cheese sauce – Michael Eats

Cheesy Bacon McFlavour Fries at McDonald’s (World Menu Heist)

Published on August 21, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1001 Islington Avenue, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html

I mentioned before that the Stroopwafel McFlurry might be the most boring item in this year’s World Menu Heist. Well, the Cheesy Bacon McFlavour Fries — which are just fries, cheese sauce, and bacon — are a very close second.

Here’s how McDonald’s describes them: “France’s Cheesy Bacon McFlavour Fries have gone missing… and surfaced in Canada. Golden fries loaded with a creamy double cheddar cheese sauce and hickory-smoked bacon. Rich, indulgent, and easy to lose track of. Grab them before they’re ‘disparues’.”

(Does McDonald’s really think my French is advanced enough to know what “disparues” means? That’s very kind of them, but the sum total of my decade or so of French classes in school is that I can say “Je m’appell Michael.” (It means “missing,” BTW.))

This was… fine? It was food? I ate it? The cheese sauce is basically a slightly zestier version of Cheez Whiz, and the bacon and fries are what they are.

It likely would have been tasty enough if the fries and/or the bacon were more fresh (or fresh at all), but they were not. The bacon was off-puttingly jerky-like, and the fries were lukewarm, dry, and cardboardy.

(Didn’t the fries at McDonald’s used to get soggy when they were stale? Did they change the formula? Because even soggy fries likely would have been more satisfying here.)

I also got an order of the Truffle Flavoured Mayo Style Sauce from Sweden, which was okay. I’m not generally a fan of truffle oil, which this definitely tastes like, so it’s possible you’ll like this better if you enjoy that stuff.

It basically tasted like a thick, gloppy cream of mushroom soup with truffle oil. It wasn’t my favourite thing ever, but the fries were so dry, and so monotonous in their cheesy/salty flavour, that I still wound up using all of it.

Matty Melt Sandwich from KFC x Matty Matheson

Published on January 20, 2026January 20, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1610 The Queensway, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.kfc.ca/

KFC is making a pretty big deal out of their collaboration with celebrity chef Matty Matheson. At the location I went to, there was signage all over the restaurant, and even the bag was emblazoned with Matheson’s name. It’s in the news. People are excited!

And sure, it is kinda exciting. An ostensibly talented chef teaming up with a fast food joint? Yeah, I’m all over that.

There are three new items in this promotion: the Matty Melt Sandwich, the Matty Melt Slider, and the Matty Mega Melt Poutine. Hilariously, that poutine weighs in at a whopping 2390 calories (??), which seems like it’s probably too many calories? I briefly considered ordering this just for the novelty of it, but I just don’t think I’ve reached the level of self-loathing required to want to consume a 2400 calorie poutine from KFC. Sorry.

So I went with the Matty Melt Sandwich: “The Matty Melt Chicken Sandwich features our signature triple-breaded chicken fillet layered with cheese sauce, sweet caramelized onions, and creamy mayo, all stacked on a potato bun.”

I did not enjoy this sandwich. It’s that “cheese sauce,” which has zero cheese-like properties and is mostly just one-note salty in an oddly unpleasant way. If you served this to me blind, I never in a million years would have guessed that it was supposed to be a cheese sauce.

KFC doesn’t mention this in their description, but the only flavour there (aside from the vaguely off-putting amorphous saltiness) is truffle oil. I might be wrong, but there’s either truffle oil in there, or something that tasted a lot like truffle oil to me. I’m not particularly crazy about truffle oil, so can’t say I enjoyed this. Your milage may vary if you like the stuff more than I do.

The only other thing that differentiates this from a standard KFC sandwich are the caramelized onions. Some sweetness actually would have been nice, considering how salty the sandwich is, but I can’t say the onions added much.

It probably didn’t help that the chicken itself had obviously been sitting out for quite a while, and was dried out and chewy around the edges. This is partially my fault — the last time I visited this particular KFC location, I had a bad experience and someone commented that it was “the worst KFC in the GTA.” But that was a few years ago, and I had hoped things had gotten better since then. Clearly not! Oh well.

Double Cheesy Melt from McDonald’s

Published on January 7, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 30 Courtneypark Drive East, Mississauga
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html

I don’t think it’s possible to have too much cheese on a fast food cheeseburger. Generally speaking, I want the beef to be the star of a hamburger, even a cheeseburger, but a fast food burger with fast-food-quality beef patties? Sure, pile on the cheese. The more the better.

And McDonald’s definitely piles on the cheese with this one. Here’s how they describe it: “Two juicy 100% Canadian beef patties with a delicious cheesy sauce, two processed cheese slices, grilled onions, crispy onions and pickles on a warm toasted sesame seed split bun.”

I think the fact that they’re using smaller patties rather than the Quarter Pounder patties that you might expect really helps to tip the cheese-to-beef balance in favour of the cheese. The cheese isn’t kidding around here, that’s for sure.

I liked it. The cheese sauce tastes exactly how you want it to taste: extremely processed, but in a satisfying way. The grilled onions are a nice touch, and make the burger feel a bit more deluxe than your typical McDonald’s fare. And the crispy onions, as always, are tasty and add some nice texture.

I will say that I wish there were more pickles in the burger, or some sauce other than the cheese. The pickles do a great job of rounding things out by cutting through the richness of the cheese, but they’re not in every mouthful; the pickle-free bites feel like they’re missing something.

Big Rösti at McDonald’s (The International Menu Heist)

Published on June 30, 2025June 30, 2025 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2736 Lakeshore Boulevard West, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html

I’ve now tried every item featured in McDonald’s International Menu Heist (aside from the Sweet Tangy Chili Dip), and it looks like I’ve saved the best for last. The Big Rösti from Germany? Quite tasty!

Here’s how McDonald’s describes it: “Picture a beautifully beefy burger, hickory-smoked bacon, melt-in-your-mouth processed cheese, delicious cheese sauce, and the jewel in the bun: our golden ‘Rösti’ hash brown. Served on a fluffy bun topped with rolled oats, it’s time to say ‘Willkommen.'”

The cheese sauce here is interesting; it’s more like cheese-flavoured mayo than the Cheez-Whiz-esque sauce that you might expect, but it works. It’s nice and zippy, with a noticeable cheesy flavour.

The Quarter Pounder patty was quite dry, but there was enough of that tasty sauce to (mostly) cancel this out.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had a burger with a hash brown on it, but it works surprisingly well — it adds some nice crispiness, and helps to round out the saltiness from the cheese sauce and the bacon.

The placement of the cheese slice was odd, however; it’s on top of the bacon and the hash brown rather than the burger, which means that it doesn’t get particularly melty. That’s a shame, but everything else here is tasty enough that this never feels like a huge deal.

Tasty Dipped Sandwiches at Hot Dip

Published on June 27, 2021 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1186 Queen Street West, Toronto
Website: https://www.instagram.com/hotdiptoronto/

Hot Dip is a new sandwich shop on Queen Street that specializes in meaty sandwiches you can dip into things, and yeah, gimme that. That’s a genius idea.

They actually only have four sandwiches on the menu (at the moment, at least), which I appreciate. I always freeze like a deer in headlights when I see a menu with dozens of things on it — I know that everything on this huge menu cannot possibly be great, so just tell me what the good stuff is and what I can ignore.

Focusing on only a few things solves this problem entirely.

I ordered the Hot Dip (because you should always get the menu item that shares a name with the restaurant) which is a roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo topped with crispy onions and served on a pretzel roll. The dip, in this case, is sharp cheddar.

It’s a very good sandwich. The thinly-sliced roast beef is super tender with a nice beefy flavour, and there’s a generous amount of it — the menu says eight ounces (i.e. half a pound, i.e. a lot of beef), and based on how substantial the sandwich is, I have no reason to believe they’re skimping on the meat.

The pretzel roll is just as good as the beef. Sometimes pretzel bread can be a bit on the dense side, but this struck a great balance between softness and heft, with a lightly crispy exterior.

As for the dip, weirdly enough it’s the weakest part of the sandwich. Despite being called “sharp cheddar” it has a thoroughly mild flavour — it basically has the taste and texture of watered-down Cheez Whiz. It mostly just adds moisture to the sandwich, but between the fresh bread and the tender meat, it doesn’t particularly need it.

My other big issue: it’s an incredibly heavy sandwich, and it really needs something acidic to cut through the overwhelming richness. I guess the horseradish mayo is supposed to fill this role? But it’s completely overwhelmed by all the beef; you can barely even tell that it’s there. It’s certainly not a deal-killer (it’s still very tasty), but it makes the sandwich feel a bit one-note rich, which is a shame.