Burger King's Fry Burger and Satisfries: FRENCH FRY MEGAPOST

Dear Burger King, 

Come on. 

Seriously. 

Look, I applaud you for putting a Fry Burger on your menu. I give you an internet high five for even bothering to do it. In this day and age, we need adventurous companies and crazy ideas in fast food. Sure, throwing french fries on a burger isn't a new idea, but as far as I know, you're the first place to put it on the menu, ready for mass consumption, and I say bravo for that. 

But look at this thing. This is an insult.

I mean, for real. No cheese? Did you really think the target audience that would purchase a burger with fries on it wouldn't want cheese? What, you think they want to save some calories? You think they're looking at it and thinking, "well, I could satisfy my craving for fries with these 3-4 on the burger, and man, if I'm gonna be eating all of those fries, I don't even need cheese!" 

Nobody is thinking that, Burger King. Nobody.

Did you think fries and cheese wouldn't go well together? Have you not had cheese fries?!

Also, I realize this is a fast food burger with fries on it, but do you think you could maybe at least try to make it look a little better?

yes, BK, I realize this isn't your fault

I even had perfect lighting and tried to capture it in all its essence.

I mean, I guess I did. It's just a roll, a crappy burger patty, 4 french fries, a blob of mayonnaise, a squirt of ketchup and... lettuce? Really? A ton of lettuce instead of cheese? You sadden me Burger King, you really sadden me. 

Also, maybe you could make the burgers bigger than half the size of my phone? 

An iPhone 4? What is this, 1995?

I realize you're only charging me a dollar, but come on, is the economy really THAT bad that you couldn't charge a buck fifty or even 2 dollars for a decent sized burger and some cheese? The employee who threw these ingredients against a wall and then picked them up off the floor and jammed them into a bag certainly isn't getting paid enough that you don't have the profits to spring for some cheese. 

I guess I should really be thanking you BK, because your innovation and crappy follow-through will just enable a better fast food place to make a better Fry burger some day. You'll be like my first mp3 player that could fit 4 songs on it. 

Sincerely, Mike from Fatguyfoodblog.

Honestly, even though this thing was a travesty, it still wasn't THAT bad. Even though Rich is probably the only one on earth who thinks Burger King has the best fries in fast food, they're still solid fries, and their crispiness and flavor was noticeable, even though I mostly tasted mayonnaise. If you're someone who reads this blog regularly, you probably already tried this burger (since I was slow as death getting to this post), or you at least will try it soon. It's only a dollar and it's the size of a quarter, so you might as well throw it on your next order. Burger, fries, ketchup and mayonnaise make for a good combo, so honestly, it's ok, but it's hard to say it's really good. I'll give it a D. Not great, an insult to fast food everywhere, but honestly, still ok tasting. Maybe I was just really hungry. 

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I took one for the blog with this post. See, when there's a McDonalds, BK and Wendy's within 3 minutes of each other (and 10 minutes from my house), and you run the best food blog ever, you do stuff like this: 

JBC:

+FRIES

JUNIOR BACON FRYBURGER

OH SNAP!

Oh, what's that, a Mcdonald's Double Cheeseburger?

Oh snap dogg, put some fries on that!

MICKEY D'S DOUBLE FRY BURGER

BOOYAH!

These were both great. The Wendy's version was superior in overall burger quality (I mean come on, bacon), but the mayonnaise and bacon flavor overpowered any french fry flavor. So it was very good, but the fries kind of just added filling to it. 

The Mcdonald's double cheeseburger was the overall winner though. I could really taste the fries, and they interacted wonderfully with the onion and pickle, as well as the 2 pieces of cheese (here Burger King, let me help). 

To sum up in $$$$$$$$$$:

Burger King's Fry Burger: Cheap, tiny and blah. Ok, but NO CHEESE: $1.00

Wendy's JBC+ Fries: The best fries in fast food, delicious bacon, lettuce, tomato: $1.59 + $.99= $2.81 with tax

Mcdonalds DCB+ Fries: 2 slices of cheese, ok but crunchy fries, onion, pickles: $1.49 + $1.29= $3.04 with tax

So yea, to take a concept from "ehh, I guess that's ok for a buck" to "HELLYEA" it'll cost 3 bucks rather than 1, but I'd say it's worth it. You get what you pay for.

Innovate, people- don't let Burger King innovate on our behalf. 

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Since 3 burgers with fries wasn't enough food (and this review isn't long enough), I decided to try something I had never seen before- BK's new Satisfries.

Burger King put these out as an answer to the weirdos who want healthier food options but still buy fast food (re: MORONS). They apparently have 30% less fat and 20% fewer calories than normal BK fries, and they went with crinkle-cut style. I already think BK's fries are just ok... how would a healthier option be? 

Well, judging by the presentation of my order, I already knew I was in for something pretty terrible:

Sweet potato fries and regular fries thrown in for good measure. Bravo Burger King employee! Give this person a raise!

These were pretty terrible. I mean, they're still fries, and dipped in enough ketchup, I couldn't really tell the difference, but on their own, these suck. They have a weird vegetable, oily, chemical taste to them, like they extracted pure broccoli juice and cooked fries in it. They were also kind of soggy, which is weird because you'd think a "healthier" french fry would have barely any oil involved. 

In look, they reminded me a lot of the frozen bags of fries you can buy at the grocery store, and in taste, they were actually worse. Frozen, no-name fries are better than these. That's all you need to know. 

Don't eat diet food at fast food places. If you want to eat healthy, stop eating fast food. It's hard to give any french fry an F, so I'll just give these a D-. 

What's going on, Burger King? I expect more from you. 

-review by Mike

Pumpkin Spice M&M's

It's no secret that fall is our favorite time of the year. How could it not be? The horrid heat of summer has once again retreated, fairs begin popping up everywhere, and our favorite snack companies begin pumping out their fall offerings. A bunch of stuff either pumpkin or apple flavored and we are all about it! 

The first one to catch our eye was the new M&M's...so let's get right to it. PUMPKIN SPICE M&M's! 

Ol' Orange doesn't look too happy about being pumpkin flavored...

Tearing into the first bag, the first thing I noticed was they colored them differently to discern them from the Halloween M&M's. Well played. These are brown, orange and green rather than orange & black. I suppose that's a good thing in case at your Halloween party you have dishes of different M&M's, you don't want Johnny Six Pack thinking he's grabbing a handful of Pumpkin only to find a mouthful of peanut, right?

Irwin was very interested in these at first, simply because they are food.

So how did they taste? Well...weird. They mostly just taste like a regular M&M that has some cinnamon mixed with the chocolate inside. That's really it. After eating a few handfuls, that's really all I really got from them. I started thinking that they may have made a mistake with these, using regular milk chocolate and not white chocolate. I think the white chocolate might have combined with the cinnamon flavor and been more along the lines of a pumpkin flavor overall. The chocolate just overpowers and gives your brain very little room to decipher the taste as Pumpkin Spice.

While I applaud M&M's for being the first out the gate with a new fall flavor, I think this one falls short of what they were aiming for. Were they horrible? Nah, if you put a dish of them out at your Halloween gathering, nobody is going to complain, but they probably won't love them either.  Worth trying for the novelty but in the end, kinda boring. Chocolate Cinnamon M&M's.
I give them a C-, better luck next time, M&M's.
Oh...and there will be a next time. Haven't you heard? First quarter, 2014...

Birthday Cake M&M's. Yup. This is legit. They can't arrive soon enough! But until then, we'll see what else these guys have up their sleeves. Hopefully it's better than Pumpkin Spice!
Review by Rich.

As always, if you have any questions for us, or ideas for upcoming reviews of snacks, or perhaps some crazy item we need to road trip somewhere to try, email us at: Fatguyfoodblog@gmail.com! Say hello to us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/fatguyfoodblog , and don't forget to Like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/Fatguyfoodblog.

Lay's Air Pops

Will you pop for Air Pops? When you pop Air Pops, can you stop? Are Air Pops a flop?

While there are a lot of ridiculous things I can say based on the name of Lay's new offering, there isn't a lot of good when it comes to eating. I guess I shouldn't be surprised- after all, I'm reviewing a food that advertises itself as having 55% less fat than regular chips. When has that ever worked out? 

But while I initially scoffed at Air Pops, I bought some at the shop to see if they were good or a crock. See, as much as I shouldn't be interested in any diet chips, and while saying so will ruin my indie street cred, I do feel that Lay's has proven themselves time and again to be able to make awesome chips. In fact, I'd argue that they're the most consistently good, adventurous potato chip company out there. So while I wasn't thrilled to taste test a diet chip, I was still happily willing to give them a fair chance. 

Ok, these look weird.

And they don't just look weird, they taste weird too. They kind of tasted like a rice cake that was smashed down into the shape of a potato chip, with the same flavor powder they use on the regular chips. So if I were to lick these then throw them out, I'd get some delicious flavor, but eating them regular, you just get that weird "Is this a cracker? Is it a rice cake? It certainly isn't a potato chip..." feeling.

The Sour Cream & Onion were pretty bad. Time to see if regular can top them.

seriously? 2.48 for this? Should have been a buck 25 TOPS

These sucked. They were maybe worse than the Sour Cream & Onion because those at least had a flavor that was trying to fool me- these were just boring, barely salted cracker/rice cake abominations. As I was testing both flavors at the same time, I went back to SC&O to see which was worse, and poured out a few more chips. AND LOOK AT THAT. 

A GODDAMNED RICE CAKE. And where's the pop in that top thing? THAT'S JUST A CRACKER. 

So basically, these are somewhere between rice cakes and crackers, and so far, they both sucked. 

I'm a big fan of SC&O Lay's, but I'm a bigger fan of their BBQ. Could these pull it off?

Answer: Almost.

This was the most consistent bag in terms of the "chips" all looking alike.

And the BBQ flavor was almost strong enough to take away from the blah of the rice cake. In fact, I felt like it was a slightly different flavor of BBQ than we're used to on the chips. They tasted more spicy, and honestly, because of this, they were the only one I could keep eating. The BBQ flavor ALMOST distracted me enough from the rice cake/cracker bullshirt to make these an enjoyable snack, but truthfully, no amount of delicious flavor powder could truly make these something I'd care about. And I noticed something else when my fat hands fumbled the bag of chips and I dropped a bunch:

Whereas the flavor sticks to the greasy wonder of delicious potato chips in the non-diet, non-crappy version of these chips, with these, it's almost like a dry rub or powder just sprinkled on. Meaning, tons of the flavor just falls off. Why would anyone want that? 

Here, let me translate.

"We started with the mouthwatering goodness of Lay's brand flavor and then made a shitty version of them that we gave a fun name to and tried to fool you into thinking these would be good. 

Our Lay's Air Pops crisps have a weird, rice cake-like soft crunch and a third the taste (or just a bastardized version of it) you've come to expect from us, with 30% taste at best, and a not-that-impressive 55% less fat than regular potato chips. 

So you won't enjoy Lay's Air Pops crisps, and you'll just miss that Lay's flavor you love."

Either go on a legit diet or eat regular chips. Don't subject yourself to diet chips. They aren't chips. 

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Sour Cream & Onion: The crappiness of the chips will actually make you question if this is the same flavor on the regular chips, and make you forget if the original are even good. F.

Original Potato: These don't taste like potato. They're just bland rice cakes in mini form. F.

Barbeque: The only one I'd ever consider eating again, but only if I was starving and broke (2 things I often am) and someone was handing me a bag. The BBQ flavor is awesome, but it's not enough to distract from the chips. D.

Dear Lay's, after this travesty, even though I only bought 1 bag of these (stole the other 2 from Rich), you owe me some of those delicious Chipotle Ranch chips I only ever had one bag of. Thanks.

-review by Mike

The Sonic Cheesy Bacon Pretzel Dog

Until a couple years back, Sonic did not exist in our neck of the woods. As most of you know, the Fatguyfoodblog crew resides in beautiful New Hampshire. While it's true we travel across all of New England on a whim to try new foods, before Sonic arrived in Massachusetts, we would have had to drive ten hours to bask in it's glory. One time, we did. 

But then it finally made it's way here, and for the first few months we used to head down there almost weekly. True, the food isn't anything incredible, but it's good enough and I'll be damned if I'm not addicted to mixing different flavors together as far as drinks go. Once a group of us went and just kept buying drinks. I think our table had 27 different ones on it before we called it a night. 

So I can assure you that when Sonic announced that they were throwing their hat in the mix of items with a pretzel bun, we wasted no time going to try it out. We made the hour long journey to taste the Sonic Cheesy Bacon Pretzel Dog! 

That's a lot of bacon on there huh?

After going through the painful ordeal of ordering my Strawberry Fruit Slush with Watermelon and Blue Coconut, and a large order of onion rings, I rounded the meal out with the hot dog in question. I got worried that the lady speaking back to me out of the giant lit up menu, had gotten my order wrong, but I couldn't tell for sure because she read it back to me faster than the Micro Machine guy from back in the 80's. In the end I just crossed my fingers and it ended up coming out alright.

The first thing I noticed about the dog was that it was indeed piled high with bacon. Crispy, delicious bacon, with no blubber to be found. Nice work, Sonic.

Yep, that's a pretzel bun alright...

Next I dipped a finger in the cheese sauce. It was actually pretty damn delicious. That's two for two, Sonic! After this I admired the pretzel bun for a few moments. Running my fingers down the side of it like a rich man checking out an expensive sports car on a showroom floor. I pressed into it to see how soft it was, and then even smelled it. It was soft, and smelled just like a giant hot pretzel. So far I have nothing to complain about. So I knew it was time to dive in, and I took the first bite. The soft bun, mixed with the crispy bacon and cheese sauce were all fantastic. What wasn't? The hot dog. Every bite started out excellent but as soon as the hot dog flavor was released it went straight downhill. It was like I went into a 7 Eleven at 2am and picked up the grossest, oldest hot dog that they had, one that had been spinning around on that gizmo for the last 17 hours. It was that bad. We all know hot dogs aren't the best thing for you and that they are usually made with nasty ingredients, but at the same time, there are good hot dogs out there. This is not one of them. At all. The delicious bun, bacon and cheese sauce weren't enough to save this one. The hot dog flavor overpowered everything else.

Whole lot of good stuff going on right here...

So in conclusion, I guess all I have to say about this dog is that...well, they need a better hot dog. Seriously, Sonic. EVERYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS THING IS GREAT EXCEPT THE MAIN PART! With even a halfway decent hot dog in this thing I wouldn't have complained at all. But this thing was horrid. Perhaps I got a bad one, but Josh got one too and his was just as gross. If you were making excuses for Sonic, you might say that it was a bad batch? But where do you draw the line? I say Sonic needs a better dog.
I give the Sonic Cheesy Bacon Pretzel Dog a C-!
But hey, it doesn't even matter, I'll still swing in whenever I'm near a Sonic.
Why?
398,929 DRINK FLAVOR COMBINATIONS.
Check out Sonic online here: http://sonicdrivein.com/


Review by Rich.

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Dunkin' Donuts Pretzel Roll Roast Beef and Chicken Salad Sandwiches

Oh I know what you're going to say. "Hey Josh, umm didn't these come out a while ago?" and my answer to you will be yes, and I'm well aware of the lateness to the party for this post, for which, I sincerely apologize. I think with the Wendy's Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger, I in no way thought anything from a fast food chain could top how awesome that sandwich is, and didn't even bother giving DD the time of day when they decided to offer these. So with this post, I correct my error and dive back into the new, lush world, of pretzel bun sandwiches.

"well what do we have here?"*
*deciphered from dog speak -Editor

 FIRST UP! the Dunkin' Donuts Pretzel Roll Roast Beef Sandwich.

As a man who enjoys meat, I was pretty damned surprised biting into this sandwich. The Roast Beef felt real, tasted extraordinarily beefy, and the creamy dijon sauce with the cheddar, all on top of a toasted, salty pretzel bun, was out of this world.

Each bite was delicious, and at no time was I grossed out by a pastry/coffee chain offering slabs of roast beef. After finishing off this stellar sandwich, there was only really one thing that I could think of that was off about it. 

How damn tiny this was. Coming in at under $4, I wasn't expecting this thing to make me strain my enormous rippling biceps to get to my mouth hole, but come on guys, if you want to sell some sandwiches, don't insult the buyer by giving us gumdrop sized lunch offerings. If you want to get a man, real men into your shop, double that size and charge $5 straight up. He'll come in, look you in the eye, and shake your hand with a firm goddamn grip because you just made his day.

NEXT! Chicken Salad. 

is that love or murder in his eyes?

In case you were wondering if all of the pretzel bun offerings were bite sized, or maybe it's just because they want to reign in the costs of the roast beef one, well, here you go.

I could slide this into my back pocket

This dime sized sandwich comes without a toasted bun, which I think I understand, but at the same time the roast beef sandwich was so delicious on the toasted bun, I was disappointed with noticing it comes differently. First bite into this sandwich and all you can really taste is the pretzel bun encasing a large wad of chunky goo. Several more bites, yep, more goo.

I honestly had no idea what the hell I was eating. Not for one instance did my brain make the connection to anything resembling chicken. I tried to single out a few of the chunks within my mouth to see if the flavor was just being overshadowed by the cold goo sauce that they used to make the "chicken salad". Got a few out, bit through them, swirled them about my hurricane tongue, and still, absolutely no clue what the hell it was. It reminded me of when I got a large bag of tofu to cut up and put into stir fry, just a blank placeholder.

There was another Tuna pretzel bun sandwich that I was tempted to try when I got these ones, but after biting into the chicken salad, I'm glad I steered clear. This was disgusting.

In conclusion, if you're headed out and want a snack in disguise as a sandwich, get the roast beef, it's awesome. If you've eaten poison and need a quick way to make yourself gag and puke out your insides, grab a chicken salad one. But get it toasted, it'll make that mouthful of goo go down a tad bit easier.

I give the Dunkin Donuts Roast Beef Pretzel Roll Sandwich a B (hey could be an A if you weren't so stingy) and the Chicken Salad an F. Stay far, very far away from it.
-Josh

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