Are we going out of our minds? A €2 Burger ?!
Mcdonald’s. Burger King. KFC. They are an almost-daily food staple for the Millenial and a guilty-pleasure for the doyen BurGourmand. It’s that time of the year, where we put on our boots and open our umbrellas, and run out looking for beaten-up bars and hole-in-the-wall eateries with just a kitchen sink, to find eatable burgers for the pocket challenged. Last year we set the threshold to €2… and we intend to keep that! Are we going out of our minds? A burger for €2?! What kind of Challenge is that?
For Round 2 of our wacky Burger Challenge, we ended up at McDonald’s. We’re not known to be McD groupies, but who can say no to an unbelievable burger opportunity? Not one, but two burgers for €2. And that includes fries! And there’s more. You get a free coffee too! Ho ho ho, Santa has landed at McD this Xmas! When it comes to low-cost burger options, it seems that no one in Malta can beat those golden arched number crunchers at McD.
The first burger out of the box is the Big Mac, often considered as McD’s Golden burger. It’s been around for more than 50 years and was first created in February 1968 by Jimmy Delligatti, who ran a McD franchise in Pennsylvania. He wanted to call his burger “The Aristocrat” but the advertising people at McD stopcocked him and imposed the now popular name, Big Mac. This burger is mostly known for its sauce, which apparently took Delligetti two years to perfect. Years later, some started to claim that this secret sauce is based on the Thousand Island dressing. At the time, the burger sold for 49 cents! True McD fans know that today’s Big Mac is significantly smaller than it used to be. It shrunk from two 115gr patties to today’s version with two 45gr pieces of beef. It comes with a hefty 500 calories tag and packs 26gr of protein.
The burger has three pieces of sesame seed bread, a slice of cheese, together with pickles, lots and lots of shredded lettuce, diced onions, and the special sauce which is very generously spread. The sauce-to-bread ratio is pretty good. The excessive amount of unnecessary lettuce that looks like shredded office paper made us wonder if there’s more lettuce than meat.
McD say that they source all of their beef from European farms, mostly from Italy. The patties are made from beef with no preservatives or fillers, and only cuts of boneless muscle meat from the flank, forequarter and hindquarter are used. This does not explain how the beef was quite dry and mostly bland. The meat is grilled on a double-sided grill so it’s cooked from both sides simultaneously. McD are often criticised for their very thin patties, and although that’s the case here, we presume that is by design, to make it possible to grill dozens by the minute. Still, these are the flattest and thinnest patties we’ve seen this year. The taste and texture are exactly what you would expect from a Big Mac with all its pros & cons. With the meat alone, there’s very little to offer in terms of taste. The one item that added a sharp flavour were the pickles. The beef is nothing to write home about but the tasty sauce is the only saving factor. It’s what made it possible for us to eat the whole Big Mac! Without it, the Big Mac would be a Big Miss. No burger connoisseur in his right state of mind is going to spend his dough on a McD meal when you can get a gourmet burger for €10! But at this price point, there is currently nothing locally that beats the Big Mac!
The second burger out of the box is the McChicken. The patty is made from chicken breast and covered in a crispy coating. Just like the Big Mac, it’s overloaded with shredded lettuce and mayo sauce. The McChicken has been around since 1980 and over the years there have been many inaccurate stories about the use of pink slime and high pressure mechanically reclaimed chickens. McD say that they only use 100% chicken meat. The patty itself is all-white meat and has a stringy texture. It has no beef with other McD chicken burger options, that have a totally mashed and ground consistency. This is definitely NOT a big nugget. It also has a slight black pepper kick to it and very crispy and crunchy breading. Everything in this burger works well together. It also smells good, which helped with the overall sensory experience. Overall it counts 426 calories and packs a surprising 17gr of fat, most probably due to the amount of fattening mayo they use. On the other hand, this burger is very filling and satisfying as it’s one of the bigger McD offerings. At this price point, McD have a chicken winner here.
We’ve also got a regular portion of fries. In 2007 McD phased out the use of beef tallow fat from their fryers. Since then they switched to 100% vegetable oil with a vegetable-based flavour. The fries we got from Sliema were long, limpy and slightly on the raw side, most probably due to the frying temperature or duration to produce crispy fries. We easily fixed that, ran to McD B’Kara and were given fresh and crispy fries.
The standard price of a Big Mac is €4.05, a McChicken is €4.05 and fries are €1.35. So how come McD is giving you all this for just €2? According to insiders, the actual cost of a Big Mac is 77c, a McChicken is 36c and fries are less than 10c… You do the maths! One last thing, save the receipt, go back to the counter and get a coffee on the house! Ain’t McD Xmastastic?
For Round 1 of this crazy Burger Challenge, we were inspired by Valentina Rossi and her antics with €1 burgers! We ran off to McDonald’s with the aim of building a €2 Tower burger out of their EuroSaver Classic burger! It doesn’t get more basic than this.
This is the original McD burger that started it all in 1940 and spawned a whole express burger food industry. This Hamburger is a grilled patty seasoned with salt and pepper and sandwiched in a plain soft, toasted bun. There is ketchup, mustard, onion and 1 slice of pickle. Back in its day, it sold for the equivalent of 12 Euro CENTS! If we had a working time machine we would even dare to go back to 1940s California and be served by the Dick and Mac, the McDonald brothers themselves!
We don’t know what the “100% pure beef patty” is made of, as it’s a closely guarded “secret”, but our tower of 2 EuroSavers add up to a total of 508kcal and 26g of protein. It might not be much in size when compared to the other McD offerings of today, but our little creation is sweet in its simplicity. For many, one bite might bring back the memories of when McD opened its doors in Malta. The squishy softness of the bun, the sweet ketchup, and the little hamburger patty provide comfort food that thousands of Maltese people like.
Would we eat this, if we were stranded on a deserted island, and the only 2 options were this burger and a coconut?
We would opt for the coconut, but your mileage might vary.