The BTS meal is better than their music, probably

K-Pop! It’s everywhere! You cannot go by a single damn day without some K-Pop related trend on Twitter ruining your life. It isn’t news by any means that K-Pop is conquering the music world in a way not seen since the British Invasion, but what is news is the BTS meal at McDonald’s. The Beatles sure didn’t get a McDonald’s tie in, did they?

McDonald’s has been doing tie-in meals as a “thing” for a while now, starting with the wildly popular Travis Scott meal and following up with the somewhat less popular J Balvin meal. Now McDonald’s has teamed up with the most popular band in the world, the K-Pop boy group BTS to make an all new meal. What could go wrong with the biggest fast food restaurant teaming up with the biggest pop group? Well, a lot, probably, but we’re going to have to find that out ourselves.

McDonald’s doesn’t need their Crispy Chicken Sandwich

The chicken sandwich wars rage on. Everybody and their mother has a decent chicken sandwich now. It’s basically money in the bank, right? Just slap a patty on some buns with mayo and pickles, and you’re set. Why wouldn’t you do it? You’ve gotta keep up with the Joneses, right?

What do you do when you are the Joneses?

McDonald’s has never been much for a “follower” in the fast food industry. They aren’t even really trendsetters – McDonald’s just does whatever it wants to and enjoys its comfortable space as the leader of the Big Three, as the biggest fast food restaurant franchise in the world, and lets the rest of them scramble for scraps. 

But some trends are just too big to ignore. Even Coca-Cola had to bend to the rise of diet soda in the 60s, with the introduction of Tab and eventually Diet Coke. Chick-fil-A is slowly rising to make the Big Three a Big Four, and the Chicken Sandwich Wars are fundamentally a response to that. If you don’t have a good chicken sandwich, you’re being left in the dust. Everybody is getting on board the train. So what took McDonalds so long?

And you know what – should they have taken even longer with their Crispy Chicken Sandwich?

McDonald’s finally catches up with Spicy Chicken McNuggets

Finally, the last and greatest of the Big Three falls to the world of spicy nuggets. Spicy Chicken McNuggets are now available nationwide, after so many spiceless years. It’s hard to imagine that McDonald’s has never before offered a spicy variant of their nuggets, even when they’ve done the very popular (and sorely missed) Spicy McChicken.

The Chicken McNugget has been one of the biggest items of the McDonald’s menu for years. When it first was introduced, it caused a massive chicken shortage in McDonald’s supply chain because every single franchisee wanted them! The McRib was invented solely to function as a stop-gap special item until more chicken could be ordered. McDonald’s messing around with the Chicken McNugget is bonkers to consider, and here we are.

Wendy’s has always been the boss of the spicy nugget scene, and even Burger King stepped in to fill the void after Wendy’s briefly discontinued them. In hindsight, the idea of McDonald’s not doing a spicy nugget seems ludicrous. But here we are, the Spicy Chicken McNugget is here, and we’re gonna find out if McDonald’s should have bothered.

FOOD: McDonald’s – McChicken Biscuit and Chicken McGriddle

From where we are in 2020, it’s hard to imagine McDonald’s was once a major innovator in the world of fast food. The McDonald brothers and Ray Kroc were the inventors of the fast food concept, after all! The modern-day craze for chicken can even be traced back to the Chicken McNugget, which solidified the idea of molded ground chicken products into the consciousness of America. Now, it is lonely at the top, and McDonald’s is looking more and more decrepit in the face of fresher competitors. Without a doubt the biggest thorn in their side is Chick-fil-A, the notoriously homophobic fried chicken sandwich business that is the most beloved fast food chain in America.

McDonald’s has been desperate for a decent chicken offering to keep up with modern tastes, but nothing has really landed. They’ve tried chicken wings, chicken tenders, all kinds of new chicken sandwiches, but none of them have compared to the juggernaut power of established chicken chains. But there’s another front to the fast food war going on: breakfast. Taco Bell introduced a new breakfast menu in 2014, and Wendy’s is planning to bring back breakfast this year – so why not, McDonalds thinks, combine the two hot new things?

And here we are, with McDonald’s adding the new McChicken Biscuits and Chicken McGriddles to their menu. If there’s anything McDonald’s has been solidly entrenched in, it’s breakfast. Their Egg McMuffins are still the byword for “fast food breakfast”. What could go wrong? 

Well, a lot.

FOOD: McDonalds – Szechuan Sauce

Hey, you! Do you watch television? What about watching adult alternative animation? Have you ever heard of Adult Swim? And what about the show… Rick and Morty?

Well, if you’re reading this review, you definitely have. If you haven’t, Rick and Morty is a sci-fi cartoon show on Adult Swim that recently featured a discontinued McDonald’s promo sauce for the Disney movie Mulan:

Rick Sanchez, a dimension hopping ultra-genius, reveals his motive behind his erratic actions is simply to find more Mulan Szechuan dipping sauce. The mere mention of this supposedly delicious sauce set off legions of Rick and Morty fans, who began a campaign to demand McDonald’s bring the dipping sauce back.

Fortunately for them – and unfortunately for us – McDonald’s listened.

The sauce was brought back in limited quantities as a co-tie in for their new Buttermilk Crispy Chicken Tenders. And when we say limited, we mean limited. It was only available at select restaurants, with most having less than 20 packs to give out. The fans were upset to the point of requiring police intervention at some areas.

Naturally, it was an enormous blunder for McDonald’s. But they pledged that the sauce would return in December of 2017, in quantities enough that all could enjoy the tangy Asian flavor.

Now, in February of 2018, the sauce is back. Points for trying, McDonald’s.

So, is the sauce good enough to riot over? Was it worth digging back into McDonald’s 1998 recipe box for? Was it even good enough to have been a plot point in an overly-popular cartoon? Find out after the cut.

CHATTER: Yoshi Juice – Mascots

Sex sells! It’s a fact of life, and one easily confirmed just by turning on a TV. Of course, not every sexual situation makes sense when it’s being used to sell. Like if you’re selling pickles, or orange juice.

FOOD: The Ultimate Chicken Sandwich Showdown!

Chicken 01

There’s a lot of fast food out there, and a lot of that fast food is based around one thing primarily: sandwiches. Hamburgers, primarily, but the realm of the sandwich isn’t limited to just beef patties. Oh no, for every good hamburger there is a good chicken sandwich standing right behind it. Chicken is the unsung hero of the fast food world, propping up big beefy burgers with humble nuggets and sandwiches.

It’s these sandwiches that we’re concerned about today. Virtually every fast food restaurant has a value menu nowadays, and the centerpiece of those value menus tends to be chicken sandwiches. Being a cheaper meat than beef, chicken sandwiches are the workhorses of any poor fast food lover’s diet where you can get an easy 4-6 sandwiches for the price of a single main menu item.

But what is the best when it comes to these value menu chicken sandwiches? With each major fast food restaurant providing a variation on the subject, it’s down to a four-way free-for-all challenge to determine this. After the jump, you’ll get to claim your tickets for the Fast Food Faceoff of the century: Eggware.XYZ’s Ultimate Chicken Sandwich Showdown!

FOOD: McDonald’s – McRib

Could it be that time of year already? That beautiful time of year, when the air takes a certain chill? Can’t you just feel the holly-jolly love in the season? It is! It really, really is the most wonderful time of the year! No, no, we’re not talking about Christmastime – it’s McRib season again! Yes that’s right – our lord Ronald McDonald has once again graced us with the McRib, the processed pork patty soaked in BBQ sauce, served with pickles and sliced onion. Now people who love fast food and people who hate their arteries alike find common ground, and it’s at McDonald’s.

Today, we’re going to delve into the heart of this sandwich… and the other offal parts, too.