I’m a fan of melts in general. Creamy, indulgent cheese smothering an unctuous protein, all wrapped in a warm cocoon of toasted bread, is hard for a tummy-focused girl like me to resist. While my favorite melt of all time is the tuna melt (Let’s hear it! Tuna Fish Protein Supremacy!), I like a good patty melt once in a while, too. Unfortunately, the latest offering from a certain corpulent monarch, the Burger King Philly Melt, is not all that great.
According to BK, the sandwich features two Whopper Jr. patties topped with peppers, onions, Swiss cheese, and Savory Royal Sauce on Toasted Bread. However, there are a couple of problems here.
First, the bread is the biggest disappointment. It looks like the top is toasted to buttery perfection, but looks are deceiving here. The bread has virtually none of the texture of toasted bread and not much flavor; the look is just for aesthetics. I don’t know if they somehow failed to toast it or just toasted it very lightly, but it’s not quite right. Considering how dominant the cheese is here, having that contrasting, crisper texture would have added a lot to the experience.
Second, the Swiss cheese and the “Savory Royal Sauce” blur together to the point that I didn’t realize they were two separate entities. The overall flavor of Swiss is nice, and while it’s mild, it overpowers the sauce.
The peppers and onions were too soggy to add much texture, but to be fair, I did have to wait until I got home to eat the sandwich; maybe if you get the Philly Melt fresh off the line, the veggies will be a little crisper. I could experiment with this, but to be honest, I don’t feel curious enough to order it again. Flavor-wise, the vegetables break up the wall of cheese a little with a fresher flavor, but it’s fairly subtle; the onions don’t taste caramelized, and the green pepper is neutral as can be. Maybe the flavors would have been stronger if the pieces had been chopped larger, especially the green pepper, but as it stands, they don’t add as much as one would hope.
Obviously, the big draw here is the cheese, and in that department, Burger King delivered. The Swiss flavor is pleasantly mild, and having every bite enrobed in the cheese sauce gives you your money’s worth. They may not have nailed the Philly Melt, but they got the key component right. The only problem with the cheese is that, because it’s so mild compared to the beef, the taste of the flame-grilled patties is very prominent.
Burger King may have reached for the moon with the Philly Melt, but they didn’t land among the stars. They did, however, hit a low-altitude asteroid cluster, so it’s not all bad news. If you love patty melts, this will probably not be an incarnation that will knock your socks off. But taking a pleasant, veritable swim in a pool of liquified Swiss cheese is enjoyable enough that it’s worth a shot.
Purchased Price: $5.49
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 590 calories, 38 grams of fat, 16.1 grams of saturated fat, 0.5 grams of trans fat, 100 milligrams of cholesterol, 970 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 7 grams of sugar, and 28.3 grams of protein.