Tag: Burger King

What are Burger King Jalapeño Cheddar Bites?

Do you enjoy jalapeño poppers from other fast food chains, like those from Sonic and Jack in the Box?

Well, Burger King’s version is basically the same thing, but in a more convenient bite-sized format with a golden deep fried coating that hides a gorgeous glob of a tangy cheddar with tiny jalapeño bits swimming in it.

How are they?

While it would be easy to compare BK’s Jalapeño Cheddar Bites to something like its gimmicky Chicken Fries or Cheesy Tots, these mouth-filling morsels manage to move past that and land almost in a full-meal territory. A bag of eight eat-em-ups can fill almost anyone’s tummy with their somewhat spicy/definitely cheesy goodness.

Dipping sauce is not necessary.

The peppers provide a suitable enough heat, at least for most of the BK-buying public. While I wish it was a bit hotter, the big bites taste like chile con queso.

Is there anything else you need to know?

I purchased the stacked 8-pack for $2.09, but there is a smaller 4-bite set that runs a whole buck for smaller snack-addicts.

Conclusion:

A win from Burger King, the Jalapeño Cheddar Bites deliver more cheese than heat, but here that’s a great thing that works in its favor and flavor.

Purchased Price: $2.09
Size: 8-piece
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (8 pieces) 327 calories, 19 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 24 milligrams of cholesterol, 907 milligrams of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 2 grams of sugar, and 9 grams of protein.

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.

Burger King might be the, excuse the pun, king of fun in the fast food burger world. While McD’s has added spicy BBQ sauce to tenders and Wendy’s seems to just add more bacon to things, BK is out with another Halloween-themed entry.

Continuing with its tradition of wacky colored buns after green and black, the burger chain is giving white the spotlight for its new Ghost Whopper. Unfortunately, there are no other differences other than the bun to the regular Whopper. They both have a 1/4 pound flame-grilled beef patty topped with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, ketchup, sliced onions, and mayonnaise. Those last ingredients are white, like a ghost. Oooooh, spooky!!! But the bun isn’t just white, it’s also white cheddar-flavored.

Hopefully, if you’re reading this, you’ve experienced a Whopper before and know it’s a damn good fast food burger. The tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, and onions give the burger a nice crunch while the ketchup and mayo give some creaminess that seems to bring all the components together without overshadowing each other. The standout, though, is the beef patty with a nice chargrilled flavor and those grill lines that seem to trick your mind into thinking it’s even better than what you’re tasting. With all that being said, how is the special bun?

Well, I wish I had something more exciting to say, but it’s merely ok. Is it super cheesy? No, but I can tell it’s not a regular sesame seed bun. The flavor comes through at the very end of chewing, and it’s a nice capper to all the other ingredients. But you do have to really think about it to taste the cheesy nuances of the bread. It’s kind of like if you think you saw a ghost and you wanted to see it again. To do that, you would have to squint and work hard to try to get a glimpse of it again.

Meanwhile, the color is just satisfactory as well. The photos I took are a little misleading, because it’s definitely white. However, is it scarily white like a ghost? Not at all. Also, the fact that coming after a jarring black bun and glorious neon green one, it’s frankly lackluster. A steamed Chinese bun is even whiter than this.

I appreciate Burger King’s constant innovation and doing fun promotional things. However, for some reason, this iteration screams (like what I did there?) of desperation of a phoned-in effort (remember the opening scene of Scream? Ha!). Between the extremely limited release at only 10 locations across the country to the single special component that didn’t even make an impression, it was a ghastly (ok, that’s the last one, I promise) disappointment for me.

As I was finishing my burger, I was thinking back to the billboard at the restaurant where it slyly said at the bottom that it was, “APPROVED BY 11 OUT OF 10 PEOPLE.” I got a glorious chuckle out of that tidbit, but then it was followed by immediate sadness as I realized the actual product was nowhere near as clever or as exciting as the marketing on that window cling.

Purchased Price: $3.00
Size: N/A
Rating: 5 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: (Not available on BK’s website, but here’s the nutrition facts for a regular Whopper) 660 calories, 40 grams of fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 1.5 grams of trans fat, 90 milligrams of cholesterol, 980 milligrams of sodium, 49 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fiber, 1 grams of sugar, and 28 grams of protein.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Two rights don’t quite make a left.
Two birds don’t make a handy bush. Or something like that.

But what do two impossibles make? ?Possible? Implausible? Divide by zero error?

Well, in my experience with Burger King’s Impossible King, I’d say it’d be more aptly named the Gastrointestinally Impassable King. For this sandwich, this absurdly unasked for and apparently regionally available unit of a double-pattied organism is heavy. Heavier than the internal conflict that arises when eating it:

Me: “It seems contradictory to put so much cheese on a meatless sandwich.”

Also me: “Dan, you’re just a vegetarian. And by default, they grill these with the beef burgers, wallowing in all the same moo juices.”

“I’m trying to get better! And besides, you can request for it to be non-broiled.”

“Did you?”

“…look, you’ve seen our stomach. We get bloated to the point of bleating off just one Impossible Whopper.”

“You haven’t had a real honkin’ heifer burger in years. Perhaps this isn’t for you.”

“Are you challenging me?”

“I’ll see you in the fetal position later.”

Alright, enough. Let’s enter the belly of the beast that is the beast in my belly.

I love the Impossible Whopper. It’s the perfect sacrifice to the phantom meat memories that haunt me not with “BOOs” but “lack of B12s,” and it’s my go-to vegetarian road trip indulgence. Yet by doubling down on impossibilities, the Impossible King manages to halve the original’s appeal. And for a good reason: balance.

The Impossible Whopper works because the scales of divine burger equity deemed it harmonious. Though the patties are imperfect meat clones that lack a certain hearty juiciness, the other toppings and trappings of a Whopper mask the blemishes with gushing pickles and the playful nip of white onions. But when said patty’s in-‘wich real estate becomes a duplex, the arid cracks in Impossible’s freest-range façade become glaring fissures.

The patties are dry. There, I said it. And by consequence, the entire Impossible King feels too dry.

Yes, the familiar smokiness and testosterone-associated texture of a burger still shine through to the point of inspiring me to call up my son for a game of catch. I don’t have a son. But the nuances. There’s still a palpable burst of much-needed tomato pulp, but the onion’d accents and pickled particulars are all smothered in dehydrated beefishness and a borderline seminal soup of mayo and melted cheese.

While I bet Burger King added so much cheese to try and restore blind burger justice, its dearth of flavor only makes the whole sandwich blander, mushier, and filler-heavy. Add in the sheer girth of this King-thing, and it’s unlikely to attract many seeking a wholesome lunch. I could only eat half of it at noontide, and after disgracing myself twelve hours later—as the Impossible King’s refrigerated remnants dimly reflected in the kitchen sink I devoured it over—I knew there would be an intestinal reckoning.

I slept the sleep of a freakshow cannonball-stomacher, and in my dream of getting gut-punched by the Burger King himself behind a heinously vandalized McDonald’s, I saw a prophecy of the abdominal agony that would come the following morning.

As I write this that very same morning, I can feel the Indigestible King exerting its influence over my writing, one fetal kick at a time. But I must tell you all the truth: even if you can find an Impossible King in your area, don’t bother. At $7.69, you’re paying two dollars too much for a manipulative sandwich that won’t respect you, nor your scant hopes of clean eating.

I’ll stick with the Impossible Whopper, thank you very much. It may not be healthy either, but at least it doesn’t force me into an unhealthy parasitic relationship with my distressed gut flora.

Purchased Price: $7.69
Size: N/A
Rating: 3 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Nutritional info unavailable: seriously, this thing’s a ghost online.

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.