Prosperity Burger from McDonald’s - $3.50

Any Malaysian McDonald’s

 

I’M BACK! For no good reason, really. The blog owner’s being a lazy a-hole and not keeping this site updated so why should I. But when I bought the Prosperity Burger I immediately thought of this blog and my previous post.

So here we go. The last post was about the DOUBLE Prosperity Burger, which somehow is not making a comeback this year. No matter, the regular is fine too. The usual McD’s critique, meat that doesn’t quite taste like beef (way too tender), black pepper sauce that tastes a little powdery, and of course the black pepper itself which I’m not a fan of. The diced onions were still crunchy so I guess that’s a plus point. Since this burger is more oval than it is round, it’s decidedly more filling than regular single-patty burgers.

It came with curly fries and coke, both not pictured. I’m not the biggest fan of this burger, or anything with black pepper really, but this is a seasonal set so I kinda HAVE to have it at least once a year to pay my dues to Ronald.

Grilled Chicken Sandwich from Chick-fil-A - $???

1101 Quintilio Drive, Bear, DE - 302.843.4816

I can't really say that I'm too fond of tomato on chicken sandwiches, but they found a way to make it work with TWO of them. I'm pretty sure the juiciness of the chicken made me forget all about it. Oh, and waffle fries for the side in the meal deal? That's money.

Bacon Cheese Dog from Five Guys - $???

1249 Quintilio Drive, Bear, DE - 302.832.7555

Here's the bacon cheese dog to follow up the bacon cheeseburger. I gotta say, not really much difference.

Bacon Cheeseburger from Five Guys - $???

1249 Quintilio Drive, Bear, DE - 302.832.7555

As soon as you step in the front door, you'll realize Five Guys seems very proud of their numerous accolades. That was reassuring because it was actually word of mouth that brought me there.

I asked the cashier to order me his favorite item(s) on the menu and he introduced me to their bacon cheeseburger (and the bacon cheese dog, to be discussed in another post). Now, even with all the hype behind this burger, I can happily say I wasn't disappointed.... buuuuuuuuuuut I still think it's overrated. I mean, sure, the burger was mouthwatering, but I couldn't distinguish anything special about it. It was a while ago that I ate that burger, but I remember thinking that that was what I'd expect from the amount of money I paid. So yea, if you're looking for a solid, greasy meal, then this will hit the spot.

Oh, and one more note. Their fries were WAAAAAAAAAAAY too salty. Maybe I got a bad batch. I don't know. But it was definitely a bad first impression.

Crunchy Breaded Pork Lauriat from Chow King- $2

All over Philippines.

Remember when I said this was going to be the last Philippine post? I lied. I decided bad Chinese food is worth posting about too. Philippines has a chain (they like chains) of fast food restaurants serving Chinese food.

Take a moment to let that sink in. I think this is weird as fudge, because to me, fast food is almost a food category in itself… So Chinese fast food sounds as weird as “car bike”. But since I have actually seen half-car half-bike vehicles before, I guess Chinese fast food can exist in this dimension without destroying the space-time continuum.

Observe, the Lauriat set… I don’t know what Lauriat means… but I take it as “set meal” or “meal”. Or “set”. I ordered the Crunchy Breaded Pork Lauriat w/ New Ube Sioplet, other options include the Crispy Fish Fillet Lauriat w/ New Monggo Sioplet. All kindsa funny language there. 

Firstly, Sioplet is all wrong. I think they are trying to say “mini” pau, pau being Chinese for bun, in Chinese it'’s called “Siu Pau”. They got that right (spelt Siopao in the menu). But this is the mini version, so I guess the are trying to say “Pau-let”… however, they went with “Sioplet”… which doesn’t make ANY sense as all. They cut “Siopao” in between the p and the a! Like pork cuts… and the mini version, they call porkculets…. I mean you put the “let” at a meaningful position, not stab it in the middle of a word.

Anyways. Ube, I’m guessing is Tagalog for taro, cos the bun is purple. On the plate I have crispy breaded pork, prawn crackers, chow mein, the Sioplet®, and rice.

This sucked. I wouldn’t order this ever again. I would probably give Chow King a miss entirely too.

For your viewing pleasure, I’ve put a pic of what my friend ordered too. I think it’s the Spare Ribs with rice. Don’t ask me how it tastes like, but from the Lauriat I had…. I’m inclined to think that it sucked too.

PS: At least it was cheap.

Double Cheeseburger from McDonald’s - $1.50

All over Philippines.

Not much to say about this one, except that it was my very first meal of 2009. For comparison’s sake I got a very unadventurous Double Cheeseburger Value Meal from McD’s. It tastes and looks exactly the same as I what I get in Malaysia. The same goes for the fries and Coke, obviously.

I also got a Taro Pie, which is quite new to me, and I’d welcome this addition to the McD’s pie family in Malaysia (which includes apple, banana and at one point, pineapple).  Taro btw is yam, and if you still have a puzzled look, you should to google it. You get it a lot in chinese cooking.

My friend was slight more adventurous and went for something more Filipino, with the Chicken McDo & McSpaghetti. Ok adventurous may not be the best word to describe this, but you get the idea. McDo must be their short name for McDonald’s as you will find their   website is www.mcdo.com.ph, that or they think fried chicken is the flagship McDonald’s dish in the Philippines.

I heard the spaghetti is sweeter than it should be, and the fried chicken tasted like fried chicken. I wasn’t sure what to expect walking into a McD’s in Philippines, now I know it’s not that much different from what we are all used to.

My next post will be the last from my Philippines trip. I have a lot more pics, but because they are so similar (to each other) as well as to chinese food, I decided to give them a pass. Also most of them are more snack-like than a proper meal. Maybe I’ll post them in a batch next time. But what I’m posting next, well that was one of my culinary missions before going to Philippines, so you can imagine how happy I was to find it on my very last day, also the reason why it’s the last post.

 

 

Yum with Cheese Value Meal from Jollibee - $1.70?

All around the Philippines.

So Jollibee is Philippines’ answer to McDonald’s. That’s not to say they are short on McD’s. Or KFC or Wendy’s or whatever other American fast food chain you can think of. They LOVE their fast food. And they have a major sweet tooth too, desserts, donuts, everything.

We were stuck in Cebu City on New Year’s eve, so to make the best of it I picked a mall from my Lonely Planet guide and headed there, hoping to find a few bars to drink 2008 away. Nothing against Cebu, I was just thinking I’d be celebrating new year’s AWAY from a city for once. I picked Ayala Center for its newly constructed Terrace area, aptly called The Terraces. Being open air, maybe there would be a few bars and some fireworks. I mean it’s a mall right? There HAS to be a bar that’s open to celebrate New Year’s. You will find a bar (or 5) in every mall in Malaysia, and come Xmas or NY’s they’ll stay open till after countdown. That apparently is not how it works in the Philippines. Anyway, that’s a whole other story. BEFORE the clock struck 12, dinner was first.

For some reason I decided to forego a nice NY Eve dinner and thought it was as good a time as any to continue sampling the daily Filipino diet. I’ve seen Jollibee at least twice a day throughout my 2 weeks there, it’s a wonder how I haven’t actually tried it yet.

To be honest the menu doesn’t look that good, I feel like it’s just trying to be McD’s. In fact it’s actually more popular than McD’s there, but anyways. I didn’t see anything I’d especially like, so for comparison’s sake I went with a Yum with Cheese value meal. That’s basically a cheeseburger.

The big difference between this and McD’s is that the meat patty tastes very sausagey. Also again with the sweetness, I found the meat to be really sweet. Or maybe it was the ketchup that was sweet. The meal comes with fries and Coke, and I don’t really have anything to say about them. But overall not a very outstanding burger. It doesn’t suck, but I don’t miss it.

Ironically, in trying to figure out the price of the meal, I went to the website and found some pretty nice sounding items like Cheesy Bacon Mushroom and Amazing Aloha with an “It’s Back!” logo on it. Well damn why couldn’t they come back sooner?

 

Double Prosperity Burger from McDonald's - $5.50

 

This is the Prosperity Burger, which is available once a year during the Chinese New Year season (that’s next February). It’s quite a big sized burger, and with the width it looks more like a sandwich. I got the Double Prosperity, which is just the Prosperity Burger with 2 beef patties.

It’s a classic McDonald’s sesame seeded bun, only longer, with a beef patty inside seasoned with dark black pepper sauce and onions. This is the double, so there’s 2 beef patties. They’re very generous with the sauce and when you open the pack you’ll find it has probably smothered the whole burger. Very messy but very entertaining to eat. At first bite, it tastes a bit off, the meat as usual tastes like a mixture of roadkill and clay, but surprisingly more tender than the regular “beef” patty you find with the Big Mac or any other beef burger from McD’s. But somehow as you keep eating, it’s hard to stop. The sauce is the real winner here, and I’m not a big fan of black pepper or peppers of any sort for that matter. It makes this and overall pretty spicy burger, but not overwhelmingly so. The onions are nearly non existent, as I think they didn’t give me enough, at least not for a double.

It came with Twister Fries (or Curly Fries) which were shit. Didn’t help that I was having it about 30 mins after purchase so they turned out quite hard. Like flavoured cardboard. Regular fries are much better.

McDonald's from Malaysia - $4.30

Everywhere.

Not all that.

This here is a new addition to the McDonald's lineup in Malaysia. It's called a Big & Tasty. It's not that big, and not all that tasty, so I don't know why they named it that or charge more for this than a Big Mac. It DOES however taste better than a Big Mac. Maybe I'm bored of Big Macs.

Nom nom nom.

This is what it looks like after a few bites. It costs $2.30, but not worth that much IMO.

Filet O Fish

Next we have a Filet O Fish that they burned. It STILL tasted good, but could've been better. I just found out they put this on a "value" menu where things just go for cheaper, so now this only goes for $1.15. Mmmmmmm....

100% Pure Lie.

Finally, a beef burger for $0.86. I almost always order this, cos it's not filling but so cheap I can't resist. Referring to the previous post about the quality of fast food beef, I chucked when I noticed what they printed on the wrapper.

Wendy's Half-Pound Double with Cheese & Baked Potato - $5.63

Jaya One, Sect 13, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, MY.

This is the first Wendy's in a longggggg time to (re)open in Malaysia, and I'm mostly just doing a comparison post so eekbot can see if it looks anything like what it should be (or better, hah!). I got myself a Half-Pound Double with Cheese regular meal (I didn't feel like doing a Triple), and a Sour Cream & Chives baked potato.

Since I can't compare this with how it is in the States as I've never had that, I'll instead compare this with McDonald's. And we'll leave the comparison of McD's versus the US version for another day and another post.

Double w/ Cheese

This is the Double with Cheese. It tasted good, I didn't like the bread as much as Big Mac's but the fillings were better. Maybe it's the "beef" that's different. I put quotes since I can never tell if these fast food joints actually use beef. With the amount of burgers sold everyday everywhere, if that was even 50% beef, Earth would be outta bovine most ricky tick.

Shit

And this here is the Baked Potato w/ Sour Cream & Chives. Serves me right for not going for their signature Cheese & Cheese or Chilli & Cheese, cos this was shit. It was plain, the sour cream wasn't any good, the chives look like last week's stock, and it probably was.

Next time I go I'll probably try the shrimp burger and a cup of chilli. I heard from someone who's had it in the States that it tastes identical to the US version. But they serve really small portions here, I mean if that paper cup had a drink in it I'd be done in 1.5 full gulps.

Filet 'O Fish from McDonald's - $2.80

1401 Governor's Place, Bear, DE - (302)836-1308

This is perhaps my favorite sandwich from McDonald's and honestly, I prefer their fish sandwich over most others I've had anywhere else. There's something about their tartar sauce that really gets my mouth watering. The price is a wee high for the amount of food that you get which is what keeps me ordering four of these per visit.

Southern Style Chicken Sandwich from McDonald's - $2.80

1401 Governor's Place, Bear, DE - (302)836-1308

Who would've guessed that McDonald's would have a higher quality chicken sandwich? Not me. At first, I thought the $2.80 price tag was a bit high for McDonald's standards, but the chicken is actually very meaty (tasted like breast meat to me) and best of all, juicy. And chicken with pickles sounds odd to me, but it works.

Michigan Style Chili Dog from Johnnie's Dog House - $2.95

3401 Concord Pike, Wilmington, DE - (302)477-1440

It's just yellow mustard, chili, and chopped onions on a regular hot dog. Now, I can't say that I've had a Michigan Style chili dog before so I can't tell you how close this is to the real deal. But what I CAN tell you is that after this experience, I would happily try another one. Good stuff.

McChicken from McDonald's - $1.00

1401 Governor's Place, Bear, DE - (302)836-1308

Here's another great deal from McDonald's. It's just a chicken patty, mayonnaise, and lettuce, but still tastes good, especially if you consider the price. Personally, I prefer the double cheeseburger off the same $1 menu, but I add one of these into my order for variety.

Baconator from Wendy's - $4.59

90 University Plaza, Newark, DE - (302)366-8225

This right here is what dreams are made of - bacon. The baconator is layered as follows: bun, beef patty, American cheese, beef patty, American cheese, bacon, bacon, and more bacon, and then mayo, ketchup, and bun.

I love every inch of this thing. My coworkers have complained that the bacon is too flimsy, but I say that if you're trying to be a bacon connoisseur, you have no reason to be in a Wendy's in the first place. Another coworker said his son ordered it and asked for DOUBLE bacon. What a visionary! Somebody get that guy a medal!

Wendy's used to have an even better spicy version that had jalapenos on it and pepperjack cheese instead of American cheese, but I think it was for a limited time only. I'll try to update the price the next time my arteries can handle another one.

Double Cheeseburger from McDonald's - $1.00

1401 Governor's Place, Bear, DE - (302)836-1308

This has to be one of the best deals out there. It's two beef patties, onions, pickles, and American cheese. You can get full off of these for only $4!!

Junior Bacon Cheeseburger from Wendy's - $1.09

90 University Plaza, Newark, DE - (302)366-8225

If you're looking for some cheap food, then this is a good place to start.

For only $1.09, you get a beef patty topped with lettuce, tomato, bacon, American cheese, ketchup and mayo. That's pretty much a textbook burger right there. I'm not a huge fan of Wendy's, but when I do go, this is probably the standard order.

Chicken Nuggets from Wendy's - $1.00

90 University Plaza, Newark, DE - (302)366-8225

Since I posted the chicken nuggets from McDonald's a couple days ago, I decided to get the Wendy's version for comparison.

The Wendy's version has more peppery zest in their breading but the McDonald's has the crispier texture. All things considered, I prefer the McDonald's version - and that doesn't even take into account that they also have a greater/better selection of sauces.

Oh, also, the four piece is the one that sells for $1.

Chicken McNuggets from McDonald's - $5.30

1401 Governor's Place, Bear, DE - (302)836-1308

These are simply all white chicken meat deep-fried for crispy goodness. MmmMmm. My dog goes CRAZY when I bring these things home. For $5.30, you get 20 pieces.

Steak McSkillet Burrito from McDonald's - $2.95

1401 Governor's Place, Bear, DE - (302)836-1308

Here is another bit of proof that McDonald's breakfast is top tier. You've got your steak, scrambled eggs, potato vegetable blend, American cheese, shredded cheddar & Jack cheese, onions and salsa all wrapped inside a flour tortilla.

The picture may look messy, but it's neatly wrapped when you receive it so it's nothing to worry about. What you MAY have to worry about are digestion woes. I think the salsa gave me some minor stomach pains later that day, but I have sensitive stomach, so it could just be me.