Sonic has recently been introduced to my life and I don’t know what I was doing all of these years without it.  All of this McDonalds and Burger King doesn’t even compare to the deliciousness.  On my second visit there, I couldn’t resist getting the “extra long” chili cheese dog, which is a 1/4 pound hot dog slathered with chili and cheese.  Let me tell you, this is fast food hall of fame material.  Throw in a watermelon slushy with an order or tater tots and you have yourself a serious meal.  I personally enjoyed this combo at 2:30 AM and I feel as though this is the ideal time to experience such incredibleness.  Is incredibleness an actual word?

After the longest hiatus I have taken since starting Epic Portions, I am back with a new fast food report.

Apparently it wasn’t enough that Burger King was destroying ribs.  They couldn’t be the ones doing it. Now McDonalds is joining the war against one of my favorite foods in the world and is almost ready to roll out McRiblets.  I have never seen an oven, grill or anything of that manner in a McDonalds “kitchen”, so I can’t say I’m very optimistic.  Then again, even if McDonalds had smokers installed at all of their locations I still wouldn’t eat their ribs.

So apparently Burger King is rolling out their ribs in major markets(Dallas, Chicago, ect..) this week and it made me realize that I haven’t called anything stupid in a while.  In fact, after running a quick search I found that it’s been since April 5th, when I called Subway’s breakfast completely stupid, that I called anything stupid.  Well folks, Burger King decided it had been too long since John got a little perturbed about a fast food menu item and decided to do this.  Great work Burger King.  Great work.

jasonlam, flicker

BK Ribs come in packs of three, six and eight, with the six pack costing you $7.99.  If you decide that’s not enough of a bargain you can go with a combo meal, which adds on the usual fries and drink, for $8.99.

What I’m trying to figure out is why is Burger King pumping their $1 menu items and $5 meal deals and then rolling out some ribs for 8 bucks?  Also, you fast food restaurants already ruined the burger, French fries, burritos, apple pies, and countless other food items.  Can’t you leave ribs alone?  They don’t belong on fast food menus.  They belong in restaurants where there are plates and napkins.

Visit Burger King’s website to see one of the more annoying things ever advertised by a fast food company..

Four tender pork ribs with a smoky BBQ sauce. So you get all the meaty taste of BBQ ribs without the hassle, smoky clothes and runny eyes of a real BBQ.

No hassle, smoky clothes, or runny eyes of a real BBQ?  Of a REAL BBQ???? Let me get this straight.   You’re taking BBQ ribs, something that is traditionally messy(in a good way) to eat, and advertising it as a clean, anti-BBQ version? Like, “come get ribs, but they’re ribs that aren’t messy, smoky, and don’t have any flavor so your eyes won’t run”. Seriously Burger King?  I feel like punching you right now.

Last thing, Has anyone ever had broiled ribs before?  I sure haven’t.

I’ve always been a McDonalds breakfast man.  To me, the McMuffin is the king of fast food breakfast options.  There’s just something about it.  That being said, every now and then I do get the urge to switch it up a little and grab myself a Croissan’Wich from Burger King.  It’s an extremely close second.  The only problem is the egg on the Croissan’Wich sucks.  Rather than a griddle fried egg, which comes on the McMuffin, the Croissan’Wich features some sort of omlette style egg which seems more like an egg substitute than an actual egg.  This got me thinking.  Is the griddle fried egg responsible for deliciousness that is the McMuffin? What if the Croissan’Wich had a better egg option?  I decided to figure this out for myself.

This was pretty simple.  I just took the nasty egg off of the Crossian’Wich and replaced it with the egg from the McMuffin.  The results were surprising.  Let me tell you, if Burger King used a griddle fried egg I wouldn’t even bother going to McDonalds for breakfast.  The Croissant is much tastier than the English muffin that McDonalds uses, and the sausage is usually pretty similar, if not better.  The egg added so much that was missing to the Crossian’Wich.  It even looks good upside down.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the first McCroissan’Wich.  I can’t really verify that claim because I didn’t research it, so you’re just going to have to take my word for it.

Just to fully test my egg theory, I replaced the delicious egg on the McMuffin with the nasty egg from the Crossian’Wich.  To be blunt, it was disgusting.  You could really taste how bland the English muffin is and the sausage really didn’t make up for the lost flavor.  Burger King’s egg lacks so much flavor that it completely affects the taste of the McMuffin.  I took two bites and decided to throw it away.

In summary, Burger King needs a griddle fried egg.  Their breakfast may be greasy and sometimes bland, but the addition of a good egg would cause me to switch to their breakfast options.

Damn, that McMuffin was nasty.

I recently decided that I was going to begin the detoxification process and give up all fast food for a month.  I’ve been suffering from a massive food hangover, which includes the famous fat man sweats, and I realized that it was time to stop treating my body like a garbage disposal.  This was going great until KFC decided it was time to launch their newest creation, the Double Down “Sandwich”, nationwide. Detox is over.  I had to have one.

I came across my first double down a day late and had already read GrubGrade’s review, so I pretty much knew what I was getting myself into.  I had also previously dedicated two posts to the pending arrival of the sandwich, the first being on August 21st, and the second being more recently on April 2nd.  I was prepared and ready to tackle one of the most ridiculous fast food creations of all time.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, or just don’t care to concern yourself with general fast food ridiculousness, the Double Down sandwich uses two boneless chicken filets as the bread and surrounds two slices of Monterey Jack and Pepper Jack cheese, bacon, and Colonel’s sauce.  It’s an interesting combination that seems more like a creation reserved for Thisiswhyyourefat.com than a nationally offered fast food item.  To me, it’s similar to Domino’s “new” pizza recipe, in that it’s more of a gimmick item to draw attention to the chain. I guess that mission is accomplished because I’m taking time out of my day to report it to you people.  Damn you, KFC!

On to business, the KFC Double Down arrives in their usual box but comes in a wrapper which I assumed was intended to block some of the grease from streaming onto your fingers.  It carries a hefty price tag of $4.99, which follows the theme of being absolutely ridiculous.  $4.99 for two chicken filets, bacon, two slices of cheese, and some sauce?   Shame on you, KFC.  Don’t you we’re living in a recession?  Apparently KFC needs to add an L to the end of their name, because I feel like their name should be “Kouldn’t Fucking Care Less”.  I had to spell ‘couldn’t’ with a K there.  The acronym wouldn’t work without it.  Work with me here.

So I pulled the double down out and immediate felt the grease soak through the wrapper and on to my fingers.  The wrapper does its’ job, in that it protects your fingers from becoming completely soaked in grease, but your sticker still get a nice spritz of oil on them.  The chicken filets were equal in size, the cheese was large and stuck out of the sides, and the sauce was slathered on nice and thick.  This thing continued to have serious potential.  The only thing I was a little bit disappointed on at first was the lack of bacon.  There were two minuscule strips across the chicken breast, which didn’t represent very well for the bacon family.


Upon taking my first bite, the first thing I noticed was the spice.  I wasn’t sure if it was coming from the chicken, the cheeses, or the sauce, but this thing has some serious spice in its aftertaste.  Not the usual spice you get from the Colonel’s original recipe either.  It’s something different.  After trying a few of the ingredients by themselves, I decided that it had to be a combination of all of the ingredients.  I hate to sound like I’m seriously breaking down the taste of such a ridiculous creation, but the flavors actually come together to make a nice and spicy “sandwich”.

I have to admit that I still have no clue what “Colonel’s Sauce” is but it’s not bad at all.  I would have to describe it was a cheesy gravy with a little spice added to it.  Now that I think of it, just that description sounds delicious.  Poetic, even.

The second thing that hit me was the saltiness.  I believe my exact reaction was “Damn, this thing is salty.”  This didn’t come as much of a surprise, since the thing has over 1500mg of sodium, but even without knowing that before hand it’s obvious that this thing is enough to make you crave a bottle of Tiger Woods Gatorate.  Unfortunately for all of us, this is no longer available for some reason.  I’m still trying to figure that one out.

All in all this is a delicious, ridiculous, and pretty stupid sandwich that I will most likely not eat again.  It’s doing its job perfectly and getting people talking about it, but I seriously doubt 90% of the people will go back for a second Double Down.  I would recommend that if you like this kind of thing you should go and try it, but I seriously doubt people will return and drop $4.99 on another one.

I leave you with the wrapper after consumption was complete.  Check out that grease pool.

After hearing about Subway’s decision to begin serving breakfast, I planned a long epic rant.  I then realized that the pictures circulating around the internet spoke for themselves, and no one in their right mind would buy this crap after seeing what it actually looked like.

Instead, I would like to point you in the direction of Indianapolis Eater’s recent review on WouldIBuyitAgain.

Oh, and to add a little bit of originality I went to Google Translate and translated my feelings into Spanish.  Anyone who can translate what the following says earns 1000 cool points from me.  Those are hard to come by.

Subway es una estupidez y sirve comida horrible. Cinco pies dólar anhela es la peor canción del mundo. Odio a metro. Si usted come a metro, usted no está comiendo fresco. Usted está comiendo estúpido.

Last summer I wrote about my search for the rare phenomenon that was KFC’s Double Down Sandwich.  In case you missed it, the Double Down is two pieces of bacon and two slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese smothered with the Colonel’s Sauce with two fried chicken patties as buns.  No room for bread here.  Seriously, can this combination lose?

Well, a rep for KFC came across Epic Portions and our burning desire to try this sandwich and informed me that the Double Down will be available nation wide starting on April 12th.  They also sent me nutritional information but I disregarded it entirely.  If you’re interested in trying this sandwich I highly double you care that is has 1430 beautiful mg of sodium.  Whoops!