Author: James

Anybody who’s been following my reviews for a while knows that I am just about the biggest fan out there of “western” themed cheeseburgers. Indeed, many nights I have lamented the loss of my beloved Checker’s Wild West Bacon Cheeseburger, to the point I’m *this* close to starting a national petition to bring it back a la Crystal Pepsi and McDonald’s limited-time-only Szechuan dipping sauce.

So, despite the colossal calorie-count, I went into Burger King’s newfangled Rodeo Stacker King with a tune in my heart and a rumbling in my stomach. A short-lived test-market item from earlier this year, the Rodeo Stacker King has officially gone nationwide, and if you have a hankering for hefty hamburgers, you definitely ought to lend me your ears right about now.

The towering, edible monument of meat-stuff comes in three tiers; the single patty variety, the double-patty variety, and the virtually health insurance-policy canceling triple stacker permutation, whose caloric payload HAS to be teetering on the brink of 2,000.

As for the burger itself, you’re getting all of the expected ingredients. There’s BK’s iconic flame-grilled beef patties shellacked with a nice, molten American cheese blanket, topped with a hearty handful of crispy smoked bacon, sprinkled with a handful of deep-fried onion rings, and doused, naturally, in a generous dollop of sweet-and-tangy BBQ sauce with a little bit of the proprietary Stacker Sauce smeared on the sesame seed buns for good measure.

Well, needless to say, this thing is INSANELY filling. I opted for the single-patty version, and about halfway through it, I was feeling the dreaded “itis” taking effect. You are getting a ton of food with this thing even in its economy-class format, and if you have a fondness for beef and/or bacon, you will probably adore this one.

Of course, the big selling point of the burger is its smattering of BBQ sauce, and this stuff is undeniably excellent. Some may not like its sugariness, but I thought it complemented the rest of the sodium-encrusted contents rather well. And that admixture of the BBQ sauce and the Stacker Sauce takes this to another level. I can’t describe the combination in one or two words, but it has a taste and texture you usually don’t experience in big chain fast food places.

And perhaps best of all? As sloppy as the product looks, it’s nowhere near as messy as you might think. I don’t think I got spatter anywhere on my khakis, which might be a first for any visit I’ve had at the King over the last three or four years.

The burger does have its drawbacks, however. For one thing, I thought the volume of crispy onion rings was a little low, and they do tend to get a tad too soggy underneath that deluge of sauces. Furthermore, for north of $6, I don’t feel like I got something all that revolutionary when it comes to western-themed burgers. Yes, it’s quite tasty and satisfying, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t necessarily provide you with a gustatory experience you’ve never had before.

Overall, I’d say it’s probably on par with Hardee’s Six Dollar Western X-Tra Bacon Thickburger. But sadly, it doesn’t quite live up to the lofty standards set by Checker’s undeservedly discontinued “western” burger from yesteryear. You know exactly what you’re getting with an LTO burger like this one — and that’s both its greatest attribute AND its biggest weakness.

Purchased Price: $5.99
Size: Single patty
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Not listed on the official Burger King website, but here’s the stats for the fairly similar BK Rodeo King sandwich — 1,250 calories, 738 calories from fat, 82 grams of fat, 31 grams of saturated fat, 3.5 grams of saturated fat, 3.5 grams of trans fat, 2,270 milligrams of sodium, 69 grams of carbs, 14 grams of sugar, 60 grams of protein.

To begin, no, I don’t know why they call it “pretzel bread,” either. The bun doesn’t look like a pretzel, and it certainly doesn’t taste like one, either. But then again, I guess it’s a lot easier to fit the word “pretzel” on an advertising marquee than “try Burger King’s new Toasted Bun With The Letter ‘X’ Carved Into Its Bacon King,” so maybe it’s all just a matter of marketing?

As for the newfangled BK Pretzel Bacon King itself, basically what we’re working with here is the chain’s tried-and-true King burger, albeit with a much snazzier bun. As the name implies, BK has replaced the old sesame-seed-coated bun with a fancier, ritzier, and considerably fluffier pretzel bread base and it definitely distinguishes the product from its flame-broiled brethren.

On the whole, the product still has a fairly familiar Burger King flavor to it, but the texture is certainly something you don’t normally experience out of the fast food staple. Of course, it doesn’t quite taste like a gourmet burger, but it does provide a moderately more refined gustatory experience than most of the stuff you’ll be getting out of a drive-thru window these days.

Underneath the bun, however, there’s not a whole lot new to experience here. Basically, it’s one or two 1/4 lb. patties topped with a hearty helping of bacon, shellacked with a blanket of molten American cheese, and then inundated with a barrage of mayonnaise and mustard. This is a product that would have benefited from having a couple of more ingredients in the mix — lettuce, tomato, heck, even a couple of fried onion rings would’ve done a lot to help this one pop a little more on your tastebuds.

For the most part, every time you bite down you’re just getting a burst of cheese and mustard, which isn’t a bad combination per se, just one that’s, well, kinda’ mundane. A more exotic cheese (gruyere, perhaps?) would’ve given this one a firmer identity, and I’m still not sure why Burger King opted for the plain old yellow mustard when a spicier blend would’ve made for a more delectable limited-time-only product.

From there, the usual complaints and caveats about Burger King products continue to apply. I know it’s old hat, but with almost 2,000 milligrams of sodium in this sucker, you are really getting a high quotient of salt for one meal. And I wouldn’t suggest eating one of these in your finest apparel — even for a sauce-centric Burger King offering, this thing can get wildly sloppy.

On the whole, the Pretzel Bacon King is a solid and filing product, but its Achilles heel is that it’s too predictable. This is a fairly tasty L-T-O that plays things maybe a little too safe and offers consumers hardly anything they haven’t already experienced before. And at such a steep price point, you’d expect a little more than what you’re getting out of the overall package here.

Purchased Price: $5.79
Size: Single patty
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 920 calories, 60 grams of fat, 18 grams of saturated fat, 135 milligrams of cholesterol, 1930 milligrams of sodium, 55 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 39 grams of protein.

What is the Burger King Spicy Chicken Caesar Sandwich?

With 2019 effectively serving as the Summer of Fast Food Chicken Sandwiches, did anybody expect Burger King to remain content sitting on the sidelines?

Indeed, BK has recently launched not one BUT THREE new Caesar Chicken Sandwiches, including both a grilled and crispy permutation. Today’s review, however, will focus explicitly on the spicy chicken variation, which comes with all of the usual fix-ins — lettuce, tomato slices, and bacon — with a couple of peelings of parmesan cheese and a proprietary Caesar sauce squeezed underneath the oily topmost potato bun. And oh yeah, I almost forgot — the crispy chicken filet is all breaded and battered with tongue-tingling spices. You know, with it being marketed as spicy and whatnot.

How is it?

At first glance, I was kinda’ taken aback by how small the sandwich appeared. And while the burger may be slightly more condensed than your regular Big King and Whopper offering, rest assured there is a LOT of content underneath this thing’s super greasy buns.

The chicken filet tastes slightly different from the chain’s other “spicy” patties, although I’m not quite sure what the new or tweaked spice itself may be (call it a shot in the dark, but maybe more paprika?). But it definitely gels very well with the rest of the ingredients. The bacon is super crispy, and the lettuce and tomato taste noticeably “fresher” than what you normally get out of a fast food hamburger.

But the two things that give this sandwich a unique identity are the slices of shaved parmesan cheese (which isn’t melted onto the chicken, thankfully) and the in-house Caesar sauce, which has a mild Creole seasoning flair to it. All in all, it doesn’t really taste like something you’d expect to find at Burger King — which, depending on your perspective, can either be a really good thing or a really bad thing.

Is there anything else you need to know?

Be forewarned; this is a very messy sandwich. Even small nibbles will produce quite a bit of Caesar sauce spatter, and the normal Burger King caveats concerning saltiness once again apply here. It packs a walloping 2,050 milligrams of sodium, so you’ll DEFINITELY need a beverage nearby to put this sucker down. Furthermore, at about $6 in the metro-Atlanta area, it’s far from a “cheap” on-the-go eat, especially considering the relatively small portion size.

Conclusion:

Well, the Spicy Chicken Caesar Sandwich certainly isn’t going to give the Popeyes Chicken Sandwich a run for its money, but that’s not really meant to be taken as a slight.

Overall, I’d consider this pseudo-premium offering from Burger King to be well above-average, and without question one of the more unique limited time only items to come out of the chain in quite some time.

The price point is problematic, but you could do much, much worse with deluxe edition fast food poultry burgers. Consider this a very good — although far from legitimately great — contribution from BK as the ongoing Chicken Sandwich Wars doth continue.

Purchased Price: $5.49
Size: N/A
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 830 calories, 50 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 95 milligrams of cholesterol, 2,050 milligrams of sodium, 59 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 8 grams of sugar, and 37 grams of protein.

I was a vegetarian in college.

I didn’t have any moral reasons for it, I just figured it was an easier way to lose weight and keep my vitals on the up and up. Plus, there was a vegetarian in my psychology class I was smitten with, and I reckoned that had to score me a couple of extra points.

Well, as was my torrid collegiate romance with Becky Schopenhauer, my dietary dalliance with vegetarianism was short-lived. One of the things people don’t tell you about going full veggie is just how expensive it is, and when a four-pack of MorningStar Farms veggie patties costs twice as much as two eight packs of Earl Campbell Hot Link sausages — and you’re a broke communications major — the economics become pretty obvious.

Yet all these years later, every now and then I still get a hankering for a good black bean burger. And while a lot of the more upscale burger joints have their own default veggie alternatives, finding soy patties at the larger fast food chains — your McDonald’s, your Wendy’s, your Steak n’ Shakes, etc. — is usually a lost cause.

Sure, a few chains have experimented with meatless options a la Beyond Meat, but nothing on the scale of Burger King with its newfangled Impossible Whopper, which, as the name suggests, is the fast food leviathan’s signature item, albeit with the all-beef patty eschewed for an Impossible Foods-branded faux burger.

Without getting too scientific here, the secret ingredient in the Impossible Whopper patty is this stuff called leghemoglobin, which is a genetically-modified soy derivative that supposedly provides consumers the most meat-like meatless taste on the market.

Sure, sure, all of this pre-publicity puffery is fine and dandy, but I’m here to give it to you straight. So, is the Burger King Impossible Whopper truly the revolutionary product it claims to be?

Well, not really, but that’s not to say it isn’t a decent fast food burger.

First things first, the patty itself is just too small. It’s maybe half the girth of the standard Whopper patty, and instead of being plump and juicy, this newfangled Impossible Whopper tastes more charred and salty. The patty itself, though, does have a pretty solid smoky flavor to it, and the mouthfeel of the product isn’t as chewy as you may expect. It doesn’t quite capture the “real” beef Whopper taste, but it gets closer to it than you’d think.

And that’s thanks, in no small part, to the rest of the sandwich. It’s pretty amazing how all of the accoutrements — the lettuce, mayonnaise, and tomatoes — gel together to provide an idiosyncratic Whopper taste, despite the lack of a “true” Whopper patty whatsoever. You might have some reservations about the Impossible Whopper, but holistically, it tastes remarkably like its object of emulation.

Despite all of the hoopla over this meatless menu item, it seems a little odd to me that so few have noted that, for years, Burger King has already been serving what is effectively a “veggie Whopper.”

The weird thing is, the overall product reminds me of Burger King’s previous meatless burger, which utilized a MorningStar Farms Garden Veggie patty. Whatever gustatory quirks may be there, it appears are sizzled out in BK’s grilling process — so ultimately, you wind up with an Impossible patty that tastes just a tad too crispy, and a little too generic, for its own good.

Still, it’s an altogether pleasing product that ought to make vegetarians on the prowl for something a tad more filling than a garden salad pretty happy, although I just can’t see it turning long-time, omnivorous Whopper-fanatics into staunch vegans anytime soon.

Regardless, I’m pulling for the Impossible Whopper to be successful, if only to inspire competing burger chains to try their hands at the pseudo-burger fad. I mean, let’s face it — who doesn’t want to live in a world where Arby’s releases its own vegan-friendly Meat Mountain Sandwich a couple of years down the road?

Purchased Price: $5.29
Size: N/A
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 630 calories; 34 grams of fat, 11 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 10 milligrams of cholesterol, 1,080 milligrams of sodium, 58 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, 12 grams of sugar and 25 grams of protein.