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Food Critic Says Fast Food Chain's New Kale and Sriracha Burger "Smacks of Desperation"
Sriracha isn't the only fiery part of this food review.
Bad food reviews—i.e. reviews that are absolute take downs of restaurants or dishes—are a bit of an art form. And when you see a great one, such as a Jay Rayner or Pete Wells smack-down, it’s a thing of beauty. And the latest review from the Washington Post’s Tim Carman absolutely deserves that distinction.
The review tackles the new kale-and-sriracha Mac Sauce burger from, yes, McDonald's, which Carman criticizes as a failed attempt by the Golden Arches to cling to relevancy by incorporating two of the most over-hyped and outdated hipster food trends into one perplexing patty of sadness.
The review, titled “McDonald’s New Sriracha-and-Kale Burger Is an Aging Hipster’s Cry for Help,” walks through McDonald’s struggling identity crisis as it attempts to remain relevant by changing up its menu to meet the shifting eating habits of consumers. How else can you explain the existence of the McLobster Roll?
Yeesh.
Carman explains it eloquently: “It’s the fast-food equivalent of watching your Dad sport rompers and pledge his undying love for Drake.” Ouch.
So how did it taste? Difficult to say, considering Carman’s first attempt to enjoy the sriracha-and-kale burger was foiled when he received a burger that included a heaping helping of firey sriracha sauce, but none of the promised kale. Instead, his burger included your typical run-of-the-mill lettuce leaf. Still, he says the burger was not bad, and that the addition of sriracha to the quarter pounder was an enjoyable-enough variation of a traditional McDonald's burger.
At a second location he was able to enjoy the burger with all the advertised ingredients, “including one lonely leaf of baby kale to validate whatever warped impulse drives one to seek out superfoods at a chain widely condemned as a contributing source to America’s obesity epidemic.” So you can probably take an educated guess about how much he enjoyed it.
Suffice it to say your local gastropub/burger joint shouldn’t be too concerned about being “out-cooled” by a fast food chain.
Not that it really ever was.
