It seems as though the recession has forced fast food establishments to begin offering new items on their menus.  The majority of these new “innovative” ideas are completely asinine, stupid, and disgusting.  No longer can they simply keep serving us the same old processed menu, it now has to be creative ideas that inspire new marketing campaigns to draw the public’s interest.   What sucks is that none of these products, with the exception of Taco Bell’s Volcano Sauce, has drawn any interest from me at all.  This might be normal for anyone else, but I happen to maintain a food blog and attempt write daily about different news and innovations in food.  Nothing has even made me motivated in the least to write about.  What happened to America?  Are we really THIS bored?  The Philly Cheese Steak Pizza, the Pasta Bread Bowl, the Mexican Style Burger, the Asian Italian Fusion..  I am all for trying new things but does it seem like we are running out of new idea to anyone else?  Shame on you fast food.  Shame on you.

Warning: If you are not a fan of me writing about how stupid things are, just scroll down to the next post.

Pizza Hut – Tuscani Pastas

Pizza Hut is terrible.  Hands down the worst pizza on the market today.  How they are the highest selling pizza chain in the country?  I have no idea.  Their pizzas are like a trashcan lid covered in cake dough smothered in sauce and old cooking grease.  So the next step had to be asking us to spend $12.99 on some frozen pasta that is thrown in the oven and heated up.  That sounds great and all, but I think I’ll just go to the grocery store and spend $6.99 on a frozen pasta that has a chance of tasting good.  Of course I won’t get that side of 5 bread sticks, but they taste terrible as well so I’m not too concerned.

Each order of Tuscani Pasta is supposed to feed four and comes with those five breadsticks. As anyone can tell, these numbers just don’t add up.  Why the hell give you a pasta that supposedly feeds four(more on that in a bit), and give 5 breadsticks?.  My guess is that Pizza Hut is intentionally trying to instigate family bickering.  That’s right, Pizza Hut wants to create problems within your family.

The claim that these pastas feeds four is preposterous.  I have single handedly eaten an entire Tuscani Pasta along with 3 of the breadsticks by myself.  I may have an eating problem, but you get the point.  While they say it weighs 3 pounds, I would divide that number in half, subtract by .5 and you probably have the correct weight there.

Finally, the commercials.  Those commercials make me want to throw a brick through the TV.   They blindfold a family, drive them to what they think is an Italian restaurant, and feed them a nice dinner. Then, blindfolds off, and surprise! That’s no restaurant – the family’s actually been driven back home! And the nice Italian meal they’ve been duped into eating there is that Tuscani Pasta from Pizza Hut!  What they didn’t show you was the five bottles of cheap Chianti they had to pour down their throats to get them to go to back to their own home and eat that cheap slop.

Domino’s Pizza – Pasta Bread Bowls

The recession causes us to do awful things, which was demonstrated perfectly by Pizza Hut’s pasta idea.  This is a classic case of one company coming out with a stupid idea, and another similar company saying “We need an even dumber idea to top that idea!”  Well Domino’s, you succeeded.  Pasta is cheap (profits!), easy to smother in cheese (taste!) and quite difficult to screw up (mass produce!).  Basically what Domino’s decided to do was send a pan out to all of their locations to make a bowl out of their already bland crust and told their workers to add a small amount of pasta, some sauce, and top it with as much cheese as possible.  I’m not one to count calories, but how many do you think are in one of these things?  475,000?  I have to be somewhere in the ballpark.  This seems like some kind of evil plan to kill America.

KFC – Grilled Chicken

Here’s an idea..  I’m going to start a restaurant based on a certain recipe, name my restaurant after that recipe, and develop a loyal following.  Then, when it comes out that my style of food isn’t healthy(cooking it in hot oil, big surprise!), I’m going to abbreviate my name so it won’t be so obvious how I cook my food, and eventually start offering and heavily marketing the same food but prepared differently.  Oh, then I’m going to get Oprah to hand out so many coupons to stupid consumers that they eat the entire supply of the new product.  Then, I’m going to cause those stupid consumers to begin boycotts and sit ins because they can’t have this new product.  Nice work, Kentucky Fried Chicken, your board of directors should be extremely proud of themselves.  You have created a product that has completely gone against everything you have served for the last 50 years.  Never, not once have I gone to KFC and said to myself, “Wow, the quality of chicken is great here.  I bet those chickens are allowed to roam free on wide open terrain, start chicken families and live their lives as happy chickens.  That HAS to be why this chicken is so good.   I just wish it was  a little healthier so I could enjoy it more often.”  No.  Never.  I go to KFC to get a pile of fried chicken in a bucket, another bucket of mashed potatoes with way too much gravy and a bucket of Pepsi.

Burger King – Burger Shots

I previous ranted about these before, so I will keep this brief.  Burger King thought it would be a great idea to start serving their own version of Sliders, a delicious mini burger, and call them Burger Shots, a disgusting version of Burger King’s burgers that look like miotic cell division.  I feel as though the picture does enough justice, but if you would like to read more about what I think about these, go here.

McDonald’s – Premium Salads

You know, when I think of McDonald’s, I think salads.  Not just salads but PREMIUM salads.  The way only McDonald’s can do it.  McDonald’s has apparently tried to step their game up by offering different coffees, lattes, and now salads.  All for the healthy on-the-go worker!  Only problem is, these salads are not premium, don’t taste good, and you’re better off ordering from the regular menu if nutrition is a big concern to you.

The salty,  bland Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad (the option lowest in fat and calories of all the chicken salads, with 210 calories and 7 grams of fat)—which is sprinkled with plastic-tasting Parmesan cheese flourished with frisée and topped with Newman’s Own low-fat balsamic vinaigrette (with 40 calories and 3 grams of fat of its own).  The Crispy California Cobb, which comes with blue cheese, bacon bits, and hard-boiled egg (as well as 380 calories and 23 grams of fat). Adding the packet of butter-and-garlic croutons that accompanies the Cobb salad (50 calories, 1.5 grams of fat) and the Newman’s Own ranch dressing (290 calories, 30 grams of fat) made the numbers skyrocket to 720 calories and 54.5 grams of fat.  The Crispy Chicken California Cobb is the only salad for which I’d consider a trip back through the Golden Arches, but then I might as well have eaten what I wanted in the first place: a Quarter Pounder with cheese and a medium fries—160 more calories, but 3.5 fewer grams of fat.

McDonald’s – Brownie Melts

Come on, McDonald’s.  Brownie Melts?  Seriously?  I give these things 2, maybe 3 months on the menu.  Just in case you want to completely erase the illusion that you are eating healthy by ordering one of their salads, McDonald’s created the Brownie Melt just for you.

Arby’s – Fajita Flatbread Melts

Here’s another fantastic idea and by fantastic, I mean stupid.  Arby’s decided to create a menu item that combines the food of three different cultures into a “Flatbread Melt”.  Their food innovators managed to combine fat, gyrostyle chewy bread, fajita-style grilled peppers and onions, and Arby’s-style doesn’t-really-tastelike-roast-beef roast beef.  All with melted cheese and a jalapeo ranch sauce. It’s a melting pot of Mediterranean, Latin American and U.S. culture.  Where did they get the sick idea if combining “fajitas” with roast beef anyways?  Has anyone ever made fajitas with roast beef before?  If I am missing something here and this is a delicious concept, I stand corrected.  Until then, Arby’s is just weird.

Quite possibly one of the funniest(creepiest) videos I have ever seen.  I came across this video on Youtube a few years ago, but it never blew up for some reason.  I just saw it again and thought it deserved the attention of any and everyone who reads this blog.  I’m still trying to figure out who allowed their kids to be apart of this.

If you can actually follow along with the lyrics, here are a few genius lines.  As Kenny Bania would say.. It’s gold, Jerry, gold!

“Imma Warn You Now Baby Here’s The Deal.  One Piece Of My Chicken You Can Call Dr. Phil”

“Now where my hot sauce I don’t want no catsup.  Just one big juicy jalapeno pepper”