more often than BK for two reasons:- 1, When out for fast food I am usually with the afore-mentioned child and therefore it’s her choice. B, Distance. I do not own a car and BK is a good 30mins away on foot and no burger is worth walking that much. Similarly, Maccy’s is also 30mins walk away to either of the two on the retail parks. One is next to BK and the other KFC. There is however a Maccy’s in town, a mere 10mins away but that particular outlet is very poor. The staff are rude, the food either cold and/or badly presented and the restaurant itself is usually filthy. Best avoided then.

Anywho, McDonalds Limited Edition Deluxe with Bacon, and I quote “This great tasting burger is made with a 100% beef, smoked bacon rashes, a slice of mature cheddar cheese, Batavia lettuce, sliced tomato, grilled onions, tomato relish and garlic mayo, all on a lightly toasted ciabatta roll.”

If asked to describe a typical burger, be it a quarter pounder or big mac, I mainly say one word - “WET”. They use too much sauce - it’s usually beyond the capabilities of a typical serving person to order and then serve one sans sauce and not worth the hassle/wait that ensues - and the meat is very greasy. Having been cooked on a hot plate the grease from the meat just sits there and consequently gets included in your burger, and on it if truth be told. You open up the box or paper wrapper and its basically swimming in grease. Not good.

But all hail the Deluxe. Whether I entered the building on the day someone who knew how to cook was on shift I know not, but the damn thing was delicious. Nice and dry, just the right amount of sauce. It even, and I’m not joking here, looked like the picture above. Yes a burger from McDonalds that looks like the photo used to represent it. Joy.

It was the best burger I have had in a long time. If this is the sign of the times I will not begrudge the weekly trips to the home of the Big Mac (thats another issue, mainly for trading standards ‘cos it ain’t in any way shape or form “Big”)

It didn’t fall apart, the ciabatta roll being more substantial than the usual crappy bun and there being a reasonable amount of sauce rather than the soaking mass of crap and fat that usually befall a McBurger. I could actually taste the meat as well. Delicious.

Chunky Chips. Man are these great. I like McDonald’s fries for what they are, French Fries. Not chips as explained in a previous post. These Chunky Chips are Fat Fries and delicious with it. For once they were hot, which is nice, and also crispy and dry. I actually imagined them to be like the oven chips you get at KFC, i.e. crap. But no they are great. I do hope they decide to keep them on the menu.

All in all a great meal was had by me. So now I go through the Golden Arches with a renewed sense of a meal that will be worth eating. Roll on Friday.

Knowing my luck the second encounter will be just as bad as normal!

Tags: McDonalds, Deluxe, burger, Chunky Chips, Bacon

So Valentino Rossi stamps his authority and sets his stall out for the 2007 season in MotoGP by topping the timing sheets at Valencia. The MotoGP mob were there at an official FIA test and the fastest rider in the 40 minute session was awarded a new BMW Z4M Coupe, The Doctor (Valentino) looked chuffed to bits. Now, knowing what these sports stars have to go through diet wise; pasta, rice and all things healthy and low fat, if it were me I’d have been happier with a bag of chips.

I love chips me. I do. you can tell because as stated earlier I am rotund, fat, lardy. I’m a fan of the fried potato. So simple; potatoes, fat and of course heat. But why is it so difficult to cook the perfect chips?

Oh, a clarification for all you loverly peoples from the US and A - Chips are what you would call ‘fries’. I know chips to you are what we in the UK call crisps. They are different. I love ‘em both. Crisps is a subject for another time, here we will concentrate on chips.

Anywho, now we have cleared up the semantics of the fried potato let us move onto a bit of a rant. I know variety is the spice of life and I know people have their own tastes and all that but how is it that it’s very hard to find the ideal chip. The ideal chip ladies and gentleman is a chip that is cooked in very hot fat, until it is golden and just on the cusp of going brown on the points and corners. The result is a chip of such immense flavour and texture as to tickle you taste buds into a frenzy of ecstasy. Crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside.

For instance we have a great chippy not 200yds from where I live - Excel Fisheries - and two ways of cooking. They use real dripping for their cooking liquid which is the fat of choice. So we have the same potatoes and the same frying medium in the same fryers in the same shop. This is where the similarity stops unfortunately. OK so both the following scenarios produce chips which are better than most admittedly but that doesn’t detract from the fact there is a clear gap in the deliciousness of the finished product.

When the gentleman of the shop is on cooking duty the chips. . . well they look and feel as if he has just shown the potatoes to the fat. They are anaemic to be honest. They still taste great for sure, but the visual and textural aspects are sadly lacking. It’s also a suspicion of mine that the fat is not of the high and required temperature to give them a golden glow… even if he left them in long enough that is. However salvation is upon us as most of the time the lady of the shop is on the rota more often than not. She has the fat so hot it smokes, she has the knowledge and fortitude to leave them there potatoes in the fat for a goodly long time, until a golden hue radiates from every stick of spud. Oh heaven.

The way I have described also leaves the chips dry. A lot of chippies in this humble little corner of Lincolnshire produce soggy, wet, greasy chips. My in-laws are in the wet soggy greasy camp. They shun the ideal; crisp, golden dry chip, with a paucity of regard to their taste receptors. Each to there own I suppose, but who’s writing this?

Portion size is another issue that boils my piss. At my local mentioned above we have a medium portion that is enough to fill, but not so much you feel bloated. Some decide that a single scoop is sufficient. They would be wrong. There is a chippy in a village a few miles away that does fish patties. These are a slice of fish sandwiched between two slices of potato and then battered. No chippy that I know of in town does these, they are sublime by the way, so off we go to the village in question only to be confronted with a portion of chips that makes even McDonald’s medium fries look generous. (McDonald’s, and Burger King for that matter, they are not chips they are fries. So they don’t count.)

The opposite is true of the best chippy in town. It’s called Wilson’s and it been here that long that even my Dad went there in the 60’s. The chips are the best made, plus the portion size is massive, I’m not joking here, you can feed two grown men on one portion. It’s the same with the kebabs. Jebus they are big! Trouble is I have no car, the place is too far away to walk back and the food be still hot upon my return, so if I’m in the market for a fish supper for me and the family it’s out of the picture. On my own and out of a tray it is within my grasp. There is nothing quite like ‘Chips and Peas’ in the fresh air, better still if the air in question is cold.

So Mr. Rossi, good luck for the season ahead. I hope you enjoy your Beemer. On reflection a BMW is probably a better prize than a humble bag of delicious Wilson’s chips - then again “How many bags of Chips could you get if you sold the car?”

Crisp, hot, golden and with Salt and Vinegar - Perfect chips

Tags: chips, fat, fried potato, potato, chippy, dripping

Hang on, I’ll just click into rant mode… Click.

First things first, I love McDonalds ‘Double Sausage and Egg McMuffins’ , truth be told I like all of the breakfast menu - the bagels, the bacon the egg, the fruit and last but not least the Hash Browns. The “scrambled” egg they put in the Big Breakfast is admittedly naff. Edible but naff.

Why, oh why, oh why do they have to stop serving these delicious, if artery clogging, meals at 10:30am. What’s wrong with that picture.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a Cheeseburger and fries, I love the Deli Sandwiches and the salads. It has to be stated here and now that the burgers at Burger King are better for sure, but I still like a Big Mac now and again. And like my youngest daughter, I devour McNuggets like they are going out of fashion. But, breakfast items are where its at.

I’m not here to debate the relative nutritional value, or lack thereof, of McDonalds food. Or any other fast food outlet you care to frequent.

No, my beef (no pun intended) is with timings and menus

I asked a couple of managers and the official excuse - I say excuse, McDonalds would say something in management speak I refuse to type - is that they can’t put pork and beef on the same grill. Hmmm, am I missing something here or would two grills, one for pork and one for beef, be too much to ask. McDonalds have money coming out of every orifice, surely they can afford another grill. Doesn’t have to be a big one, just enough to satisfy the desires of Muffin munchers such as myself. They introduced a new workstation, with new equipment, for the excellent Deli sandwiches. So it’s not as if there isn’t room either.

I suppose they have highly paid, highly educated, consultants who state that people don’t want breakfast food after 10:30 and that Burgers, Salads and Deli’s are the order of choice in the evening.

They would be wrong. Not completely wrong I concede, but wrong in the sense of not being completely correct. OK I’m just one nobody from a nowhere town, but a lot of people I know are with me on this one. I wonder how many agree with the notion of eating what they want when they want. McDonalds have the ingredients laying about in the fridge. Offer it for sale and maybe, just maybe, more people would eat there.

So come on McDonalds let me eat the things I want to eat.

“Double Sausage and Egg McMuffin please - yeah I know it’s 8 o’clock at night but so what!”

Tags: McDonalds, Sausage, McMuffins, breakfast, 10:30am, Cheeseburger

Oh, McDonalds why do you punish me so. Special Edition! Yeah, special edition, meaning ‘not for very long’. Double Quarter Pounders at McDonalds on the menu and now on my ‘Oh jebus they’re sweet’ list.

You see, I’m a big Burger King fan. I love the XL Bacon Double Cheeseburgers. I can’t have them very often for three reasons. BK is: too far away; too expensive and Kid 2 prefers McDonalds, for me to enjoy the succulent meaty treat on a regular enough basis.

Now although I simply love the breakfast menu at McDonalds, the salads are great and the Deli Sandwiches are sublime, I’m not a big fan of the burgers. When you just want a burger and you are forced to go to McDonalds by the ankle biters, you certainly miss out. They are too ‘wet’, too small, too bland and too sloppy. I like the way BK do their burgers, succulent on the inside and slightly charred on the outside, they taste of meat, and all the crap in the bun doesn’t over-power that loverly beefy, meaty taste.

Now we come to the McDonalds Double Quarter Pounder - Incidentally that makes it a half pounder; if my rudimentary maths is correct, so why not call it that? – I had one of these delights a few weeks ago. It was cooked to perfection, not wet, not small, not bland and not sloppy. What are they playing at? This creation is Burger King tasty. I love them. You could actually taste the beef! Also for the first time in the history of fast food photography the actual product you get looks as good as or better than the advertising pictures.

So I thought to myself, yeah it’s a one-off. Not so. A week later, “what do you want for your tea kids?” At the counter I ordered the happy meal for kid 2 and the McChicken sandwich meal for kid 1…

Note to McDonalds – Put McChicken sandwiches in the happy meals. Both my two love ‘em but one of the little monkeys still insists on a happy meal. So I have to buy a happy meal and an extra McChicken butty. Oh wait, that’s your point. D’oh.

…and my Double Quarter meal. And to my astonishment it was the same. A glorious burger worthy of praise and worthy of eating with various comments like: yum, sweet, nice, loverly, what’s going on? Etc. Ah-ha, it’s gotta be the Sunday staff. But no, I went in on a Thursday and they are like that whoever cooks them. Bang goes my fecking diet!

So a question arises, why are the normal everyday burgers still crap? Beats me. I will however, enjoy them while they are around. I know fast food isn’t de rigueur at the moment and is frowned upon as not being healthy food to feed your kids, or yourself for that matter. But as part of a balanced diet, and not indulging more than once a week, I don’t see the harm in it. And I like it, it’s my body my choice.

In conclusion I would like to ask the powers that be to ditch the Big Mac, which lets face it isn’t big, and have the Double Quarters instead. It may scupper my diet plans but that’s my problem. Damn, I’ve just looked at the clock and it’s too late for me to walk into town and grab a burger, a DQP obviously, aaarrrgggghhh. I want one.

I also like the fries!… Oh my waistline