fast food – Page 13 – Michael Eats

Beyond Sausage Egg and Cheese from Tim Hortons

Published on July 12, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 2960 South Sheridan Way, Oakville
Website: https://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/index.php

The fake meat gold rush continues; I think it’s safe to say that, before long, all of the fast food chains will have imitation meats from places like Beyond Meat or Impossible Foods on their menus.

Tim Hortons is the latest, with three new breakfast sandwiches featuring sausage that looks and tastes like sausage — but isn’t.

I tried the Beyond Meat burger from A&W last summer, and I thought it vaguely approximated real meat, but wasn’t going to fool anyone.

The Beyond Sausage at Tim Hortons is much more convincing.

I got the Egg and Cheese, which features a Beyond Sausage patty, an omelette patty, and processed cheese on an English muffin.

The sausage certainly isn’t great, but it convincingly tastes like an actual sausage — a mediocre sausage, mind you, but if I hadn’t known it was fake meat, I wouldn’t have guessed. That’s impressive.

(Of course, emulating a lousy, ultra-processed sausage is much, much easier than emulating one that actually tastes good, but one step at a time, I guess?)

There was something about the spicing that I found vaguely unappealing, and the flavour was particularly aggressive, presumably to cover up the lack of a meaty flavour. But for the most part, it’s decent enough.

The texture is dead-on. Unlike the Beyond Meat burger I had at A&W, it’s not mushy at all. It’s a bit dry, and no one’s going to confuse it for a decent quality sausage, but the texture is basically identical to the type of mediocre sausage you’ll find at a place like Tim Hortons. I was surprised at how close it got.

Otherwise, the sandwich was typical Tim Hortons, which is to say it was pretty lousy — the cheese was barely melted, the omelette was rubbery, and the English muffin was dense and dry.

Cupfections at Dairy Queen

Published on July 5, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5449 Dundas Street West, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.dairyqueen.com/ca-en/

Though Dairy Queen comes out with new Blizzards on a regular basis, new sundaes are much more rare. Maybe once or twice a year? If that?

They recently came out with not one, but two new sundaes called Cupfections; obviously I was all over it.

There’s the Brownie and Oreo Cupfection, and the Summer Berry Cake Cupfection. I tried the latter, which comes topped with berries (blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries), vanilla cake, and chocolate pieces.

It’s basically a trifle, but with a whole bunch of ice cream instead of custard.

So yeah, it’s good. I think if you replace any component in a dessert with a whole bunch of ice cream, you’re pretty much guaranteed to wind up with something delicious. The soft serve at Dairy Queen isn’t exactly great, but with all that other stuff, it’s tasty.

I watched the guy make it, and it was kind of interesting — I assumed the cake would just be cake crumbs, but he actually pulled out a full sheet cake from the fridge (frosting and all) and then dug into it with an ice cream scoop.

It would have been nice if the berries weren’t so cold (they were partially frozen), but otherwise this was a tasty dessert. I think it’s a summer-only thing, which is too bad — it would be a solid addition to the permanent menu.

Bacon Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich at Wendy’s

Published on July 2, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 1520 Aimco Boulevard, Mississauga
Website: https://www.wendys.com/en-ca/home

The Bacon Jalapeno Chicken Sandwich from Wendy’s has pretty much everything I like in a fast food sandwich; it’s got gooey cheese (with both a melty cheese slice and cheese sauce), bacon, jalapenos, crispy fried onions, pickled jalapeno slices, and a smoky japaleno sauce.

So yeah, it’s good. They’d have to work pretty hard to mess it up.

The worst part about this chicken sandwich is, funnily enough, the chicken. The sandwich features their Spicy Chicken patty, and they keep it in one of those warming drawers (AKA the fast food ruiner).

So it’s dry, of course. It’s also a little bit too salty, and thoroughly infused with a vaguely unpleasant processed flavour.

The toppings are so abundant, however, that it’s barely even an issue. I only had one or two bites that weren’t crammed with stuff.

You’ve got the richness from the cheeses, crispiness from the fried onions, zestiness from the sauce, a nice meaty bite from the bacon, and a good amount of acidity from the jalapenos to help cut through the sandwich’s richness. It’s quite tasty.

It also has a decent kick to it — it’s nothing too aggressive, but for something from a fast food joint, it’s not bad.

Fish and Chips at McDonald’s

Published on June 14, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 25 The West Mall, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html

I just posted about the Nanaimo Bar McFlurry, which is part of McDonald’s soon-to-end (on the 17th) Great Canadian Tastes promotion. And now I’ve tried the other item in that menu, Fish and Chips. Because of course I did. What did you think, that McDonald’s was going to introduce fish and chips and I wasn’t going to try it?? Get out of here.

It’s fine, I guess. When I first heard about it, I assumed they were just going to throw a Filet-O-Fish patty on some fries and call it a day, but this isn’t that.

The meal comes with two pieces of fried haddock that basically taste like any number of middle-of-the-road frozen fish filets you can get at the supermarket (it’s not reconstituted fish pieces, so it’s got that going for it).

They’re nice and crispy, and when I had them at least, they were freshly fried — but they definitely have that distinctive processed flavour that lets you know they were made in a big factory many miles away and then frozen.

The fish itself was dry, but it could have been worse. Like I said, it was fine. Not great, but perfectly edible.

The meal comes with a little tub of tartar sauce, which is zippy and surprisingly oniony. I wasn’t crazy about that (raw onions are the worst; why everyone thinks they’re acceptable to eat is a complete mystery to me), but it was definitely a bit more interesting than you’d expect.

Nanaimo Bar McFlurry at McDonald’s

Published on June 12, 2019June 12, 2019 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

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

This is kind of old news at this point, but McDonald’s currently has a Great Canadian Tastes promotion going (until the 17th of June, so don’t dilly dally if you want to sample it and haven’t yet), which includes fish and chips and a Nanaimo Bar McFlurry.

I’ve only tried the McFlurry so far, and it’s not bad. I don’t think I would have guessed that it was supposed to taste like a Nanaimo bar, but it’s decent enough for what it is.

It’s intensely sweet — but then a Nanaimo bar is also super sweet, so on that level at least, it resembles what it’s supposed to be.

The easiest way to make this would have been to just mix Nanaimo bar chunks into ice cream, but instead, this features coconut graham crumbs, cocoa, chocolate chips, and hot fudge sauce.

Chocolate is clearly the dominant flavour here, with lots of sauce and a healthy amount of graham cracker bits. The bits have a mild coconut and chocolate flavour, and add a satisfying amount of crunchiness.

There’s also a vague underlying toffee flavour, but for the most part, this thing is just chocolatey and sweet. It’s tasty enough, but if you’re craving that distinctive Nanaimo bar flavour, you’re probably going to be disappointed.