Mac N' Cheetos: Burger King

When I saw a commercial for the new, limited time Burger King Mac n' Cheetos, I knew I had to try it for you, my readers- take one for the team.

If you haven't seen the commercials for yourself, this new menu item from the Kingdom of Burgers is advertised as a Cheeto made of macaroni and cheese, coated in Cheeto dust.

Here's the thing. I LOVE Cheetos. They are, without hyperbole, my favorite chips. I also have a deeply profound appreciation for macaroni and cheese, particularly its ability to enhance almost anything it's added to. I have successfully attempted the Mac n' Cheese Waffle Burger (let me know in the comments if you want a blog about it!), & recently had a divine experience with a mac n' cheese stuffed grilled cheese sandwich. 

So I actually held some wary optimism that this could be a successful melding of two cheesy favorites.

No such luck. For only a few more weeks, and a measly $2.50, you, too can simultaneously experience the sensation of sinking your bicuspids into a hot-yet-completely-congealed thumb sculpted from Velveeta, and licking a Cheeto-dust callous off the same thumb the likes of which can only be achieved by eating an entire family-sized bag of Cheetos with the same two fingers in one sitting without a single napkin wipe.

I'll give His Beefy Highness credit for this, these barely edible monstrosities do achieve a striking resemblance to unnervingly dense Puff Cheetos, though the seam along the outer curves bring to mind several week-old surgical scars I've had the misfortune of seeing.

The thing that sets these stubby non-appendages apart from other, more appetizing fried cheese sticks, other than the vibrantly unnatural hue of orange and the unmistakable salty flavor of processed Cheez-food, is that the cooked macaroni lends a mushy solidness that causes these dusty doodles from Hades to have the unmelted texture of not just cold Velveeta, but the distinct al dente of melted and re-congealed cold Velveeta, even when they're piping hot straight from the fryer. 

If you want to be a true and total foodie, it isn't just the unique, delicious, exotic, and gourmet food experiences that will get you your streetfood cred. There are some items on the foodie bucket list, such as Durian fruit, that you need to experience just for the sake of saying you have. I'm not saying you should try this, but I'm going to place the Burger King Mac N' Cheetos in that category to convince myself it was worth it. 

Who knows, though? If you have a secret thrill in sucking the Cheeto-dust crust off your fingers when you finish a bag, this might just be the perfect snack for you.

Wendy's (Yes Really)

View which location to avoid here

On a particularly budget-tight day toward the end of my #EmptyPantryChallenge, my husband, our friend, and I decided to patronize the Wendy's in our neighborhood. I might have been a bit more excited about the idea, except the handful of times I've used their drive through in the past, I've noticed that several employees in the kitchen have beautifully manicured, painted nails. Those of you who haven't worked in food service, (and some who have, probably) may not understand why this is gross; aren't manicured nails better than dirty hands?

Perhaps. But nails with polish have no place in an industrial kitchen. It can and will eventually flake off, spreading bacteria, not to mention the prospect of ingesting a stranger's nail polish is pretty gross to me anyway, and I've witnessed the discovery of someone's fake nail on a plate that's been served twice too many times. Still, it's probably the most commonly overlooked food safety regulation, and if I eliminated establishments based solely on that I would have a depressingly short list of options. I may, however, start a ranking system in future reviews, bonus points added if all visible food handling staff have bare nails.

Most of the time, I actually really like Wendy's. The menu is reasonably varied yet limited enough that the quality doesn't usually suffer (I'm looking at you, Jack In The Box), and the prices make it an easy choice when my budget is tight and I don't have the option of home cooking. This review is of the particular location, which is consistently lackluster in its service and quality.

The first omen of the experience to come was the soda machine. I generally really enjoy the sleek, fancy LED display soda distributors that allow you to select several flavors of a wide variety of sodas. However, when I selected the Dr Pepper option and began to fill my cup, I noticed that it was spraying a dark, sludgy black liquid to the right of my cup as it filled the cup. It may have been soda syrup, but not only does a leak like that affect the delicate soda-water-to-syrup ratio, it was also much darker and thicker in appearance than most soda syrups. I also discovered a large, growing puddle of a similar liquid on the floor at the base of the machine.

We received our food, and I immediately noticed that I had received normal nuggets instead of the spicy ones I had ordered. This has happened before, and it's an easy mistake to make, however when I brought my nuggets up to the counter to ask for spicy ones, the staff rolled their eyes and said it would have to be a wait while they fried up a fresh batch. It was apparent that they had run out of spicy nuggets and had decided to give me normal nuggets, hoping I would just eat them and they wouldn't have to make a new batch of the spicy. This was allthemore apparent when i returned to my table and my friend pointed out that his spicy nuggets were cold, dry, and tasted like they'd been cooked much earlier in the day- the end of the batch. I'll point out it was about 7:30 in the evening, not right before closing or something, so even in all fairness this was lazy.

They fried up some fresh spicy nuggets, which I shared with my friend, and then he decided to go order some of the new "Baconator" fries.

We should have quit while we were behind.

The fries were cold, the cheese unmelted, the bacon... unnervingly limp, like scraps of greasy fabric laid over a mound of perfectly in tact, rubbery American cheese shreds.

I give this location a 2/10, as my husband had no complaints about his burger.