fast food – Page 3 – Michael Eats

Choco Frosted Donut Blizzard and Cinnamon Toast Crunch Dipped Cone at Dairy Queen

Published on May 2, 2026May 17, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 5369 Dundas Street West, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.dairyqueen.com/en-ca/

Dairy Queen recently came out with a “Breakfast Collection,” which includes a Choco Frosted Donut Blizzard, a Fruity Pebbles Shake, and a Cinnamon Toast Crunch Dipped Cone.

Is a doughnut breakfast? I mean, I guess anything can be breakfast if want it to be, but if you’re regularly waking up and housing a doughnut or two, I’m not sure how many more years of eating breakfast (or just existing) you’ve got left.

But sure, for the sake of this exercise, let’s say a doughnut is breakfast, because that’s the one I tried. The Choco Frosted Donut Blizzard, as per Dairy Queen’s website: “Chocolate frosted donut pieces and DQ Signature Sprinkles are blended with our world-famous soft serve to Blizzard perfection.”

I actually liked this way more than I thought I would. I’m not sure if putting chopped up doughnuts into ice cream would even work (I feel like they’d get too hard and/or their flavour would be lost), but that’s not quite what they do here — instead, there are chewy, cookie-dough-like pieces that actually do a pretty great job of tasting doughnut-like enough that you know exactly what you’re eating.

The sprinkles don’t add much, but there are enough of those tasty doughnut bits to make this a thoroughly enjoyable Blizzard.

UPDATE: I went back and tried the Cinnamon Toast Crunch Dipped Cone (“First, we take our world-famous vanilla soft serve and dip it into a warm, rich cinnamon cereal-flavoured cone coating with crunchy cereal bits. To top it off, we add a generous dusting of sweet Cinnadust”). As usual with a dipped cone, the first bite was the best, but I enjoyed this. It has a pronounced cinnamon/sugar flavour, and does a respectable job of replicating the flavour of the classic cereal.

Spicy Avocado Bacon Chicken Sandwich from Jollibee

Published on April 27, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 800 Boyer Boulevard, Mississauga (inside Seafood City Supermarket)
Website: http://jollibeecanada.com/

I’ll give the Spicy Avocado Bacon Chicken Sandwich one thing: they’re not stingy with the avocado. Typically with a fast food sandwich featuring avocado, you need to pull out a magnifying glass to spot the stuff, but there’s actually a generous amount of it here.

As for the rest of the sandwich? Uh…

Here’s how Jollibee describes it: “Our New Spicy Avocado Bacon Chicken Sandwich starts with a crispy, juicy, hand-breaded chicken breast fillet, topped with hickory-smoked bacon, creamy Hass avocado, fresh jalapeños, crisp lettuce, and spicy sriracha mayo, served on a toasted brioche bun.”

It’s fine, mostly, but it’s a bit of a salt bomb. Between the salty chicken and the salty bacon, and with nothing sweet to balance things out, it’s a lot. The chicken was pretty dry, which somehow made the saltiness issue seem more pronounced (the fact that I had to wait 15 minutes in a mostly empty restaurant for this thing, only for it to be clearly not fresh, just added insult to injury).

The sandwich is also not particularly spicy, which is a shame. The spice level is there, but it’s quite mild.

Otherwise, it was okay. The chicken had a nice exterior crunchiness, the combo of bacon and avocado is certainly a tasty one, and the bun was nice and fresh. It’s fine, but I can’t say I’m particularly keen to run out and buy another one.

Also: the sandwich cost $13.99 before tax (!!), which might make it the most expensive fried chicken sandwich in the GTA (at least outside of restaurants with waiter service). Even local joints like PG Clucks and the Michelin-noted Chica’s Chicken are cheaper by a buck or two.

Shake Shack x Pizzeria Badiali

Published on April 13, 2026April 13, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 3401 Dufferin Street, North York (inside Yorkdale)
Website: https://shakeshack.ca/

I guess Shake Shack collaborating with a local restaurant is becoming a yearly tradition, because they did it with Mimi Chinese at around this time last year, and now they’re doing it again with Badiali.

(Badiali, in case you’ve been living under a rock, is maybe the best pizza place in the city? Clearly, this is a collaboration I can get behind.)

Up first, the Spicy Vodka Chicken Parm: “Crispy, white-meat chicken breast layered over a Badiali and Shake Shack hot pepper mix, topped with Badiali’s spicy vodka rosé sauce, aged parmesan cheese, sliced mozzarella, and fresh basil on a toasted potato bun.”

This was mostly quite tasty — I mean, you can put Badiali’s rich, creamy vodka sauce on pretty much anything and it’ll taste good, so yeah, of course. The combo of that, the slightly gooey cheese, and the zippy pepper mix is a clear winner.

But the fried chicken itself was overcooked and quite dry — I was honestly having a tough time even biting through it in spots. So that was a shame.

There’s also the Pizza Fries: “Crispy crinkle cut fries dusted with Badiali pizza seasoning and aged parmesan cheese, served with Badiali’s signature housemade pepperoncini dip.”

I’m not sure if the “pizza seasoning” adds a whole lot here (and the teeny-tiny bit of parmesan definitely doesn’t add anything), but the fries are tasty and the pepperoncini dip is zippy and creamy (if a bit more muted in flavour than the version I had at Badiali a couple of years ago).

Finally, there’s the Brio Chinotto Shake: “Vanilla frozen custard blended with Brio’s classic bittersweet Chinotto flavour.”

This was a bit thin (the texture was more like very rich chocolate milk), but the taste was really nice; it has an interesting, almost gingerbread-like flavour and a mild bitterness that helps to round out the sweetness.

The New, Improved Whopper at Burger King

Published on April 9, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 6010 Dixie Road, Mississauga
Website: https://www.burgerking.ca/

Burger King has come out with a new “better than ever” Whopper and… it’s fine? It’s a Whopper? I don’t know what to tell you.

Here’s how Burger King describes it: “Already BK Canada’s most iconic burger, the Whopper has been further refined to deliver an even better experience. Made with more than a 1/4lb of 100% flame-grilled beef and hand-cut produce, the Whopper is now served on a more premium, better tasting bun and in a box to help ensure it makes it to Guests exactly the way it left the kitchen.”

The news stories about this thing also mention a new mayo, but the Canadian press release doesn’t have a peep about that, so I’m guessing that part didn’t come to Canada.

About a month ago, when the news first came out and before the new Whopper was introduced here, I went and had an old Whopper so I could compare the two, and it was perfectly pleasant. It came wrapped in paper but wasn’t smushed at all, and the bun was fine. Maybe a bit too sweet and dense, but totally acceptable.

The biggest issue was the burger patty itself, which is not being improved, but probably should; it had that smoky flavour you associate with Burger King, which is nice, but it was extremely dry.

As for the new Whopper, I think maybe the bun was slightly more plush, but otherwise they both tasted exactly the same. It’s possible that if I had eaten them side by side, the differences would have been more apparent, but a month apart they were basically identical. The old one? Fine. The new one? Also fine. Perfectly acceptable fast food hamburger, but definitely not my first choice.

Sweet Heat Honey Garlic Chicken Strips from Wendy’s

Published on March 25, 2026March 25, 2026 by Michael NusairLeave a comment

Location: 44 Britannia Road East, Mississauga
Website: https://www.wendys.com/en-ca

This is going to sound like an insane thing to say about a fast food item that has the words “sweet” and “honey” in its name, but the Sweet Heat Honey Garlic Chicken Strips from Wendy’s? Too sweet.

Yeah, that’s right — I said it.

Here’s how Wendy’s describes them: “100% Canadian, white-meat chicken strips flipped & dipped in a honey garlic sauce with ranch dip. Perfectly sweet with just a touch of heat. Like a good date.”

I should note that I quite enjoyed these things, despite their intense sweetness. As advertised, they’re sweet and garlicky, with just a little bit of spice — it’s enough that you’ll know it’s there, but it’s not exactly going to put any sweat on your brow. They also have a nice tanginess that theoretically should round out the sweetness, but really, nothing can put a dent in how sweet these things are. It’s intense.

They actually reminded me a lot of something you might find at Manchu Wok or Panda Express, like General Tso’s chicken or something along those lines. It seems like the type of thing you should be eating with rice (which would do a nice job of mellowing out its flavour).

They come with ranch on the side; this adds a nice creaminess, but its flavour is mostly obliterated by the intense sweet tanginess of the sauce.

As for the chicken strips themselves, I got lucky with a well-prepared batch — the chicken was nice and fresh and not dry at all. It was sauced to order, which meant that the exterior kept its crunch despite being absolutely doused in the sweet, sticky sauce. Despite my reservations about how sugary these things are, I still quite enjoyed eating them.