Could you hold the oven cleaner please?
Written: May 22 '00
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Tastey food the same throughout the world
Cons: Don't always know what goes on in the kitchen
|
|
|
| jnbmoore's Full Review: Burger King |
Another fast food review. What more can we say about Burger King?
Burger King hamburgers are flame broiled, compared to McDonald's that made on a grill. But there has to be more reason to choose one over the other.
For me personally it's that Burger King whopper comes with more veggies on them and I just like the flavor better. But that's not enough to base a review on. More information is required. Then there's the fact that Burger King is the one that had the Barry Manilow penned slogan "Special Orders don't upset, Have it your way." I don't get strange looks when I order something without pickles. Most locations also don't charge a cheese burger price (like they do at McDonalds) when I want a grilled cheese for my daughter.
There are a few areas, though; I'd like to touch upon:
Taiwan
In Taiwan Burger King was a staple. "Ham-bow Wang" sponsored the Taiwan Top Twenty every week on the local station - ICRT.
But most Taiwan Burger Kings had one thing odd. The food looked flame broiled but there were no grills in the kitchen - just microwaves. Daily they would get their hamburgers pre-cooked delivered. When you ordered your sandwich they would "nuke" the meat for you and make your sandwich that way. You were always guaranteed a warm sandwich, you just never knew how long it was that the meat was first prepared. One nice thing though, was the way most of the Burger Kings were designed you could see right into the kitchen so you knew what was going on with your food.
All stores had a nice bilingual picture menu that made it a lot easier to order.
The only problem I ever had in a Burger King in Taiwan was biting into a chicken sandwich after we had gotten take-away and noticing a strange texture. My entire bun bottom was green and fuzzy. Yuck. I spat it out and went and visited the grill guy on the corner and had some chicken butts instead. Much tastier than pre-penicillin bread..
Ireland
Last October I went to Ireland with my husband on business. We never found Irish Stew and would sometimes tire of garlic mushrooms and egg mayonnaise salad with every meal. Before Bible Study at the Baptist Church in a town called Athlone, we'd need to eat quickly. If you've ever been to Ireland, not much is quick there. Relaxed and laid-back are better adjectives. So we'd hit the Burger King at the mall (that still allowed smoking through out - needed to use an inhaler every time we entered - but that's another rant). The best meal there was the veggie burger. Both McDonald's and BK had veggie burgers in the UK and Ireland; but by far BK's was much better. It seemed to be made of mushrooms and tofu, but it was very delicious (and contained much less fat than any beef burger).
In the Kid's meals in Ireland, besides a toy there was also a lollipop for the child and most locations we visited had balloons.
Children
Currently Burger King has two kinds of kids' meals. The regular kids meal (hamburger, cheeseburger, or 4 chicken tenders), small fries, and small drink with a prize. Or a Big Kids meal which can come with a double hamburger, double cheeseburger, or 6 chicken tenders).
Burger King and McDonalds seem to go head to head competing for the best prizes. They have both done the Teletubby thing. My daughter ended up with the entire Wild Thornberry play set - she really loved the Donnie in a tree. The idea of this one was you snapped together a few pieces of plastic and then moved a tree limb. It would cause the Donnie to climb the tree, when he reached the top, he'd go down a slide until the got the base of the tree where he'd climb the tree again. After a month of tough play, the toy finally died, but she was playing with it an hour at a time.
The other great thing about BK at least for the small crowd are the paper crowns. My daughter loves to get the crowns. Sometimes we take them home and decorate, other times she just wears them wherever she goes. She loves the BK at the mall that has all the hats stacked up and she can just grab one and go. Sometimes she even remembers to go to the front of the counter and thank them.
Scottsville Plaza
On the New York Thruway there are different restaurant rest stops. The one near our house has a Burger King that's been in the news lately. It seems that over the last NINE months a group of employees there have been board or something with their job. So these 18 and 19-year-olds product of our current society have decided that they wanted to add extra flavorings to the Burger King's food - they've been adding urine, saliva, and OVEN CLEANER to people's food. The health department is trying to make us feel better by saying that the heat used to cook the hamburgers should kill most of the stuff in the urine and salvia. But the way this was discovered was the Oven Cleaner was used on a sheriff deputy's hamburger. The caustic substance has caused "problems" (The local paper didn't provide much information on this) in his throat and he has missed some work.
They don't know how many people may have gotten sick from these three due to the fact that since this is a throughway BK, most of the customers were travelers and may have been hundreds of miles away before they realized there was a problem.
I said that was one thing I liked about BK's in Taiwan - you could see the entire kitchen area. At this BK, you couldn't see the kitchen at all. The food just came out from the back. It makes my stomach queasy thinking of the times I ate there.
Overview
Burger King is like any international chain. No matter where you go, everything tastes the same even though the menu may vary by location. McDonald's may have better fries, but BK's sandwiches are better - as long as they don't have the additives found in Scottsville Plaza. Just the thought of those, has put me off of any food I didn't prepare in my kitchen right now. But on the road or if I need a break and it comes down to the Golden Arches, BK usually wins. Now if I could just get into the kitchen to supervise I'd feel much better.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.