Location: 1001 Islington Avenue, Etobicoke
Website: https://www.mcdonalds.com/ca/en-ca.html
I’ll admit that the Raptor Chicken Nacho Poutine kind of sent me into an existential panic. Like, where did I go wrong in my life that I’m sitting alone in a McDonald’s on a Friday evening, scarfing down an ill-advised novelty poutine so I can review it for my food blog? What wrong turn did I make to get here?
The Raptor Chicken Nacho Poutine is not good. But hey, I ate it. It caused me to look deep down inside myself and not like what I see, but I did eat it and finish it, so of course I’m going to blog about it. Otherwise what was it all for??
Here’s how McDonald’s describes this thing: “this new offering is made with 100% Canadian-raised seasoned chicken, our World Famous Fries™ layered with stringy cheese curds and savoury gravy, topped with tortilla strips and drizzled with nacho cheese sauce.”
Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit about how bad this is. It’s not gross, I guess, but I didn’t find anything about eating it to be particularly pleasant. It’s mostly just an odd hodgepodge of flavours and textures that don’t particularly belong together.
I think the nacho cheese sauce is the worst offender. I actually like nacho cheese sauce, but combined with the gravy and curds it had an odd sourness that I found off-putting. The tortilla strips were fine, but again, they just seemed odd in the context of a poutine.
As for the big chunks of chicken that they had plopped on top — like everything else, they’re just kinda there, doing their own thing. They don’t really add anything to the dish.
Then there’s the poutine base, which is fine, but I don’t think McDonald’s has a great poutine in the best of times, and this was certainly not the best of times (the fact that the fries were paler and soggier than usual didn’t help).
Michael Eats 