Mcdonalds' CBO and Holiday Mint Mcflurry!!

After being fairly stagnant for awhile, McDonalds finally introduced something new a few weeks ago, the much advertised CBO- Cheddar Bacon Onion. As someone who has only realized the power of onions in the last few years, I was willing to try this, but honestly wasn't too excited- after all, this is kind of an odd combination to herald as a great new sandwich- a THREEMENDOUS combination if you will. It's basically just a bacon cheeseburger with onions... Did it come with any sauce? What? Creamy Mustard? That's probably the last thing I would put on it. Well, here goes nothing.

good looking burger, but where's my second piece of cheese?

Everyone loves McDonalds. Sure, it's pure garbage, they're evil, it's not meat, blah blah blah. We've all heard the hippies and health nazis try to stomp all over them. And it's not exactly quality food (I think I found a rubber band in a McChicken once), but it's generally pretty cheap and usually pretty delicious. And everyone loves them- you know those hippies are sneaking a quick dub cheese on the way home from Whole Foods. But let's be honest- they try to market their food as fancy and fresh, but we all know it isn't. It's just cheap, fat, deliciousness.

So I was thrilled to see how solid these onions looked when I straight autopsied this bad boy.

It was clearly quickly assembled, but the bacon looked like I fried it at home myself, the cheese was thick, the creamy mustard was applied liberally, and the onions appeared to be cooked and caramelized to perfection. I was now pretty excited for this. 

And it was quite good. 

The combination of bacon (that you can really taste), cheese, and super sweet and soft (but still with a little bit of crunch) onions was very good. And the creamy mustard sauce I was worried about actually worked pretty well. It wouldn't be my first choice, but it worked with the other flavors and either blended in perfectly or stood out when I'd get a lot of it and made me actually wish there as more. It's not a honey mustard, it's a creamy dijon, which I can't say I've ever had before. 

The CBO burger was good, but I feel like the amount of solid meat (angus third pounder) hurt it a little bit- a little too much slightly-too-cooked meat with too little of the other good stuff. I give the burger a B.

Would the chicken be any better?

damn.

Yes, by a mile. Look at how good that looks! Fancy roll, double cheese, crisp and juicy chicken, and a shit ton of onions. 

foodgoreporn

True- unless I'm at Five Guys or grabbing a few DCBs on the way home from Five Guys, I generally consider myself to be more a chicken sandwich guy at fast food places. But I think this is honestly more of a case of the flavors just working better with chicken. McDonalds hamburger meat isn't the best, and this chicken sandwich was perfect. The flavors all work in such a weird perfect way, it was, to me at least, a revelation. I never thought I'd be so all about a chicken, cheddar, bacon, onion and creamy dijon mustard sandwich, but I am. It's just a perfect combination of sweet-tangy-cheesy-meaty goodness, and I really hope McDonalds keeps this on the menu for a lot longer than their "Limited Time" tag would have us believe. Go try this thing- you'll be happily surprised. McDonalds has created a beast. I can't give this anything but an A+.  

Since the holidays are almost here, McDonalds has also brought back the classic eggnog shake and introduced a Holiday Mint McFlurry. As a McFlurry connoisseur, I was psyched about a candy cane/ ice cream combo.  

and it looked goooood

But, this kind of sucked. It tasted about like I thought it would- ice cream (did you know that on their website, McDonalds lists it as "reduced fat" ice cream? WTF?) mixed with peppermint flavored candy pieces, but they weren't minty enough, there were too many of them for not a lot of mint flavor (it had a weird milky flavor at times), and the biggest problem for me was that I had no idea what I was eating the entire time. What exactly is a "peppermint candy piece"? You'd think it would be candy canes right? Or maybe mint chocolate chips? They certainly feel like mint chocolate chips- but they aren't. And randomly they're super crunchy in the middle. They're almost like mint chocolate chips and candy canes mixed together, but they aren't- there were even parts that had the consistency of peanuts. Like that creeping thought of "what am I eating" most people (yes, even fat guys) had when they heard what could be in hot dogs, I found myself incredibly bothered by not knowing just what the hell I was eating. And when oddly chewy/sometimes crunchy/sometimes nutty red or green chunks don't taste nearly enough like peppermint, this just isn't really worth it. I have to give this a D. It may be great to some of you, but I just couldn't get past the lack of mint flavor from these weird concoctions of chemicals. 

If you live anywhere near a Chik-fil-a, go get their peppermint chocolate chip milkshake- it's the best of any holiday dessert I think I've ever had. Sadly, I have an hour and a half between me and that happiness, so until then, this is probably my only option.

-review by Mike