Tag: Fast Food

REVIEW: Arby’s Steakhouse Sub

Kelley 15 Comments

Arby's Steakhouse Sub

Arby’s is like the middle child of the fast food industry. You’ve got the oldest child, represented by places like McDonald’s, Burger King and Taco Bell. They’ve been around, they’re reliable and you know you can trust them to be there when you need them. Then there’s the baby of the family, that local place that you dote upon – that one little burger joint on Center Street or the musty taqueria that is probably violating at least a half dozen health codes. You tell your friends about them, even show them some pictures, not realizing that they honestly don’t care.

Then there’s Arby’s.

Sure, it’s always hanging around, but its cries for attention go largely ignored. It shuffles its feet, wondering when someone will notice the uniqueness, the ingenuity of its shaved beef sandwiches. It’s even tried other tactics to gain your attention, like its line of Market Fresh sandwiches, which got put on the fridge but was promptly covered up by Wendy’s B+ on her calculus test.

Badly-constructed analogies and sweeping generalizations about a whole nation’s opinion on Arby’s aside, their latest arm-waving “look at me!” creation goes even further, with the limited-edition Steakhouse Sub.

The commercial itself is a sad thing to see: a man is parked literally a few feet away from an actual steakhouse, and then decides to go to Arby’s instead. He is already at a steakhouse that serves real steak. I believe he describes Arby’s new sandwich as a “steakhouse dream,” but by then my brain had already exited my skull, carrying a bindle and sticking its thumb out in a desperate attempt to get as far away from my television as possible, so don’t quote me on that.

What exactly makes this sandwich such a “dream?” According to Arby’s, “When you’re craving that big Steakhouse taste, this sub delivers. We piled our classic, thinly sliced roast beef with melted Swiss cheese and crispy onions on a toasted ciabatta roll and topped it all off with our zesty cracked peppercorn sauce.”

If you’ve never had an Arby’s roast beef sandwich before, imagine the roast beef being a notch or two above the packet of Carl Buddig “Beef” that your mom used to pack in your lunch for school. Or was that just my mom?

Great, yet another childhood trauma I’ll have to bring up with my therapist at our next appointment. Anyway, Arby’s roast beef is thinly sliced, quite salty, and if you try really hard, you can even detect a vague taste of beef. But that’s about all you’re going to get out of it.

The onions added zero flavor or texture to the sandwich. Arby’s claims they are “crispy onions.” Mine were anything but. I ate some of the stragglers on my plate that had escaped from the Steakhouse Sub, and they were soggy, tough and chewy. It’s like they took a can of French’s French Fried Onions and let them sit in a deep frier for half an hour.

The sauce was actually quite nice on its own; I would even venture to agree with Arby’s claims of it being “zesty.” Much like the onions, it seemed to get swallowed up by the rest of the sandwich and I couldn’t really taste it unless my tongue was in direct contact with the sauced bun. I went to check out the ingredient list and there must have been 50 of them in the sauce alone, but I think the inclusion of steak sauce was probably what gave it a little zing. Or it could have been the disodium inosinate. Who can tell?

Part of the reason I couldn’t feel the chewy texture of the onions was that the ciabatta roll itself was overly chewy. Taking a bite of the Steakhouse Sub felt a bit like I was a puppy wrestling with a rope toy; to tear through the bread, I had to whip my head back and forth with my teeth firmly dug into the bun. I may have even growled once or twice, I’m not entirely sure.

Okay, so it wasn’t that bad, but I do think that the bread-to-fillings ratio was tipped too heavily in the former’s favor, especially when it came to the sauce and the onions. I got a few bites where I could taste a little zip from the sauce, but the onions added nothing, and most bites were just a mouthful of bread and some mildly beefy-tasting slices of meat.

If Arby’s thinks their Steakhouse Sub is something that’s going to lure someone already at a steakhouse to their nearest Arby’s drive-thru, they need to head out to a Black Angus Steakhouse and do a little R&D. The fact that I’m using Black Angus as my example of a steakhouse taste they should emulate should speak volumes in and of itself.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 sandwich (268 grams) – 750 calories, 360 calories from fat, 40 grams of total fat, 10 grams of saturated fat, 1 gram of trans fat, 70 milligrams of cholesterol, 1,970 milligrams of sodium, 67 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 3 grams of sugars, 30 grams of protein, 4% vitamin A, 4% vitamin C, 15% calcium and 20% iron.)

Item: Arby’s Steakhouse Sub

Price: $2.99

Size: 1 sandwich

Purchased at: Arby’s

Rating: 3 out of 10

Pros: Cracked peppercorn sauce was zesty, if you licked the bun. Actual steakhouses. Fair-sized sandwich for the price. Hobo bindles. Making sweeping generalizations about other people’s opinions.

Cons: Too much chewy ciabatta drowning out other flavors. Tough, un-crisp onions. Being the middle child. Arby’s roast beef in general. Playing tug-of-war with my lunch. Carl Buddig.

REVIEW: BK Fire-Grilled Ribs

Kelley 17 Comments

Burger King has ribs now! Is that the appropriate level of excitement? I can’t tell, because The King has given me no direction on how to feel about his new ribs. I look to fast food restaurants’ media and marketing departments to tell me how I should feel about their food, and there is absolutely no information about the ribs on their website. Usually, companies assault you with their new products on the front page of their sites, making sure you know damn well that there’s a new product and you’re going to love it. I couldn’t even find the nutritional information on the ribs. I had to find that through other, nefarious means. Is Burger King trying to hide them? Should I be worried?

I’m glad I called my local BK earlier to make sure they were carrying the ribs, because, again, there was no indication of their existence at the restaurant. No big pictures on the drive-thru menu, no posters in the window…nothing. There is no way in the world for you to know these ribs exist, unless you stumbled upon a news story about them on the Internet. (Or the editor of the website you review for told you about them.) I felt like I was in on some sort of secret, like In-N-Out’s not-so-secret secret menu.

I don’t even actually know what these things are officially called. The box says, “Straight from the grill”, but there’s no name on it. The side of the box at least has little pictures of ribs on it, so at least I know I’ve got the right product.

Edit: The Internet just told me they’re called BK Fire-Grilled Ribs. Mystery solved.

According to the box, you can get either six or eight pieces, but my secret nutritional information source says that you can also get a three-piece box. Who knows? Burger King certainly isn’t going to tell me. And that creepy King never talks, so he’s of no help. Yeah, you just keep standing over there with your arms crossed, The King. Looking all creepy and smug, knowing that nobody knows a damn thing about your ribs.

I dunno about these guys. They look kind of weird. And…burned. There is a pleasant smell of grilled meat faintly wafting from the box, but it does smell a little like what happened when I tried to use a grill once. Considering I once managed to ruin a package of ramen, I think you see where I’m going with this.

These certainly don’t look like any ribs I’ve ever seen before. I guess they’re supposed to be short ribs? Hey, wait, is that…is that a bone I see? Oh, these are actual ribs! Up to this point, I thought they were just going to be strange and boneless, like that mutant piece of meat on the McRib. Burger King copies all of McDonald’s other ideas, so I just figured this would be more of the same. Good thing I noticed the bones before I bit into them. That could have gone poorly.

They look mostly like seriously failed chicken wings. Or perhaps the severed limbs of infant burn victims? Okay, that’s just tasteless. C’mon now. Seriously though, it looks like a Chihuahua caught on fire in the Burger King parking lot and they decided to call it a “happy accident.” I mean, I’m not a rib expert, but these just don’t look right.

They don’t taste right, either. The first one I tried was dry and terribly burned. The second one was moist, and by that I mean greasy, and burned. And that’s pretty much the story for the rest of the box. The few moist bites I got showed that the meat closest to the bone had some good flavor and texture, but there wasn’t much of that on those little ribs. One person on the Internet noted that they got barbecue sauce with theirs, so I made sure to ask for some at the window. The King’s serf assured me that it was in the bag. It was not in the bag.

The ribs seemed like they didn’t have any seasoning on them, unless you count “burned” as a seasoning. If I’ve learned anything from Bobby Flay, besides the fact that you can cook anything on a grill (I think I saw him make a bowl of Frosted Flakes on there once), it’s that your ribs need to be properly seasoned, whether that’s with a dry rub or a wet one. If I’ve learned anything from the various barbecue shows I’ve seen on the Travel Channel, the nation is polarized between wet and dry rubs, but I’m pretty sure they’d all agree that a naked rib is a no-no.

Honestly though, any seasoning they might have applied to it would have been overpowered by the taste of charred flesh. The flavor stayed in my mouth long after I’d finished the ribs, leaving me feeling like I’d just eaten a box full of the remains of someone’s tragic house fire. No amount of barbecue sauce is going to cover that up. Speaking of covering up, I see now why Burger King is keeping these ribs under wraps. These ribs just ain’t right.

(Nutrition Facts – 6 ribs – 450 calories, 33 grams of total fat, 12 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 140 milligrams of cholesterol, 1,290 milligrams of sodium, 4 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 0 grams of sugars and 35 grams of protein.)

Item: BK Fire-Grilled Ribs
Price: $5.69
Size: 6 ribs
Purchased at: Burger King
Rating: 3 out of 10
Pros: Some meat was moist. Feeling like part of a secret club. Actual meat on a bone and not fake, formed ribs. Getting to call a Burger King employee a serf.
Cons: Charred as all get-out. The King, being smug and creepy. Lots of dry meat. Making infant burn victim jokes. Charcoals-in-my-mouth taste will not leave.

REVIEW: Wawa Buffalo Chicken Flatbread

Kayla 5 Comments

I’ve never worked as a server (big ups to those who have), but if I ever decide to apply as one I know exactly where my first choice would be.

Hooters.

It’s not because I’m oddly turned on by overweight, drunk gentlemen coppin’ a feel or I enjoy wearing orange spandex shorts on a daily basis. Heck, I don’t even sign my name with a cute little heart at the end. My desire to work at Hooters is based purely on my love and devotion to buffalo chicken. Although, I probably would get fired for stealing buffalo wings off of plates and serving a bunch of chicken bones to horny hungry men with my mouth area covered in a red sauce that could be mistaken as the war paint used by Amazon huntresses on the prowl for a new mate.

Although working for Hooters isn’t in the near future (or distant), I’m still able to get my buffalo chicken fix without having to get a boob job, a restraining order on a customer, or having to go into American Apparel to purchase orange hot pants from a male cashier rocking sideburns, aviator shades and orange hot pants. Thanks to the new Wawa Buffalo Chicken Flatbread I can just walk a couple of blocks and get a hit of spicy chicken at any time of day. I could also walk a couple of blocks in the other direction and get my fix at any time of the day, if my buffalo chicken addiction was instead a crack addiction.

The Wawa Buffalo Chicken Flatbread is one of those microwaveable deals; it’s not made to order unless you count them nuking it for you, but for a microwavable sandwich this thing is pretty glorious. Sometimes with pre-made sandwiches the chicken is chopped so small that you need the Hubble Telescope to find out if it’s actually chicken, but as you can see, there’s quite a bit of the cluck stuff in this as well as mild buffalo sauce, ranch dressing and tiny bleu cheese crumbles.

Despite the heavenly combo of grilled chicken, ranch dressing, bleu cheese crumbles and buffalo sauce, which was about as mild as Victorian Era porn, it would’ve been better if the chicken were pieces of buffalo wings and they added extra sauce so the spicy factor could go from PBS Masterpiece Theatre level to something worthy of an AVN Award.

Looking at the innards of the Wawa Buffalo Chicken Flatbread made my stomach feel like it was being churned by an Amish girl because it looks like Michelle Duggar’s uterus; all messy and unrecognizable, but yet still able to hold a child. Speaking of pregnancies, the Wawa Buffalo Chicken Flatbread made me feel like there was a massive food baby in my gut after consuming it.

FYI — It’s not fun giving birth to it either.

Since I’ve already made up my mind that I don’t want to be pregnant with human babies, the closest I’ll ever feel to carrying a child would be with food babies. I wouldn’t mind being knocked up by anything buffalo chicken-related since it’s my favorite food. However, I’d rather have a massive plate of Hooters wings impregnating me with spicy chicken goodness than the Wawa Buffalo Chicken Flatbread.

Plus, I think it would be cute if the Hooters wings signed the birth certificate with a little heart.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 flatbread sandwich – 520 calories, 18 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 80 milligrams of cholesterol, 2020 milligrams of sodium, 56 grams of carbohydrates, 4 grams of fiber, 3 grams of sugar, 38 grams of protein, 10% vitamin A, 2% vitamin C, 20% calcium and 25% iron.)

Item: Wawa Buffalo Chicken Flatbread
Price: $3.99
Size: 1 flatbread
Purchased at: Wawa
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Anything Buffalo chicken flavored. Hooters waitresses signing your check with a little heart. Wawa making is possible to get my buffalo chicken fix 24/7. Comfy American Apparel t-shirts. Using buffalo sauce as war paint.
Cons: Lots of sodium and cholesterol. Not made to order. Food babies. Not spicy enough. Bleu cheese crumbles were too small. The Duggar Family. Uncomfortable American Apparel hot pants.

REVIEW: Jamba Vanilla Blueberry Pomegranate Perfection Yogurt & Sorbet Bars

Marvo 7 Comments

I’m so used to seeing Jamba Juice’s frozen smoothie delights in an insulated styrofoam cup…or strategically placed on certain parts of my body when the temperature reaches 90 degrees Fahrenheit or above. So I find it a little strange to be consuming a frozen Jamba product in the form of the Jamba Vanilla Blueberry Pomegranate Perfection Yogurt & Sorbet Bars.

Since it comes in a yogurt bar form, there aren’t any cups or straws to deal with. There also aren’t any chunks of fruits at the bottom of the cup that I try to suck up with the straw, which end up kind of clogging the straw, so in order to get the piece of fruit dislodged I suck harder, but by doing so it shoots the fruit chunk out of the straw so quickly that it flies to the back of my throat and I choke on it. But for a brief second, I know what it’s like being a porn starlet.

The Jamba Vanilla Blueberry Pomegranate Perfection Yogurt & Sorbet Bars combine a pomegranate sorbet with small bits of blueberries and vanilla yogurt. The pomegranate and blueberry bring the tart, while the yogurt brings the creamy and tangy. I thought the combination of pomegranate and blueberry would make the bars extremely tart, but it was surprisingly subdued. Actually, I could mostly taste the pomegranate. The only times I could taste the blueberry was when I bit into one of the small bits of blueberries, but there weren’t enough of them so that they were in every bite.

Despite the lack of blueberry flavor, I thought the bars had a pleasant combination of tart and tangy. The flavors weren’t overpowering, and combining that with the subdued tartness, I thought these bars were a great light and creamy snack.

While the bars don’t contain a Jamba Boost, like their energy or immunity boost, the yogurt does contain probiotic cultures and something called prebiotic fiber. Since both help with digestion, I’d recommend not eating all four bars in the box in one sitting, unless you’re one of those people who already change their underwear several times a day. The bars, according to the box they came in, are a “good source of vitamin C.” But if you consider 10 percent as a “good source,” then you are either the Food and Drug Administration or a music executive negotiating the musician’s cut from album sales.

The Jamba Vanilla Blueberry Pomegranate Perfection Yogurt & Sorbet Bars make me glad I don’t have to deal with cups, straws and small chunks of fruit flying towards the back of my throat if I’m looking for a Jamba fix. It’s definitely better than whatever this was.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – 90 calories, 1 gram of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 25 milligrams of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 13 grams of sugar, 1 gram of protein, 10% calcium and 10% vitamin C.)

Item: Jamba Vanilla Blueberry Pomegranate Perfection Yogurt & Sorbet Bars
Price: $4.99
Size: 4 bars
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 7 out of 10
Pros: Nice creamy treat. Nice combination of tart and tangy. Not extremely tart. 90 calories per bar. Yogurt contains probiotic cultures. Made with real fruit. It seems like no artificial sweeteners were used. No high fructose corn syrup. Contains probiotic cultures and prebiotic fiber.
Cons: Hard to detect blueberry. Long frickin’ name. Despite what the box says, NOT a good source of vitamin C. Not available at Jamba Juice locations. Music executives screwing musicians with pathetic cuts from album sales, unless those musicians suck.

REVIEW: Wendy’s Spicy Chipotle Boneless Wings

Kelley 8 Comments

Wendy’s has recently added a new flavor to their line of boneless chicken wings – Spicy Chipotle. Their website describes them as “made from 100% all-white meat chicken breast, delicately breaded and hand-tossed in a sauce made with real chipotle peppers, dark chili powder, and a touch of amber honey.”

Before even trying these “wings,” I have a bone to pick (queue laugh track) with this product. First of all, fast food establishments are notorious for offering “spicy” menu items that are, well…not spicy. I guess they figure the American public can’t handle anything with more kick than a slice of pepper jack cheese. Second, I am soooo over chipotle. Like pomegranate, it’s one of those tired foodie trends that every chef on the Food Network loves to trot out and explain in detail, like you’ve never heard of a dried jalapeño pepper before and it’s going to BLOW YOUR MIND. Thirdly, there’s no such thing as boneless chicken wings. You know what a boneless chicken wing is? It’s a chicken nugget. You can’t fool me, Wendy’s. I was going to make a tasteless zombie Dave Thomas joke here, but he always seemed like a pretty cool guy, so I guess I’ll just leave it at that.

When I first tasted these chicken nugg- chicken boneless wings, my first thought was, hey, at least the chicken’s not bad. I’d rank it above some of the other fast food chicken nuggets I’ve had. My second thought was, I can barely taste the sauce. Half of my “wings” were glopped up with the sticky stuff, and the other half looked practically naked. And not the good kind of naked, like doing an innocent Google image search for Padma Lakshmi and getting more than you expected. Luckily, there was a bunch of it gathered in what I can only describe as a thick sea of slime at the bottom of the tray, so I could smear my naked nuggets around in that, like two ladies wrestling in a tub of half-melted Jell-O. Maybe Padma Lakshmi and Aida Mollenkamp? Only because I’d like to see Padma beat the pretty out of Aida.

My third thought, after I’d gotten a decent amount of sauce and also guaranteed at least one of my laptop keys would now stick forever (from the sauce, pervs), was that I wasn’t actually sure I’d gotten the right flavor of boneless wings. Wendy’s offers two other flavors – Honey BBQ and Sweet & Spicy Asian – and as I sat here, I honestly couldn’t tell what flavor I’d gotten. I’ve never had the two other products, but all three have a distinct “sweet and spicy/smokey/spicy and smokey” vibe, and that’s pretty much all I could tell about the flavor of this sauce. It was a little sweet. It was…maybe a little smokey? Did I detect what passes for spicy somewhere in there?

I figured I’d check the receipt to see if it at least said I’d gotten the right menu item, not that it means anything. I looked in the bag…no receipt. I was on my own. I dredged my finger along the bottom of the tray, pulling up a big glob of the sauce. It was dark orange, with some little speckles in it…could that be the chili powder? I sucked the sauce off my finger, trying to forget my earlier Jell-O wrestling comments. With no chicken in the way, I definitely detected more spice, a little smokiness, and a sweet honey taste. Okay, I’m pretty sure I got the right stuff. And I don’t mean The Right Stuff.

It’s hard to imagine a sauce with chipotle, chili powder and honey in it, that does indeed have elements of spice, smokiness, and sweetness, could be bland, but Wendy’s Spicy Chipotle sauce manages to accomplish this feat. The chicken itself is actually of quite good quality for a chicken nugget (or boneless wing), but I’d rather be dipping it in something like a spicy mustard than have it covered in gooey, uninteresting chipotle sauce. The flavors just aren’t bold enough to pop, and the texture is a little off-putting. Overall, it’s a disappointing addition to Wendy’s menu.

(Nutrition Facts – 10 boneless wings – 500 calories, 180 calories from fat, 4 grams of saturated fat, 20 grams of total fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 80 milligrams of cholesterol, 1,640 milligrams of sodium, 48 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 10 grams of sugars, 33 grams of protein, 20% vitamin A, 25% vitamin C, 4% calcium and 8% iron.)

Here are other Wendy’s Spicy Chipotle Boneless Wings reviews:
Mishens Fast Food Reviews
An Immovable Feast

Item: Wendy’s Spicy Chipotle Boneless Wings
Price: $3.99, or so the Internet tells me. I have no receipt to prove that.
Size: 10 boneless wings
Purchased at: Wendy’s
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Chicken was pretty good quality. GISing Padma Lashmi. Quite a few wings for the price. Jell-O wrestling.
Cons: Sauce was too bland. Aida Mollenkamp. Half my chicken was naked. Feeling uncomfortable about sucking goo off my finger. Claims of spiciness that don’t deliver.